Mental: The Attitude!!!
Climbing is an incredible sport for the simple reason that it incorporates so many different areas of performance. You have to be strong, fit, light, confident, aggressive, relaxed, prepared and precise. If you lack in any one of these areas you will surely not get the best performance out of yourself. Something I have worked on in my own climbing as well as with all the people I coach is aggression! In this blog i want to look in particular at it’s uses whilst climbing. For example, I work with a lot of young climbers between the ages of 7 and 18 and it’s very noticeable that at certain stages of development, the kids get more aggressive on the wall. This is much less common in girls (sometimes non-existent) but it’s certainly something I emphasise a lot to try and encourage them to become more aggressive.
I suppose I am going to have to explain a bit about what i mean with “aggression”. I’m talking about the attitude of the climber whilst on the wall. It’s very easy to be complacent and not give a climb your best effort, to just let go or not fight to stay on the wall, but if you are like this on a boulder problem you won’t get far. On routes it is easier especially if it’s an endurance route, but not every route is going to be sustained easy moves to the top. I can tell you from experience, as i used to be that climber who couldn’t fight, that you need to start learning to be aggressive to get the best performances.
It’s amazing how much more power you can get out of being aggressive. I can’t imagine doing any of my hardest climbs without it. Watch all the top athletes and you’ll see them using aggression techniques to better their performance. In tennis they are encouraged to scream when they hit the balls for more power (ref: William’s Sisters). I have even heard of athletes who would make themselves believe horrible stories about their advisory in order to collect the anger inside to give them power to defeat them. Maybe not a real-life example but the only one I can think of at the moment because I just watched the movie about 10 minutes ago:
William Thatcher from the movie “A Knights Tale” is told by his team that his next match in a game of medieval jousting has looted and pillaged his own people in order to scrape up enough money to pay for entry into the jousting event. This sends Will into a rage and he defeats the opponent (even though it was all a crop of lies).
A climbing example is Adam Ondra, who you will see power screaming his way up every route and boulder. When he fails there is a momentary burst of aggression (probably due to it having been built up on the route), but it certainly does show the passion that goes into sending some of the hardest climbs around.
For those if you who are female climbers, coach female climbers or young girls, it is really important to look into the area of aggressive climbing early on as it’s something that girls find very unnatural to do. Boys on the other hand are the complete opposite, you will find it much easier getting them to fight on a climb. My best examples being the team of youth boys training in Edinburgh.
Angus Davidson (12) will fight until he explodes, he can switch on his aggression very easily now becoming almost machine like on the wall leaving only devastation and a trail of bloody finger prints on every hold : P
Sam Harlend-Sendra (10), one of my newest recruits is an absolute beast on the wall showing up everyone when he switches on the animal inside.
Rory Whyte (8), probably the next Sharma, will power scream his way up any boulder problem in Ratho with sheer determination as if his life depended on him matching the final hold!
Obviously, it’s apparent that boys in general harbour a more adrenalised nature compared to girls, however, when girls do show this quality, they outshine everybody and will show performances on a climbing wall that you will not believe. You don’t see these qualities in girls often, but when I have, it’s from world champions and women climbing in the upper echelons of female performance.
In the past few years, I have run a number of sessions specifically on coaching this including one workshop for kids, and the things I have found to work really well for coaching this are:
1. Bouldering
2. Angry Face
3. Group Power Scream Sessions : P
The last two are not jokes. Bouldering is super intense and if you challenge yourself regularly on problems at your limit, you will develop automatically a more aggressive style. The key to this though is making sure you are trying problems that suit an aggressive climbing style I.e. Overhanging and dynamic. I forced myself to venture outwith my usual bouldering scene of EICA: Ratho to climb at the dedicated bouldering wall Alien Rock 2 in the centre of Edinburgh where the problems tend to be more basic in style on steeper boards. In Ratho there are just too many features and vertical panels to learn proper aggressive climbing styles. When I started climbing at A2, I quickly learned to have that aggressive style otherwise I would get totally schooled and fail miserably on everything.
“Angry Face” is something i brought into sessions with the EICA: Ratho Youth Team after watching my friend Eddie Barbour climbing. He looks like he’s off on every move but somehow doesn’t ever let go… On closer inspection, it appeared that he was gripped out of his mind and so determined to succeed that it overcame any pump or strength issues. His face contorts a bit and creates a kind of angry face : P reading up a bit on how your body language and facial expressions can associate how you feel at a given time, I also learned that they can affect how you feel. So by getting your “angry face” on whilst climbing, you will naturally become more aggressive! It’s a fun session to have with a big group of kids, they learn a lot from it but it’s also hilarious watching everybody’s angry face on the wall.
Group Power Screaming sessions are definitely one of my favourites and can turn into a bit of a nightmare in a smaller wall or church halls that echo, but luckily at Ratho screams just die out in the sheer volume of space, plus people are accustomed to hearing the screams of the public as they take the initial jump of our aerial assault course above the climbing arena. Treat these sessions similarly to the angry face ones, even better, just combine them, make it a bit of a laugh but also stress how it is important to climb aggressively on the wall during hard bouts of climbing. Some kids will pick it up immediately whilst others will struggle, this is where your work as a coach needs to shine through. Take the extra step to watch your kids at the wall even outside of their sessions with you and see if they are making use of these new aggression techniques (as long as they aren’t using it against their parents or other kids).
Some climbers aren’t into the whole being openly aggressive on the wall, but that doesn’t mean that aggression isn’t a part of their climbing e.g. Natalie who is generally a very static and quiet climber might look like this on the wall, when actually she is digging deep and in a whole world of rage in her mind to never let go!
The mind of a climber is a complex one indeed, but why complicate things by thinking to much? Just get angry!!!
HULK SMASH!!!!!!