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20
Feb
Born to Succeed Part 2
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Last Time...
In the last post I proposed a few different ideas as to what creates greatness in people. When I say "greatness", I mean those with exceptional talent or abilities in something like a sport, academics or art. For climbing I identified Adam Ondra as an example. Nobody in the rock climbing world can disregard Adam's obvious "talent" to climb pretty much everything he puts his hands to. Many have looked on at his abilities and claimed them to be "super human", "godly" and even "lucky" (with reference to the possibility of a climbing positive genotype).
Although many would argue genetics as a primary article in his success, I would be more likely to state otherwise, and that instead of seeing him purely as a machine built for climbing, we see another person just like any of us who unlike many others was born with some unique opportunities (e.g. his family are very motivated climbers) and gifted not with superior DNA but with an insanely high motivational drive to excel. I think these are the key bits of evidence that are noticeable from watching him in action both on the wall and in his preparation for achieving.
In the second blog post of me documenting my ongoing attempt at understanding talent and what it takes to become a "high achiever", I would like to start off looking at what talent actually means/consists of...
What does Talent consist of?
When we see someone doing anything at an expert level, sometimes it is difficult to comprehend how they do this. It can often appear like they are defying natural laws or achieving something seemingly impossible. A climbing example could be watching a pro climbing a hard boulder or route (V16/f9b). What we often forget is the sheer volume of training that has gone into being able to reel out amazing performances such as these, a concept called the "Iceberg Illusion" (the Iceberg is massive but our minds struggle to comprehend the heaving mass that could be ten times the size underneath the water because we simply can't see it). It doesn't even have to be a professional climber doing something hard, its a relative concept really. We all have friends relating us to spiderman, but when they see Adam Ondra climbing its difficult for non-climbers to see the difference between him and us.
Talent in a sense could be perceived as a myth. What we often refer to as talent is simply an illusion (the iceberg) and amazing performances by individuals are subject to a lot of hard work and dedication. The term talent does have a few different meanings though, what we are talking about has a very specific meaning, one that can indeed alter peoples lives. When I talk about talent, I am referring to a perceived natural ability to do something better than others, an ability that you were born with.
But is it just down to how hard we push ourselves, the individual sacrifices we are willing to make and the dedication to training we are committing ourselves to? In climbing many climbers train hard all year round but don't see the same results. Many mark this down as not being talented/gifted with the innate abilities or body type to achieve the best results. However, when we look at the climbers currently achieving great things, we see a very different picture...
Adam Ondra is very tall, skinny, a bit crazy looking and dedicated!
Chris Sharma is tall, kind of bulky, has a cool surfer look and is dedicated!
Ramon Julian is very short, ripped and muscly, looks like a ninja warrior and is totally dedicated!
Obviously height doesn't matter that much...
I could go on, but there is a picture generating here. All these guys are onsighting 8c/+ and climbing 9a+/b. They all win world cups and boulder very hard! Body type may have advantages and disadvantages in certain styles but in the end of the day, everything seems to point in one direction and its certainly not at whose tallest, shortest or skinniest, its at whose dedicated enough.
Now as I said before, a lot of people are dedicated, but thats only half the battle. Being dedicated is great if your doing the right things, but what happens if your not? One thing I've noticed among climbers, particularly in the British, is their unhealthy addiction to simply getting stronger. In any athletic endeavour, technique and mental preparation are seen equally as important as the physical training, but in climbing these other areas are often forgot about. Think about Adam Ondra again, his amazing technical abilities to read routes and boulders perfectly and to continually maintain hitting expert performances.
If any of you have seen the "Progression" DVD with Adam Ondra, do you remember his famous claim,
"I am basically weak"
This is a laughable concept to most, however I believe him. He can't do a one arm pull up and he struggles to perform powerful, compression moves or dyno's. Compared to his endurance, relatively, he is one weak punter : P. What makes up for this is his unbelievably awesome technique and totally determined mindset. He will never back down from a challenge! When there is a hard move on some bad holds, he usually finds a cheeky way around pulling hard unlike a lot of his counterparts in elite climbing who may prefer to just thug their way through it. Very few climbers have the ability to action their techniques as effectively as Ondra compared to those that can pull their way through hard moves.
It seems to me that a perception commonly held amongst experienced climbers is that once they have reached a certain level, they think that they have learned everything there is to learn with technique and that the only way to get better is to get stronger/fitter. I'm sure Federer doesn't think this, I'm positive Tiger doesn't and I'm 110% assured Ondra doesn't either! Someone actually said to me recently,
"I suppose at your level, technique is less of an issue and its more about getting stronger"
You know what, I love to think this sometimes. I do stray from time to time thinking that my development in climbing is solely about getting stronger, but then I realise the bigger picture. Its easy to train to get stronger, all you have to do is pull hard, fingerboard, campus board, whatever! Its difficult to get better and thats why people stray from this path.To become a better climber you need to challenge yourself in ways that don't always appear visibly that your benefiting from it, but in the long run, its far better and more beneficial than hanging off a fingerboard or repeating your rehearsed circuit of problems down at your local wall.
Retrieval Structure (The Key to Unlocking Technique)
My thoughts return to a term I have read a number of times in books, "retrieval structure". This is similar to the concept of "muscle memory", it refers to the imbedded coding of skill that "laces" our brains in whatever activities we focus on. When Ondra hits a weird sequence on a hard onsight, because he has probably been on a hundred other routes of similar style, he is more likely to be able to repeat a sequence that is more efficient than any other we could come up with. This "retrieval structure" takes thousands of hours of dedicated practice to build into something that works well in any situation.
Retrieval Structure aids in memorising sequences as well as building up a store of skills in your brain
My "retrieval structure" for indoor routes is probably pretty good seeing as how I've spent a lot of time memorising and climbing indoor sequences (during training and setting), however, I am probably less able on balancy gritstone slabs (I have about 2 days worth of experience, most of which was spent on one problem). Again I am probably better on limestone than granite because I've only ever climbed on granite once, whereas months of my life every year for the last 6 years have been spent in Europe climbing on limestone.
The thing is though that in climbing, the techniques are generally quite transferrable across different disciplines and rock types (maybe not so much cracks or off-widths?). This allows us to move quite freely between different styles and learn quickly when working on a particular one.
So back to the first paragraph, when we see someone performing an act of incredible skill what often appears to be super human feats of strength or power is in fact a super efficient coding built into the athletes brain that allows them to perform top performances with seemingly un-flawed accuracy and time-less error. Athletes at this level are often quoted as appearing to "float". This is just the nature of a highly developed "retrieval structure" at work. Its also the reason why some climbers are better at some styles than others, because they spend more time doing it and therefore benefit from increased coding of their "retrieval structure" in that style.
The cool thing about a "retrieval structure" is that we can't simply turn it off an on willy nilly. When we do anything in life our retrieval structure is activated to a certain extent, but its not our conscious mind that controls this part of our brain, its our unconscious. Often referred to as explicit and implicit memory (conscious and unconscious). To activate our retrieval structure it needs to be through the unconscious thought processes i.e. the techniques we want are so intensely burned into our unconscious memory banks that our body follows their guidance, "retrieving" automatically what it needs for any move or sequence it comes up against. I'm not even at the whackiest part though... to develop our unconscious memory to do this, we need to use our conscious memory during training as much as possible to teach our brain to use the techniques we are focussing on in an unconscious way.
Its all about what goes on in here... not much sometimes : P
A good example of this is when working on a red-point route. When we first try it we need to use all our brain power to learn the precise techniques required to climb the route, only once we have focussed that intensely on the sequence can our brain then start processing those sequences unconsciously during our red-point attempts.
A retrieval structure is something that needs developed to become a better, more efficient climber. The only way to do this is by climbing lots of varying styles of climbs that challenge and force you to think in many different ways. This is why Ondra, Sharma and Ramon are so good. Its not because they are made stronger, fitter and more susceptible to the 9a performance virus, its because they focus 100% on everything they do in climbing they challenge themselves daily and they've been doing it for a very long time!
I hope you all enjoyed this guys, I'm going to be posting again quite soon on some new concepts I've been researching recently, but until then I'll leave you with a little poem I just made for you to have a think about:
"Focus hard, focus deep, the more you crank, the more you keep"
ROBZ OUT
Comments
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Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Do you think the retrieval structure is just as important for redpointing as it is foronsight?
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Tuesday, 21 February 2012
That photo made me and Nat laugh too : P
I do think the retrieval structure is as important for onsighting as it is for Redpointing. I first came across the term reading about digit sequence memory tests where subjects were tested to see how many digits they could remember in a given sequence (onsight style) with each digit said within 2 seconds of the next. At the started the tests 7 digits was average. Within 2 years of practice 200 digits was made possible. This meant that through experience of focussed practice memorising the sequences, the subjects were more capable of memorising longer sequences first time.
Although its more complicated, I think onsighting in climbing follows a similar pattern. The more moves and sequences you have logged up there in your brain the more likely you will be able to replicate efficient sequences on onsight attempts quicker. -
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
That photo made me and Nat laugh too : P
I do think the retrieval structure is as important for onsighting as it is for Redpointing. I first came across the term reading about digit sequence memory tests where subjects were tested to see how many digits they could remember in a given sequence (onsight style) with each digit said within 2 seconds of the next. At the start of the tests 7 digits was average. Within 2 years of practice 200 digits was made possible. This meant that through experience of focussed practice memorising the sequences, the subjects were more capable of memorising longer sequences first time.
Although its more complicated, I think onsighting in climbing follows a similar pattern. The more moves and sequences you have logged up there in your brain the more likely you will be able to replicate efficient sequences on onsight attempts quicker. -
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
i know that this hasnt really be toched apon in here but i was wondering if some people are more likley to get injurd becasue of there genetic makeup ect and if there is anything that can be done while someone is injurd to enhance there techniquie so that they can come back a better climber. would be intressed to hear ur ideas on this and any advice u can giveme to help my techinique if that is possible with out attualy climbing.
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Tuesday, 21 February 2012
This is an interesting point. I have heard many climbers stating that their bodies are not built to withstand the forces climbing puts on them, often stating genetics as a primary factor. I am not convinced entirely. Maybe there are genetic factors that do provide a little aid in avoiding injury, but I'm more likely to view long term activity in the sport and sensible approaches to training that are the main reasons some avoid injury better than others. Fingerboards have always been viewed as something that breeds injury, kids are warned to leave them alone because of this. However in my experience it's kids and adults alike who misuse the equipment or "pull" on more than they can chew who get injured.
For improving technique without actually climbing, that is hard to do but not totally impossible. The best thing I would say you do is practice route reading, mapping and memorising sequences, then watching other climbers of similar height to you climbing them. If you read the route correctly then you can watch and analyse others performances on the route, probably giving you a better understanding of sequences, reading them and understanding body movement on the wall with certain sequences. It will help you for sure, I get everyone I coach to do this at some point or another (the kids do it everyday).
Depends how injured you are. If you can do very easy climbing, then traversing practicing and focussing on technique is always good. When I came back from a small back injury 5 years ago that's all I did for 3 weeks (3 sets of 45min traversing on very very very easy walls). -
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
From what I've read it seems that the most important characteristic when it comes to being good at something is the ability to make behavior changes. Obviously if you do not change your behaviors you're unlikely to see improvements. Integral to behavior change is the willingness to experience discomfort (heavier weights, bigger runnouts, etc.) and make sacrifices (to dedicate more time to climbing it must be taken from somewhere else). I liked the video a few posts back where the coach said it's a choice that some people make but many do not.
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Thursday, 23 February 2012
This is very true! There is something I read about recently that researchers discovered, specific mindsets that people have. That is either 1) Closed Mindset or 2) Open Mindset. The two are distinguishable from the fact that someone with an open mindset will openly believe that their actions in life have consequences to their successes and that by trying hard to achieve what it is they want is whats going to give them the best opportunities at success. Those with a closed mindset believe that everything in life is pre-determined and that there is not much point in trying because if they are not good at something straight away then they aren't going to get any better i.e. they belive whole heartedly that they weren't born to do it.
I think there is manifestations of these mindsets that people do tend to have. I know people who are more closed than open, they don't tend to work as hard as others for things, they give up quicker and possibly aren't as passionate about succeeding. I don't think its a bad thing really, it is sometimes just a more laid back approach which is totally cool. But I know that everyone I have ever seen succeed and exceed expectations or personal limits has had an open mindset for sure!
To succeed, win, accomplish or do anything to the upper levels, I think you need to have this open mindset.
There was some research done into whether it was hereditary (genetic), but I haven't looked into it (will do though). There was also research done into whether those with closed mindsets could alter their current way of thinking and become more open. I think this is possible for sure.
Its a very interesting topic. I'll perhaps look more into this for the next blog ; )
Thanks Sam! -
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Hi Robbie,
Really interesting post, thanks. These may be of interest to you (sort of a counter argument in fact, but I am not sending them as such!)
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2012/03/10000-hours-vs-training-debate-no.html
http://sweatscience.runnersworld.com/2012/03/nature-vs-nurture-can-you-practice-to-get-taller/
Nick -
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Hey Nick. Thanks for your comment/links. I've read this argument before actually, a friend sent it to me a few weeks ago for some extra food for thought. The argument to and for is ongoing and unlikely to have a definitive answer anytime soon but that's what I find so fun about it, the fact that really, nobody has much of a clue : P
My opinion is that it's a bit of both. I like to think that although genetics obviously will play a part, that in the end nobody is born to succeed, but instead have to work hard no matter the circumstances of their genetic make up.
Thanks for your input to the blog
Robz
That Ramon pic made me laugh - they let the short man win for once