How Much Climbing Happens Before You Actually Tie In?

Probably not something you have thought about and yet maybe it's worth five minutes of your time to consider.

I spend a lot of time at the crag watching people not climb. No, they aren't resting nor are they still warming up. I mean actually not climbing. They came to climb. Packed their bag, drove all the way to the crag. Even dragged a belayer out with promises of fun, adventure, and probably snacks. And then, somewhere between making the plan to climb and tying in, they decide not to.

Some days I am genuinely impressed by the creativity of people's reasons not to try. Conditions are bad. Skin feels thin. Too many people. Not strong enough. Maybe after another training block. Or Dave breathing too loudly near the route.

I am even more impressed by their willingness to ignore where that list actually came from.

Because they haven't warmed up yet. They haven't tried the crux. They haven't gathered a single piece of evidence from the route. So where did the decision not to try come from?

Do they have a crystal ball in their rope bag? Because if so, I would like to borrow it. I have questions.

When someone tells me their mind isn't a factor I'd genuinely love for them to walk me through their decision process. The one that ruled out the attempt before any actual evidence was gathered. Because I'm looking at that decision and I'm looking at the timing of it and I'm looking at the reasons attached to it. And all I can see is their mind being very much involved.

But fine. It's not the mind. We have already established that. The mind is absolutely not involved in deciding whether you try the thing you came here to try.

So maybe it is the crystal ball after all.

What if I told you that crystal ball might be somewhat real. I am not being entirely facetious here, well maybe a little. Your brain works in a remarkably similar way. It is a prediction machine. It rarely sits around waiting for objective evidence before forming an opinion. It's constantly scanning, comparing, estimating, protecting and really just guessing at what might happen.

Before you consciously decide today isn't your day, your brain has already run the numbers. And those numbers are not always about the route. They might be based on how you slept, who is watching, how you climbed last session, whether you fell last try, whether your warm up felt clunky, whether someone else made it look easy or impossible, whether you feel exposed, judged, tired or just a bit meh.

Your brain takes all of that, blends it together, and presents you with a prediction.

Now sometimes that prediction is onto something. Maybe you are genuinely under-recovered, injured, or about to get hammered by a thunderstorm. But sometimes we would be missing a very large opportunity (and the elephant in the room) if we stubbornly refuse to at least consider the possibility that the crystal ball has a larger effect on our decisions than we might want to admit.

Have you ever stood under the same route on two different days and felt like you were facing two completely different climbs. Yesterday it looked hard but worth a fight. Today it looks like something to save for another day. Are we relying too heavily on the predictions from that crystal ball?

So, back to the original question, how much of your climbing happens before you tie in? I mean in the very real, very behavioural sense that your brain is already shaping what you will attempt, avoid, downgrade, commit to, or walk away from before your hands ever touch the rock. It affects whether you tie in. It affects how much you are willing to struggle and suffer. It affects whether you commit to the move or perform a sad little half-hearted reach before deciding it’s too hard. It affects how quickly you retreat into the comfort of I need to get stronger.

Because here is the uncomfortable bit. You can add five kilos to your fingerboard repeaters and still talk yourself out of tying in. And those five kilos are not going to make up for the opportunities you never took because the crystal ball got there first.

The mental game doesn't start when you pull onto the wall. It starts way before that. And that is what we explore at Beta Mind Lab.