In June I had my fourth ankle surgery. I managed to get back to climbing E10 in a few months with a few key strategies and tactics I describe in this video.
In this discussion with Joe French, we explore what Joe did to recover from post traumatic stress and mental health issues. In my mind, the simple activities he describes, which can be practiced in many different forms, are a big missing piece of many athlete’s training programs and also of mental health therapy.
We cover why the ‘barefoot’ part of barefoot running is only half the picture, cold water, the two disasters he suffered on Everest which killed many of his colleagues, the ethics of film making and social media and epics while new routing on Ben Nevis.
Joe’s excellent book Out of Mind is available in the shop here.
In the spring, we have to get our leading head back on. Depending on how you choose your routes, mileage can either train or detrain your confidence. In this video, I take you through how I choose climbs that get me ready for bigger leads as the season progresses.
Failure on projects has been the most important training tool I’ve had. But as with any tool. It’s all about how you wield it.
Doing this exercise really accelerated my confidence in judging whether my trad placements would be likely to hold a fall.
Something that has really helped us get through the lockdown has been doing big walks from the house with Freida. Over the weeks Freida has realised how far she can walk in a few hours and we’ve seen a great deal of sunshine, forest, wildlife and many other interesting discoveries in various corners of Lochaber.
One objective Freida had was to walk to school which is about 14 miles. We’ve done this a few times now by various routes. We made a wee video on Freida’s YouTube about our first walk to school. I’m highly biased but I think Freida’s commentary is great.
The first in a series on how to climb trad, from the absolute basics right through to E11. Its a huge subject and not one where taking shortcuts tends to work out well in the long term. In this video, we start easy, and fun!
Lots of climbing partners have said to me that they observe that I'm a very motivated climber, especially for completing hard projects. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to understand where this comes from and if it can be replicated. It can! And it's not complicated.
Unsurprisingly, the last three months of lockdown were not ideal for a professional rock climber. I tried to make of it what I could. I trained, I studied, I trained and studied some more…
A core principle of doing well in sport (or other things) is to find ways to turn bad circumstances large and small to your advantage as much as possible. So many training decision pathways start from this principle, or at least should do.
I have spent a long time perfecting how to send hard projects which are above my level. Here are five of the most significant top level factors that I use constantly, either consciously or otherwise to make the send happen.
Many people ask me how to get started climbing outdoors. This is what I did, what my climbing heroes did and why it worked.
Celebrating a send with junk never seemed to work for me. I go through what I do instead. The original blog post that inspired this episode from 2009.
I have made a decision to lead my E10 project in two days time, if the conditions are right. I'm uncomfortable and fearful. But I think it's the right decision and in this episode (vlog #25) I go through why.
I am a quitter and in this episode (vlog #24) I go through why perhaps you should consider tactical quitting, as well as discussing the difference between tactics and strategy for achieving your goals.
Some people seemed surprised by my video of soloing an 8b+ In this vlog I go through why I did it, why it wasn't that risky and why not doing it was a bigger risk than doing it. The footage of the solo is part of the movie Echo Wall. You can still stream, download or buy the DVD from the shop here.
Trying hard projects, hard goals, hard training all means encountering problems, setbacks and the mental challenges these bring. How you respond to them determines whether they upset your progress, or propel it. In this episode (Vlog #22) I go through my approach, which is pretty simple.