Climbing Deliberately

This is a really interesting article written by Michael Crawford (crawford.io/articles) about a group session he was part of with Justen Sjong where he learned what climbing deliberately means.

Justen Sjong is a world-renowned climber and highly sought after climbing coach.

Justen’s style of coaching emphasizes being a student of your sport and practicing excellence in it.

In other words, climb deliberately.

“To me, this says that if we really want to see gains in our climbing abilities, we need to focus on proper form and technique at all times. In other words, instead of going to the gym and sending three hard problems in a single session with sloppy form, we might have to get the climb dialed in two separate, immaculate pieces and work the rest of the week on putting all of the technique together into a single beautiful effort.” -Michael Crawford

Climbing deliberately breaks down into three parts, as this article says. These three parts include: isolating the mind, focusing inwards, and focusing outwards.

Isolating your mind means trying to focus on being the most attentive climber you can be on the wall. Focusing inwards means focusing on what you can control: your body position and movement, breathing, and your thoughts or self-talk. Focusing outwards means dealing with parts of the climb that you can’t control, like where the holds are, but learning to make the most of them (ie: focusing on the good feet if the hand holds are bad).

In this article Michael talks more in depth about each of these three parts of climbing deliberately. Learn more about what he learned from Justen Sjong by reading the article in full here….

CLICK HERE: Climbing Deliberately (link no longer available)

(photo courtesy of crawford.io)