Motivation for climbing

Motivation is what drives us to climb, and at times can be very difficult to achieve. I’m sure at some point we have all suffered from lack of motivation for whatever reason it may be; hot weather, damp weather, holiday season, feeling weak or lazy, busy family life, new job, injuries, lack of climbing projects,  other interests or even when you cant see motivation in the people you climb with. These people can become contagious and you end up catching the disease just to find yourself sitting at home writing a blog on a Sunday afternoon when you could’ve gone climbing.

Recently I found myself struggling with many of the above motivation killers. One of my pulleys and elbows have been playing up, every weekend the weather was either raining or 35 degrees. I was feeling weak due to these injuries and I had just started a new job working 50 hours a week, from which I was struggling to find the energy to cook dinner at night let alone drive to the gym for a climb or have a hangboard at home.

A Lesson in Core Movements – V10 Lara st

However all of this can be turned around quickly when you head outside with a great bunch of motivated people of whom you can feed your own motivation. A few weeks ago I took a few people from Pulse Climbing down to the Central coast to show them a new bouldering area I had been to many times before. My plans we to show them a few of the classics and for me to do a few of the easier ones I hadn’t tried before. I surprised myself when I was able to climb many of the easier problems quickly and even a couple harder ones. Adam Partridge also did very well climbing Stone Army – V5, Ben Able beat me to sending Jade Emperor – V5 and Zoe Redmond climbed a couple unnamed V3’s and came close to Jade Emperor. With less hesitation I think it will go for her.

After sending these problems we moved to a different boulder where the other guys wanted to try the classic Womb Raiders – V4 which Ben sent quickly. After this Ben wanted to project something difficult. I decided to show him a project I had complete here 18 months ago called A Lesson in Core Movements – V10. However Ben often has the outlook that if he cant send a climb in 15 minutes he should move on and began playing on the Arete project with me.

Ben helping me out to clean the mantle of the Arete.

This arête is steep and consists of perfect sloppers with difficult tension moves. The first time I saw this line it was still unclimbed and I had tried it a few times when I was projecting A Lesson in Core Movements as they are on the same boulder. Many of the moves took a long time to unlock and I never managed to unlock its mantle. This made me feel like it would be extremely difficult to piece together and as a result I had left it for over a year. However today felt like a good day to jump back on and play. No expectations and a good climbing atmosphere can often play a larger role than being fit and strong. Due to this I managed to piece the mantle together and all of the moves below more than once.

Being able to do the moves on my project cemented what I had been told many times before – That it doesn’t mater how strong you are or how much you have been training, if you don’t have motivation you wont climb well. And the reverse is true to, motivation is the biggest strength you can have in climbing!

Putting my motivation to use by getting back into training on the moon board.

Michael