thoughts?

At my home gym on any given day, it never occurs to me that other people might be watching what I am doing or how I am climbing. I never really even thought about the judgment. In comps I am aware people watch, but never have felt like it was anything but watching, like watching a game on TV.

Last night at Allez Up I caught not only myself noticing others watching, but I caught myself caring? Not sure why, was it insecurity, a new environment, a want to impress or what? But it affected my performance negatively for sure.

This was a valuable lesson for me. No one should feel judged, but we all judge. It is Ok to be aware of it, but you cannot let yourself care, if you do, you will attempt on some level to perform to whatever expectation you think they might have of you and this will lead to pressure, anticipation of outcome and a lack of focus on the move at hand.

I always tell people I am helping to develop as a climber that you have to sequence a problem from the start to finish in detail, every body movement, then visualize yourself doing each move and repeat this until the movement is imprinted on your brain. For comps this whole process needs to happen in seconds, maybe 30 at most. Once this complex and strenuous mental exercise is complete, you need to do the exact opposite, shut off your active brain 100%, trust in yourself that you have the movement committed to a deep level of your non-conscious brain (like the signal for your heart to beat) and execute one move at a time with instinct, reaction and feel guiding you.

Once you achieve this you will enter that state where time does not exist and you are truly in the moment, things happen, but you will not remember them. This is the state where you will achieve you most fulfilling moments in life. It is so hard to replicate at will, but once you achieve it you will spend the rest of your life pursuing it at some level. Climbing seems to be my way of finding that flow.