Lost mojo

After a month off of technical climbing I had a strange occurrence yesterday. I was warming up on some stuff that I had done before, one Onsight and other as a flash, and for some reason I was not able to climb. I mean it was if all my experience left me all at once. I had no idea what to do or how to get up. I was totally kryptonited on two climbs in a row. I never got past the first moves. Should I just try to forget about this or is there some psychobabble routine to follow after such a horrid performance?

gription wrote: is there some psychobabble routine to follow after such a horrid performance?

My inner child is very "out"

You had a bad day, for whatever reason. It happens.
To me it is usually life-stress or sleep related, but occasionally confidence in a partner. If I start thinking about danger and my family, it isn't that which undermines the climbing, it is whatever got me thinking about that underlying both problems. I've had back to back days where 5.11+ felt casual and 5.8 felt hard. That after close to 30 years of climbing.

For my own part, it passes if I relax about it and have a casual day climbing then come back to harder stuff.

Haven't experienced this much with climbing. I have surfed over twenty years and have experienced it in that realm. If I go 2-4 days a week I'm typically on it. Dialed in bottom turns let everything else happen easily. If I skip a week here or there, or have a long flat spell, u am totally off my game. It's frustrating. I pull up to the beach and make excuses not to paddle out. It's too cold, if it was 1 ft. Bigger, too crowded, etc...
The only cure I know is to just force yourself to go. Gotta drag my ass out there. Before you know it you're having fun again. Or be satisfied with average and learn to appreciate that.
Oh! And there's golf! That one will kill anyone at anytime!

Tony B wrote:...it is usually life-stress or sleep related, ...

JoeGaribay wrote:...Oh! And there's golf! That one will kill anyone at anytime!

Unless you lost your mojo helping out with a rescue situation, or went back out for it first thing the next morning, that's booty. You can offer beer or cash to the lucky climber that found it, but if they don't bite, it's theirs to keep fair and square.

If you climb long enough, you'll find that mojo booty evens out in the end - it won't be long before you stumble across some other climber's lost mojo while out on a climb.

Em Cos wrote:Unless you lost your mojo helping out with a rescue situation, or went back out for it first thing the next morning, that's booty. You can offer beer or cash to the lucky climber that found it, but if they don't bite, it's theirs to keep fair and square.

It's fine, I forget how to climb all the time. For me, it's normal.

Sometimes it's fatigue, sometimes it's mental, sometimes it's an indication that I'm autoimmuning again. By and large though, what usually causes it is stagnation and projecting.

If you've got your 5.13 project so well dialed that you could carve each hold out of mashed potatoes, chances are, you're going to fall on anything harder than 10+. It also indicates that you've reached your plateau on your project and are just training yourself to fall off of it. Time to step away and climb different and diverse stuff. Chase some women. Eat poorly. Bash your knuckles fixing your car. Then come back and you'll be more psyched than ever.

gription wrote: I have fought off the golf thing for 16 years. I have vowed to never play. NEVER!

JoeGaribay wrote:That's cool! Probably shouldn't be going on about golf on a climbing site. But has anyone ever racked up a driver and some balls to the top of a summit and let it fly? Probably best to track it though and not litter.

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion wrote:Time to step away and climb different and diverse stuff. Chase some women. Eat poorly. Bash your knuckles fixing your car. Then come back and you'll be more psyched than ever.