How mental scripts affect our climbing
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I thought I'd share this article about how mental scripts are formed and why they matter in our rock climbing performance. |
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One of my favorite mental scripts comes from David Attenborough's narration of a nature film: Fortune favors the bold. It's a little less reckless than my other favorite: when in doubt, run it out. I still use both to remind myself not to spend too much time fiddling with gear at a crumby stance if I could possibly find a better stance a few more moves up. I'm also usually rewarded when I pull through a crux without gear and then find a good stance to put something in or at least get a decent rest and collect my thoughts. |
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youtube.com/watch?v=U7dPa2M…
"top rope ... im on toooop roooope ... top rope top rope top rope ...." ;) |
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Mental scripts? |
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Will S, are you kidding? Who doesn't climb on an SSRI or SNRI these days? |
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Holy shit, that young man is a stud. Fucken awesome. |
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scientificamerican.com/arti…
The expression on your face might affect your performance in the same way |
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I don't disagree with the basic proposition or concept, but personally find the common notion of a 'script' a bit too static, monolithic and isolated to adequately describe what's going on in the 'automation' / learning process. As a [practical] 'distillation' it may find resonance, however, my concern would be over-thinking patterns may not necessarily be the best or fastest way to instill or infuse them. |
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bearbreeder wrote: "top rope ... im on toooop roooope ... top rope top rope top rope ...." ;)Love that. I wouldn't want to be on belay for that climb, though. *shudder* |
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Adding Movement to 'Dry Run' Mental Imagery Enhances Performance
This is the type of visualization that may have some utility in certain non-onsight circumstances - boulder problems and short crux sequences - but in general I've personally always found trying to 'remember' your way up a route is almost always a mistake. |
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Healyje wrote:Adding Movement to 'Dry Run' Mental Imagery Enhances Performance This is the type of visualization that may have some utility in certain non-onsight circumstances - boulder problems and short crux sequences - but in general I've personally always found trying to 'remember' your way up a route is almost always a mistake.Healy- you are always so down on visualization! Although the very article you cite suggests it works. Anyway, I was reading a book on the neurocognition of dance, and there was a chapter written by a dance coach describing his experience with a talented and promising young dancer. It never occurred to me that dance was dangerous, but apparently it is, as this brilliant young dancer did a flippy twisty thing and shattered his leg. Should have ended his career and any further injury would certainly be the end of walking, much less dancing. So the dance master forbids the student from physical practice of new routines and insists on repeated visualizations until the student can perfectly visualize his entire performance. Only then was he allowed to do the dance, with the expectation that his performance would be flawless. It worked well enough that the student went on to win prestigious dancing awards. Obviously just an anecdotal experience, but the take home for me was an off hand remark the coach made about the real mistake is to visualize the wrong thing. I think this has been my error as I have tended to visualize the look rather than the body feel of various moves. Not that I think Don is talking about visualization anyway. I believe he is referring to automating behavior, which is a pretty well established concept. |