Well there is always something going on on UKC, this time it seems that the discussion of what is and what isn’t an on-sight, this time though the controversy has come because the person who climbed the route downgraded his ascent to a flash, not claiming the Onsight because of he’d seen Hard Grit, where in the opening sequence we see a visiting French climber try and break his leg by falling off it!
Now Alex Honnold, has torn us a new view of trad climbing in the UK. I reviewed The Sharp End, and American film where Alex ripped up the Czech Republic. From this film this guy has not only balls but no shortage of climbing ability as well. Whilst I feel it is a noble act for him to put his hands up and say well I saw someone climb in on a video a while back, he still hadn’t touched the holds or felt the moves.
Now there was a lot of talk of how seeing someone climb a route could totally blow your on-sight of a route. Now whilst ethically this may be the case from a scientific stand point observation can have several effects. In particular seeing someone climb a route allows you what is describe as observational learning, by seeing a video of a route, and watching it over and over and then using this to aid you imagination of that route will help you remember the key crux sequences before you get on a route. Imagery as it is called is one of the most common mental skills that any athlete athletes use to enhance there performance.
However in the report on Climb Magazines website, Alex mentions only seeing the film on TV, he doesn’t talk about watching it repeatedly to analyze the sequence. Similar effects of imagery can be had through simply looking at the route from the ground, and carefully planning and mentally rehearsing your attempt before you head off.
Now for most people when we climb observation of another climber on the route can also improve our confidence to be successful. We often do this subconsciously by judging the person who we are observing against our own perceived ability. So if we see someone succeed and we perceive them to be less able or equal to ourselves then our confidence in achieving that route are increased. There is a lot of research that points to an increase in confidence leading to an increase in physical performance. Again given that Alex won’t have know Jean-min from the Hard Grit film he can’t judge his own ability from that.
As such all the bully about whether or not it could justify an on-sight ascent by many of the armchair critics on UKC (see thread), is just unnecessary. I have never meet Alex, and can’t say if he is a nice guy or an arsehole. However his climbing speaks for itself, I’d give him the on-sight as improving on his style of ascent in this case is going to require us to know exactly how many times he saw Hard Grit and when take was, which just beggars belief.
Good luck to Team America on the rest of their stay in the UK, and I hope they ignore many of the comments on UKC