I was in the Gallt Y Glyn last night and amongst the other people who were in there was Johnny Dawes. We managed to get him talking about what he does on his coaching workshops. Now this is only one part of it, but i was interested, as Johnny comes from a non-instructor/coach education background. What he does is take what he has known and done for years and try to distill it as simply as possible.
His three word approach to a single move is very interesting when you approach it from the more science based approach of sport psychology. Johnny uses the Shape, Voice and Face of a move.
Now the Shape is the end product, the shape that will most effective allow you to hang the hold you are move to. You have to imagine that shape before you attempt the move. Seeing the move and the end position that you want your body to adopt. Now visualisation is a very powerful tool and one that has much empirical support to showing how it improves performance.
The next part of the single move is its voice, the sound that is associated with the move. Now I did mention this to one of my lecturers before I heard Johnny’s voice of the move. In that the lecturer was an expert in Self-talk, however he dismissed it. I do believe that in climbing, i use a sound to help me control the timing and intensity of a movement. This is what Johnny has done with his voice.
The last aspect of the individual move is the face of the move, or the face you will be pulling when you hang the hold. In that a really hard move will end up with quite a gurn. Again this can be linked back to visualisation, in that it gives you another thing to help make your imagery more vivid and controllable, which has been link greater imagery effects in research.
All in all, whilst Johnny doesn’t realise it, he is using several powerful mental tool that sport psychologist call on to help performance, and what’s more he is using them in a way that climbers should be able to connect with. Whats more he isn’t just giving a climber the solution, he allows them to find there own solution through experimentation, what he gives them is a method to reach that solution, by considering the move through implicit knowledge, rather than explicit rules.
Of course there is far more to Johnny’s masterclasses than three simple words, if your interested then click the Johnny Dawes link to be transported to his website, where you can book a session.