I have just been reading the bellselling book BLINK, its about snap decision making, and whilst not about climbing it has some interesting concepts about intuition and sub-conscious thought. For me as a climbing instructor I thought it as an interesting book. Why?
Well as a climber I often turn up to a crag and the moment I get to the bottom of the route, before I have even really looked in detail I have an immediate feeling about the route. An almost intuitive feeling of whether I am going to succeed or not. At it most basic the feeling can almost be a yes or a no, a black and white assessment of my chances of success.
I had until reading this book I had just thought it was just another trick of the mind. An initial build up to the climb. I have noticed that that immediate feeling over the years as been a very good indicator of success or failure. In that first glimpse of a route, it was like my subconscious either gave a green light or red one.
It has probably saved me on occasion, not just from getting on route but when climbing them. A subconscious alarm bell might flash through my mind, and I have choosen to back off rather than commit. I thorough recommend the book to all my readers, although it is not a tool of how to come use this part of the brain that is often locked off to us, it does help pull back the curtain quite a bit to what the brain can achieve in the blink of an eye and just how the brain can react under pressure.
As part of the book looks at decision making under life threatening pressure and give you an idea of when to trust that decision and when not to. When to think and when to go with your gut. In climbing this might be when face with a crux and a growing psychological and physiology pressure of facing a fall. Should I do a crux this way, or that way, or another way.
If I take time over that decision I might well get it wrong, but if I go with my gut, I am more often than not right. Why?
The author suggest that it isn’t a skill that we all have. Making a snap decision on lead, my subconscious has over 15 years experience to call on, as to whether it thinks it is possible or not. It is something that might be trainable, in essence I think that in climbing there are two possible areas that this decision making can help us. One is in movement decision and the other is dealing with stress. Whilst coping with stress and life threaten positions is something that needs a steady and progressive approach, movement is most definitely trainable.
In my book I cover many what I have found from various source to be fundamental climbing movements. In essence I suggest that repetitive drilling of those moves will mean that you are more likely to fall back on them instinctively. So those fundamental drills are the first step.
I wonder though that if you have these fundamentals well enough practiced, and you use say your local bouldering wall to train you intuition. Those first instinct of how you think a boulder problem should be climbed, then you might find that you can start to miss out over thinking. It is something that I might suggest to people who are already climbing to a reasonable level to start practicing, and maybe see whether you too have a ‘gut’ feeling at the bottom of a route.
I have done very little headpointing in my time, but I have done some, and I can’t even go into explain why I choose that specific day for the ascent, it just ‘felt’ right. In essence the author suggest that if a choice is needed to be made, and it is a complex choice then often the sub-conscious is better at deciding than rational thought. Although it also suggest that for simple choices the rational approach is better. Its as if after a certain amount of info our conscious mind fail to process.
There is another section in the book, that interests me so much as a climber, I am keen to research it more, and experiment with it a little to see if the theory can be applied to climbing situation, I suspect it will.
Anyway, you should read BLINK: The art of thinking without thinking, and of course How to Climb Harder!