[SA Chris]

I find the will power thing works both ways as to night I had to will power not to train and head straight for the Pastis on getting in from work.

Pastis or pasties?
I can't possibly condone the former, but encourage any pastry encased meet product, for sure.

Meet or Meat?

If it's something pastry you eat when you are around other people, or one containing parts of an animal, either way, it's all gravy.

[Doylo]

If you're motivated enough your choices/priorities will reflect that. I moved 10 minutes from my favourite rocks. I could earn 3 times as much if I worked offshore but I don't want breaks from climbing. The willpower thing needs working on though...

[Stu Littlefair]

In this case his advice and PoV is clearly extreme isn't it? Imagine discussing ebbing psyche with your mate at the crag. "Well, it's hard for me to get to the wall and I don't go as often as I should". "Just fucking move then".

I imagine almost everyone would regard that as an extreme PoV and unhelpful advice. Indeed, I find much of what Dave Mac writes is predicated on the assumption that climbing is the most important thing in your life, when there are many people looking for advice as to how to improve for whom it's not even the second most important thing.

[Stubbs]

The latest is a friend here in Squamish who is frustrated by his climbing performance. He sees that as mostly as something that could be solved by a different training approach, but I see it as much more a big picture issue. He has a demanding law job based in Vancouver, so has the usual problem of long commute times coupled with being too tired to train much on weekdays.

I agree that I see DM's comments as a 'nudge' thing designed to make you think about what it is possible for you to change in your current situation to help improve your climbing.

Sounds like your mate needs to move to the city and spend that wasted commuting time getting strong at the wall and then 'commute' to squampton on his free weekends!

[Stu Littlefair]

In this case his advice and PoV is clearly extreme isn't it? Imagine discussing ebbing psyche with your mate at the crag. "Well, it's hard for me to get to the wall and I don't go as often as I should". "Just fucking move then".

At risk of being pedantic: that was only one item of a five example list, where the other items are quite a lot less drastic (ie. biscuit guidance).

Well, at the risk of being pedantic back, out of the five item list, only two of them are what if call practical (don't buy biscuits and cycle to work). These two are also not very effective.

The remaining three fall into the "getting better at climbing is the most important thing in my life camp".

Move house. Yeah right.
Buy a whole new set of climbing holds, or build a home wall. Pfft.
Change partners. What if I like my partner, or my partner is my wife?

Effective, but most climbers will have really good reasons not to do these things.

[Stu Littlefair]

BTW - the one way I do see Dave's advice of this ilk as useful is that it can force you to be realistic about how important climbing actually is to you.

I thought exactly the same about a magazine article he wrote suggesting that if you wanted to get good at climbing you simply had to quit your job and make every life decision with climbing performance in mind. The article was unrealistic and, I think, wrong - but at least it encourages people to think seriously about how much they want to give up for the sake of climbing hard.

[lmarenzi]

DM is giving advice on how to improve your climbing, cause he apparently gets asked this question by punters up and down this fair land about four times a day, and all he is doing is just telling people what he did.

What else do you expect?

[Stu Littlefair]

Better advice.

[abarro81]

I think you're placing too much importance on a couple of extreme examples and not on the process, which is really the take-home message of the post IMO, even if he might not have articulated that perfectly.

The idea of altering 'choice architecture' something that I think is useful e.g. often when I plan on fingerboarding I get sucked into bouldering for too long. The solution based on the choice architecture process would be something like: don't take shoes to the wall except for punter warm-up shoes. This is probably actually a good idea, so I think I'll try doing that on those sessions where I'm supposed to just fingerboard.
The biscuit thing is surely how anyone without iron will diets? For me if it's in the house it's game over.

[webbo]

Better advice.

Very good Stu even my non climbing missus tittered when I read that to her. The same
Bitch who ruined my evening on the board by saying " you look like you are waiting to go to pub for tea"

[Stu Littlefair]

Alex - you're right that the general idea behind the blog post is a good one, and your example about leaving your climbing shoes at home to make you fingerboard is an excellent idea, and the kind of advice I'd hope to see in an article like this.

The examples Dave chose are just more examples that I don't think he appreciates how different he is from the people who read his blog for coaching tips. That shouldn't distract from the general message of the blog, but it really did for me.

And Pete - spot on.

[lagerstarfish]

Better advice.

Very good Stu even my non climbing missus tittered when I read that to her. The same
Bitch who ruined my evening on the board by saying " you look like you are waiting to go to pub for tea"

what sort of training did you need to get her to say stuff like that?

[Stu Littlefair]

You need to arrange your life to make it easier to train in the face of temptation. Why not build a board in the pub?

[grimer]

And then live in the pub. And marry the landlady. And don't sell crisps in the pub.

[kelvin]

And don't sell crisps in the pub.

Good god man - what kind of a world would that be?!

[SA Chris]

You need to arrange your life to make it easier to train in the face of temptation. Why not build a board in the pub?

Or a pub in the cellar? That way you are married to the landlady already. The no crisps thing all seems a bit too radical though.

[webbo]

And don't sell crisps in the pub.

Good god man - what kind of a world would that be?!

One where you have to have Mini Cheddars instead.

[lagerstarfish]

and pork scratchings

[Fiend]

I'm with the "both DaveMac and Nibble are right in certain ways" camp. I do agree with Nibbles that DM is usually guilty of basing his advice on being a very motivated, very dedicated, very scientific climber looking in to the mass of punterdom from the outside, rather than having actually lived and truly understood that punterdom.

[rich d]

DM is only against biscuits, so scratchings and crisps are still OK. And I don't think that's unrealistic advice as biscuits don't go that well with beer.

[Paul B]

Back to me. I can't afford to clear off to Spain, not really, it makes no sense at all. !8 months out, buy a van, spending money... this trip is basically gonna cost me £40,000 or so. That's how much better off I'd be if I carry on working, the lost wages add up and people forget that.

See when I've done long trips, the cost (including paying my mortage and depreciation in the van [inc. insurance]) has been less than my outgoings would be, at home working. It cost me (well, both of us), considerably less than the above to spend over a year (in total) abroad. The second trip included my wedding, again, considerably less than the average wedding in the UK.

The worry comes from having financial commitments that are ongoing on your return without necessarily having the means (a job) to meet them.

The path of least resistance seems like a pragmatic approach (and going back to PeteJH's advice on jobs) that will work for the majority of climbers. I'm fairly sure that my 'career' path doesn't allow for this.

[webbo]

DM is only against biscuits, so scratchings and crisps are still OK. And I don't think that's unrealistic advice as biscuits don't go that well with beer.

but shirley you might have a chocolate hobnob to go with your post beer single malt.
I'm begining to suspect that some folks have never experienced temptation.

[kelvin]

don't take shoes to the wall except for punter warm-up shoes. This is probably actually a good idea, so I think I'll try doing that on those sessions where I'm supposed to just fingerboard.

Funnily enough, this is what I did last night - took a chalk bag and wore my guide tennies to the wall. Warmup consisted of slightly overhanging and juggy boulder problems and then head for the fingerboards. I'd have got stuck into the new set otherwise, with my mates.

[JohnM]

I need to do this as well. I have poor discipline when it comes to what I was meant to do at the wall.  On Tues night a bit or warming up on the board before finger boarding lead to a full on board session and a poor finger board session tagged on the end.  This mornings endurance circuits turned in to a session on the comp bouldering wall 

I kind of agree with what Dave is saying.  If people really wanted to achieve their maximum potential then getting a career and/or a wife and kids is not the way to go about it.  Granted there are some people in that situation who still climb extremely hard but they are few and far between.  For the majority of people it is not going to work.  Going back to his earlier post I think my problem is simply not climbing on rock enough.  But then that is my fault as I have chosen to try and do a career.  Again there are people who train really hard indoors and on the finger board and then climb hard things when they do get an opportunity on rock but they are again the exception rather than the rule. 

[SA Chris]

Probably off topic, but do people really go to a climbing facility just to use the fingerboard? Do you have a season pass?