The Rock Warriors Way

[Scooter]

Just picked up this book from MEC-- The Rock Warriors Way. It was recommended to me quite some time ago, and finally bought it today. It sounds like you can learn a lot and is really interesting.

I've only read a few pages so far.

Are there any others out there who have read/ heard anything about it?

Will let you know how I find it as I read the book.

[peter]

I have read it. There is some good advice in there. I would say list the best five ideas you find in the book, and attempt to apply them to your climbing, and you won't mind having bought and read it.

Personally, I found the North American, self-help style of writing grated after a while, like a "Be All You Can Be" infomercial. I had to push my irritation with this style to the back of my mind to finish the book, but I did finish it. If you want to reflect on your climbing, or on yourself, this book tries to offer a methodology, and points to emotional pitfalls which impede optimum living and climbing.

The main source of his inspiration seems to be the mystical 1960s-70s writer of (fake) anthropology, Carlos Castenada, author of the "Don Juan" books. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda . While I read some of this stuff as an adolescent, in the 1970s, all I remember are the drug-induced vision quests. Don't try that on a big wall climb.

If I was going to put pen to paper, I would start from a different warrior tradition, that which attempts to combine the Japanese martial arts traditions with Zen Buddhism, of which there are enough examples around. Browse the martial arts section at a few bookstores in town, and cross-apply the ideas.

But if you say to yourself, well, that is just how he has decided to package some good information, focus on the ideas behind the window-dressing, but don't take the style (the key words, stages, labels, diagrams, and expressions) as the real message, it is a good enough read.

[granite_grrl]

I think the book is excellent. I read it a couple of years ago, and I'm at the point that I feel I should spend the time to read it again soon.

With the multitude of ideas in the book I am having to work with battling the ego right now. I cannot climb how I used to at the moment, I cannot lead right now, I now have to find someone else to be the rope gun. Being left behind on trips that I cannot participate in has been a real blow to me in particular.

But in the end what does it matter? I still enjoy climbing greatly, and I'm starting to get stronger, I've even got the green light to start increasing the force I apply when in my harness (so that means seeing what I can do with lead belaying, and eventually leading). My climbing style has to be different at the moment because I have lost so much flexibility and strength in the one leg, but I am happier when I look at climbs I'm working on that day as a learning experiance instead of thinking of the grades I used to pull. I have been working a lot of overhangs at the gym. This is easier on my leg and I've never been very good at over hangs, so it gives me a chance to concentrate on them.

There have been other messages in the book that I have applied over the past couple of years too. Its a long path to mental improvment.

[chossmonkey]

Its a good book. It helped me work through some issues and push myself further. I never really did the exercises at the end of the book as he describes them, but did/do do most of them in some sort or another. A lot of the stuff you don't really need to practice as they are things you do every time out climbing.