Recently I found I have increasingly started soloing routes more and more. Nothing big, nothing massively hard just fun low grade routes. But on a recent trip to the Peak District I found myself soloing more and more, but why, and why did this end up effecting my climbing so much.
Soloing a route can be a liberating experience. There is no rope, no waiting, you climb when YOU are ready.
When you are leading at least VS routes, soloing a VDiff should be a fairly simple affair in terms of technicality and difficulty. But when you start pushing the grade you solo does this affect your climbing in general.
Climbing at Stanage in the unconquerable area I decided to warm up by soloing the easy routes near by, Mods, Diffs, all the way up to Severe and Hard Severe. Pleasant routes, not much gear but not very hard either but certainly enjoyable. I then eye up a short VS, I look at the moves and as I gaze I find my mind committing to each one, I haven't even started climbing yet but I have already decided with intent to make each move. I get on the route and move through each section with ease. Before the climb I remember thinking I had soloed every grade from Mod up to VS, I pushed myself to climb all the grades to complete the link.
I then go off and second a route with a friend, a tough little route requiring a committing lead, which she did very well. On the decent I spied two people climbing/top roping a VS 5a (Tridymite slab, a route with no gear and not a particularly good landing) a grade which in my humble opinion requires confidence and ability. Looking at the route I was already committing to the moves again, feeling the route take hold, pulling myself towards it. I asked my friend to spot me just encase. I started making the moves one at a time, the climbing pleasant but certainly committing. After topping out I started thinking I must stop this before I do something stupid, I started scaring myself. At the same time I was scared yet psyched by what I had just done.
On that day no longer did I look at a route and commit to its moves, nor did I feel the pull of the route, only the pushing of a mind, scared by what I had done.
On reflection maybe what had been whispers in my ear to solo the routes was my intuition, not something I've had a lot of contact with, and my conscious mind was trying to fight it off by scaring me with negative talk instead of embracing what I had found, keeping me in the extreme comfort zone that is having two feet on the ground.
But why was this bad for my climbing, because I let the negative self talk take over, I wasn't ready, the conscious mind overwhelmed by what I was doing, and so it shouted out the voice of my inner-self which if I had listened to it would have seen me do far more climbing that day and learn a lot more about myself. I also hadn't warmed up my mind to climbing, by soloing your jumping into the deep end of risk, which can be fine as long as you prepare yourself, by assessing the risk, accepting the responsibility, make the choice and commit, while at the same time trusting your inner self.
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