The Rock Warrior's Way by Arno Ilgner

 

A year or so ago I read Training for the Uphill Athlete and learned that it's possible to train your metabolism using exercise. I had originally picked up the book to help improve my endurance, but instead, I learned new levels of training. Since then, I've been looking at other texts on areas I felt were harder to train than just your muscles or lungs. Something I'm sure lots of people can relate to is the mental element in a lot of athletic endeavors, I've often felt hindered in my two favorite activities - mountain biking and rock climbing - by mental obstacles. So I wondered if it was possible to train your mind.

On discussing this with a friend of mine he lent me the Rock Warrior's Way by Arno Ilgner. I was initially skeptical; the title seemed doofy and the concept of a "warrior" is overly fetishized by the self-help grift. Plus there are some nauseating self-help tendencies in the book itself. For example in discussing the power of choice (I mean...come on...) Ilgner drops this gem on us: 

"'I have to work full time,' implies that you have absolutely no choice. In fact, you choose to work. Working produces income for things you've deceied are important, such as food or your children's college tuition. You could also choose to quit work and accept the consequences."

The idea that we have simply decided food was important and not a bodily function to live is comical. The consequence of not working is the inability to afford basic necessities, while Ilgner is technically correct that this represents a choice, basic philosophical concepts tell us it is a false one. I don't want to get too much into the Cake or Death illusion of choice at play here, but rather use this moment to illustrate that Ilgner's book doesn't offer much in the way of philosophical thinking. It's actually filled with the sorts of platitudes that might be heard in the halls of our favorite multi-level marketing schemes.

This likely sounds harsh, but it's only because there are some really good tips on training your mental game in whatever activity you're embarking on and it's unfortunately shrouded in pseudo-philosophical self-help garbage that forces the reader to dig through it. I wouldn't want to recommend the book for its good bits without first warning the reader of the really, really bad parts.

The driving idea behind what Ilgner somewhat erroneously calls being a Rock Warrior (there are approximately zero words dedicated to the conceptual basis of a warrior being to kill others in...you know...war) is that when we're in "the moment" of our chosen sport - on a rock face, dropping into a MTB line, running a race, whatever - our subconscious often takes over our decision-making matrix and if it isn't sufficiently trained to react calmly to potential risk, is unfocused, or more focused on our ego we are going to experience what we often describe as a mental obstacle.

Many athletes don't have this mental obstacle at all, think of renowned free soloist Alex Hannold who has said while climbing the thought of death or failure never once enters his mind. Other athletes might have more trained subconsciousness almost by accident and so their mental obstacles are very small and easily surmountable. Yet a large body of especially hobbyist athletes likely feel significantly hindered by mental obstacles. 

Ilgner's antidote to our subconscious effects on performance is to train our more active thoughts so that when our subconscious takes over it's more likely to respond in the way we've trained our active thoughts. This is how athletes train many other muscles, it's why those who play team sports run plays, the idea is that when you drill something enough times when the moment comes to do it when it counts your body will react reflexively. 

So Ilgner instructs us to "become aware" of our thoughts in our waking life and attempt at every turn to push back on negative thinking, ego-based decision making, and other obstacles forming thought processes. This type of training isn't new - in fact, Ilgner admits himself he's amalgamating other works in the field to be climbing-specific, but the Rock Warrior's way does, at the very least, do a good job couching the language in the context of climbing. 

This is all to say I've put some of Ilgner's tips to practice. There is a lot to be said, especially in gravity sports like MTB, for making your subconscious react less on the basis of fear or ego and more in line with learning and appreciation for the sport. While the biking season isn't in full swing, I have noticed some improvements in my climbing. I have always had a hard time with my local gym's bouldering wall, it's pretty high at 15 ft and every climb is a top-out. Where I used to struggle to top out of even easier problems, since putting some of these techniques into practice I've noticed I have had an easier time at the top and developed more comfortability in falling. 

Do I recommend The Rock Warrior's way? I wouldn't dish the name out as often as I talk about Training for the Uphill Athlete, but I would probably suggest it to a friend who might be explicitly lamenting an issue with mental obstacles. I would do so only with the caveat that there is quite a bit of cheesy trash to sift through.