“Is It My Turn?” Why I Climb During YOUR Coaching Session

Slowing the Pace

When I first started running coaching sessions, way back in September 2019, I didn’t climb unless I needed to. My attitude was that in order to be a good coach, one shouldn’t need to step off the floor. While this attitude partly persists, very quickly I noticed an issue: people would burn out way too early.

It appeared that as people were paying for a service, they seemed to want to maximise the input they received. Perhaps it was that they felt pressure to climb and therefore needed to be on the wall, performing as much as possible. Or there may have been another reason somewhere in the background.

Either which way, this pace created multiple problems. First and foremost, climbers were exhausted after 45 minutes of a 2 hour session. Meanwhile, they were going so hell-for-leather that they hadn’t allowed any time to allow themselves to process any information (something known as Cognitive Load Theory).

No matter how much I tried to tell people to slow down, they continued to pull on very quickly. But then the answer seemed obvious: if you observe a group of friends climbing, they tend to take it in turns. And this, in turn, slows the pace and allows for some resting, allows time to chat without people feeling lectured.

Allowing Time and Autonomy to Process

I’m a big fan of giving people time and space to learn. Counter-intuitive as it may sound, this is often time and space away from me. I’m not suggesting I wander off for the majority of the session but I am saying that often, standing over someone while they try and perform can increase arousal levels past the optimum and lead to performance anxiety [See the Yerkes-Dodson Arousal Curve and the Hawthorne Effect again].

There are many ways of moving out of the way for a short while – including drinking tea, another popular one for me – but climbing something on my own is one of them. It is quite effective, as mentioned elsewhere, as being nearby can give space for people to process information at their own rate while still being available to discuss as and when they are ready.

Relaxed Environments Lead to Better Learning Outcomes

We have a tendency to take these things incredibly seriously. I mean, why would we pay a coach if we didn’t? The problem comes when we start taking things too seriously.

There’s a balance to be struck. When we increase pressure too high, it can lead to reduced performance (check out the Yerkes-Dodson Arousal Curve) through extraneous stress, performance anxiety and various other factors.

One way of reducing this pressure is to introduce an element of play. Much of this is seen through a reaction to either failure or success, with smiles and laughter demonstrating the importance of not-being-earnest, or not taking things too seriously.

It does work the other way too, where sometimes this can be used to increase the pressure but this is often not done vicariously. Typically, me playing is done to reduce the stress and reassure that this is supposed to be fun after all.

Breaking Down Coach-Climber Stereotypes

The other aspect that climbing alongside clients began to target was the idea of me being the coach and the climber being the student. Often, a coach – or indeed any educator – can be seen as the oracle; the one who possesses the answers who will then pass this on to the willing student. [If you want to go all academic, this is known as a naive epistemological belief (Schommer, 1990)]

Personally, I don’t buy it. Coaching, especially in something such as climbing with so much nuance involved, requires some things the coach simply cannot know: first and foremost, how it feels on the wall. For me, my role as a coach is to guide people towards their own discoveries, to work alongside them. This sits at the other end of Schommer’s spectrum and is known as a sophisticated epistemological belief. It has nothing to do with ‘sophisticated’ being perceptually better that ‘naive’ (she really should’ve used better, less loaded terms), I believe this is how people learn better. Thankfully, scientific research backs me up too, with higher intrinsic motivation for learning.

Prowess sessions are deliberately designed to be collaborative between coach and climber, helping to target social developmental channels as well as physical or cognitive.

Watching but not Watching

I have genuinely noticed a dip in performance when people know they are being observed (not every time but often enough not to be an outlier). It is sometimes known as the Hawthorne Effect, whereby people modify their behaviour when they know they are being observed, occasionally leading to “inaccurate assessments of their true performance“; not ideal if you’re trying to get an idea of how somebody naturally moves on the wall.

It’s a fine balance between allowing people some time and space to process the information they’ve taken on and remaining present enough to be available for discussion. An effective way of achieving this? Climbing on something else nearby. At face value, I’m not watching and am distracted by my own climbing. However by being nearby, I can see, hear and am available at any point, making small interactions on a regular basis.

Often, this requires a good working relationship to be built, whereby I encourage people to come and interrupt me when they have a question. Other times, it is used as a way of getting a truer representation of someone’s genuine behaviour and ability.

Adding a Competitive Edge

There are so many different psychological models of motivation that it is hard to keep track but one of my preferred models is called the Three World’s Continuum by Collins et al (2012). Here, there are three motivations for participation (in reverse order): participation for reasons other than excellence (see relaxed environments above); personally referenced excellence where we are aiming for a PB of some sort; and elite referenced excellence, where we’re trying to beat someone else.

With some clients – typically those climbing just below my grade and often younger climbers – there’s an element of one-up-manship that occurs during our sessions. I’ve had several students over the years who like nothing more than completing something before me or better still, completing a climb that I can’t do. This is typically built up over a period of time, built by developing the right relationship.

Honestly, it can act as a marker of a job well done. The only thing better than keeping ahead of strong youth climbers is watching them surpass me. One in particular who held this mentality continued to improve long after we had finished coaching sessions and is now far in excess of my abilities. And yet, when we do bump into each other in the wall, we still enjoy that little competition between us.

Beta

There’s a really obvious one here: seeing how something is done is kind of a big element of teaching. With climbing, often a lot can be achieved by demonstration on the wall.

This can work on multiple different levels. Sometimes, it can simply be demonstrating my most efficient beta for a climb and while there’s a lot of truth in the adage of ‘don’t coach the beta’, I’m going to throw Cognitive Load Theory out again with a nudge to my article on structuring your sessions. When we’re in ‘perform’ mode, we’re not in ‘learn’ mode and at this point, using everything we can get to help get the send makes sense. A bit like using video beta outside.

Then there are other things that can be clearly demonstrated. Lead climbing can often be a good area for demonstrations with elements ranging from efficient clipping positions to lead falls (also see vicarious confidence below) if there guided discovery approach hasn’t quite worked.

I’m not one for ‘monkey see, monkey do’ and often I’ve deliberately demonstrated the wrong beta to lead people to the conclusion that they need to find their own way but pulling on to show exactly what you mean can be a one to have in the arsenal.

Modeling Good Movement

Without meaning to be too arrogant, I’m quite a good climber. I boulder to a reasonably high standard (ticking 7c/V9 every year both indoors and out) and can sport climb well when the route appeals (climbing 8a in 2024). However it’s not so much the grade and more the how I move on the wall.

I receive a lot of compliments on how I climb: smooth; deliberate; “effortless”. For many who speak to me, they are impressed with my technical ability.

Pulling off the floor and trying something myself can often demonstrate this in action. I often try and describe the subtleties and nuances to efficient climbing movement but often, they’re not straightforward to understand. They’re much easier to see.

I’ve had this as feedback many times and people certainly seem to enjoy seeing me move on the wall far more often than not.

Modeling Good Principles

Often, there’s other aspects to a climbing session that get modeled. One of the big elements of coaching that I cover is the idea of structuring our session correctly, including knowing when to move on from one climb to try another.

The process I go through during a session is exactly the same as the one I’m looking for my students to go through. I’ll complete some relatively easy climbs until ready to go for the try-hard but then will be paying attention to my body to know when I need to call it. Being able to actively demonstrate this to students can be very enlightening.

There are many other principles to pre-action, in-action and on-action decision making (before, during and after climbing) that I demonstrate through my own climbing during a session.

Modeling Dealing With Failure

Dealing with failure can be difficult for many climbers and is a popular Take Home message for many of my clients. It’s rarely easy and can be influenced by all sorts of elements, including having a Growth/Fixed Mindset (the popular model by Carol Dweck) or falling prey to something called a Unit Bias.

I’m often able to deliberately bite off more than I can chew in order to be able to model how to handle this. It may be looking for smaller wins than simply topping the route, it may be getting frustrated and channeling this in some way into the next attempt. Sometimes, it may simply be me being annoyed but managing to handle it when I turn to the next problem instead.

Seeing this done can often be much easier to comprehend than trying to deal with it only on our own.

Building Vicarious Confidence

There are several key ways that we build confidence. These are known as ‘Components of Confidence’ and according to clinical psychologist and noted climbing coach, Dr Rebecca Williams of Smart Climbing, “Controllable sources of confidence come from four main sources”.

One of these key areas is called ‘Vicarious experience’ or in other words, seeing someone else succeed. It is a little more complicated than simply “I see someone climb something and it makes me feel that I can do it too” but you’d be surprised how inspiring it can be.

It needn’t be on the same climb, with a recent session involving a client working their project on one wall while I worked a different one next to them. Seeing me breaking things down, climbing it in sections and crucially, finding some success was indeed exactly what they needed in that moment. Likewise, another client with a fear of falling was visibly buoyed by seeing me complete some safe and effective – albeit quite large – lead falls; one of those where seeing it happen int he right setting helped to assuage the worry significantly.

Build Some Psyche!

Is there anything that encourages us onto the wall more than seeing someone else really psyched to climb? Coach Education courses can often be good examples of this, with a simple exercise suddenly drawing everyone in to have a go.

It starts with the coach. I find this particularly difficult when coaching swimming as it’s simply not possible to dive in. But at the wall, being desperate to get shoes on and get on the wall can help to draw people in and get them fired up to climb.

Passion and enthusiasm are infectious and as long as it doesn’t become distracting, being psyched to get on the wall can be a great way to get students fired up.

Warming Me Up

You know when you get stuck on a move and you suddenly ask someone to show you how they do that move? It’s not often on your easy warm up climbs, is it? It’s typically on something you’ve become stuck on.

And you know at the start of the session, we spend a bit of time making sure we’re properly warmed up? And we discuss how this is important to avoid injury? Yeah, well, this applies to me as well.

I’ve occasionally made the conscious effort NOT to climb during sessions. Then, half way though, someone asks me to demonstrate a move or a climb. By this point, it’s about V7… Now I can probably pull on and climb anything up to V7 but it’s asking a lot of my (rapidly aging) body; not to mention being incredibly hypocritical.

It might not look like I’m enhancing your learning experience by climbing a load at the start of your session. But if I don’t at the start, and don’t warm me up, I really shouldn’t be later on either.

Honestly, I’m Psyched to Climb

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit this one. Yes, a part of this is that I really like climbing. But is that really such a bad thing?

The simple fact is that I really love climbing. I’ve been known to climb people’s houses at parties and up fire escapes in the pub (which thankfully led to a round of applause rather than being thrown out). Surely this enthusiasm is a strength, not a weakness and I really hope that this enthusiasm to climb any and everything comes through to clients, students and indeed onlookers alike.

One’s experience as a coach and their coaching practice is built on their own personal climbing experiences – both technically but mentally, including their motivation and enthusiasm – and not only am I pleased to be continuing to develop this up to now, I hope it will continue.

Honestly, People Ask Me To Join In

It’s true, sometimes I get explicit requests to join in with the session; even when I really don’t want to. I had to ask one regular client who was supposed to be the climber during our session, so keen was he that I pull on.

Climbing is very much a sport with a big social element and there are plenty of clients I’ve had who actively ask me to participate. Part of this comes back to earlier points about breaking down coach-climber stereotypes and building professional relationships as well as creating the right learning environment. Often, being asked to play as well can be a sign that we’ve got to a really healthy point.

A Key Point

All this is well and good but it must be stated that at the centre of any coaching session is you. YOU are the focal point of any climbing session and NOT my own personal climbing. It is literally explicitly stated on my Coaching Philosophy. Me climbing during your session is not a given.

As much as I am happy to make a case for me climbing during your coaching session, if ANY client ever wishes, I will simply stop climbing for that session. After all, I can always stick around afterwards for a play.

Likewise, sometimes, it simply isn’t appropriate for me to climb. A session with a younger child, for example, might not be the right time and they may require closer supervision. On a rope climbing session, it may simply not be safe to be belayed by a client untested. And occasionally, it’s not safe for me to pull on; such as if I’m injured and risking overtraining.

The key thing to remember is that these are strategies that are available. The most important person in a Prowess Coaching session is the person being coached. If me climbing helps to move that along, great. If not, I’ll be staying on the floor.