My first blog in a few weeks because life has been hectic, with the birth of my daughter Olive, life has definitely been driven in an exciting new direction. Life is good, busy but good! Anyways onto the blog.

Throughout our lives some of our greatest memories are those times we thought to ourselves “H*ly sh^t” or those moments where we had a huge paradigm shift, those Ah Ha moments of overcoming adversity. Think about it, what’s the most memorable climb or challenge you have overcome? maybe its the one you fought the longest to achieve. The biggest frustration creates the wahoo moments.

With Beta, there are a few things to consider.

Beta is the way a climb is climbed, this could be different for every individual. Every climb that is set indoors has an intended beta or 2, the way the route setter planned it to be climbed. Micro beta is the small adjustments you may make, like shifting a foot 1 or 2 degrees left.

Theres 3 types of conversations that are common in the gym regarding beta:

Athlete To Athlete: Discussing climbs, Micro Beta, asking if people had tried this or that, that bit of this hold is good, watch out for that.

Coach To Athlete: The discussion of principles, balance, breathing, tension, momentum and the asking of questions to guide people to finding their Ah Ha moments and challenging them to see things differently.

Beta Sprayer To Climber: Put your left foot here, move your left foot, use your toes, grab that right hand now.

While the first 2 types of voicing beta can be used in a constructive way, I do not believe that the last option of Spraying Beta is beneficial to the climber, while it feeds the sprayers ego into feeling good because they are “helping” or because they “know” the beta it often holds the climber back from learning how to climb in their own style and completely removes the option for the climber to play with a climb. At the end of the day isn’t this why we all climb? Because it’s like play.

Coach To Athlete: A skilled coach will be able to help you find the beta that works best for you through asking questions, this allows you to do 2 things, Keep Finding Ah ha moments and to be able to play with a move or sequence.

Athlete To Athlete, this is an amazing way to grow fast, to be able to see things from many peoples perspectives, to learn and grow with you friends and peers. Some thing to be mindful of is where the line changes from Athlete to Athlete to Sprayer to athlete, I think it can be pretty simply drawn when one of the participants is on the wall. Yes, I admit that I do this too, sometimes in the heat of the moment its hard to resist the urge to yell out “left foot here” or “right hand there”, I catch myself yelling something out, I think we all need to get better and allowing others to make their own mistakes on the wall and maybe, just maybe discus principles of the wall such as balance or calmness maybe even creating but I am wary of even drawing then line there, maybe we should just let people climb.