The Yoga of Climbing

Yoga is the joining together of opposites into a unity. The unity of movement and breath. Achieving this unity in the is Enlightenment. The essential goal of Yoga is to achieve states of insight that reveal the true nature of reality. It's not the only practice with the lofty goal of enlightenment. Yoga is more like learning a practical trade instead of a set of philosophical doctrines. The four parts of the Yoga Sutra are: (1) meditation, (2) practice of yoga, (3) developing extraordinary abilities, and (4) liberation.  

The goal is to achieve and sustain a state of deep meditative absorption ("samadhi"). When that is achieved, it is accompanied by an experience of overwhelming bliss or ecstasy.  The Yoga Industrial Complex's postural (asana) yoga is "primitive and repulsive" to traditional yogis, more Sweedish gymnastics and British Army calisthenics beneficial for physical health but largely devoid of traditional yogic wisdom--the heart of yoga. 

The Yoga Sutras is a very practical manual that shows people not just how to achieve enlightenment but also how to achieve peak physical performance in a systematic, scientific way. (Free PDF)

The Yoga of Climbing

Focus on your breath (prana). Stretch out -- especially your shoulders, forearms and fingers, 1-30 minutes. 

Keep breathing. Visualize all the moves on the route. Climb, in-synch, with your breath. Eliminate any thoughts. Be in the moment. Be mindful of everything. Be calm.  Visualize breathing in energy and channeling that energy to your arms and fingers. Keep breathing. Imagine that every move is in your comfort zone, a full letter grade bellow your maximum ability, and you will climb beyond your limits. 

With practice, faith, ritual, and more practice, you can achieve peak performance.

See: Advanced Training for Climbing (with campus runs, hangboard, assisted one-arm pull-ups, frenchies, negatives, one-arm dead-hangs, rings, leg raises and levers.

See: Interviews with Chris Sharma and Dean Potter on the "inside game" of climbing.
* Balance the discipline, hard work and fun.
* Balance your energy, focus, and mindfulness.

See Adam Ondra onsight 5.14d! (YouTube)
See: Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Abilities

Climbing pioneer and founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, on an eight-day climb of El Capitan in Yosemite, reported that, "Each individual crystal in the granite stood out in bold relief. The varied shapes of the clouds never ceased to attract attention. For the first time we noticed tiny bugs that were all over the walls, so tiny they were barely noticeable... This unity with our joyous surroundings, this ultra penetrating perception, gave us a feeling of contentment that we had not had for years."

John Muir, solo-climbing Mount Ritter in the Sierra Nevada, found himself stranded on a cliff face, unable to move up or down, frozen with terror. "I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense," Muir recollected later. "My trembling became firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and a precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete."

Mental activity became enormous, rising a hundredfold velocity or intensity. The relationship of events and their probable outcomes were over-viewed with objective clarity. The individual acted with lightning quickness.... you're in another world, thinkless, sensual perceptions leaping out at you, vision narrowed to one-pointedness... The realm of dreams.

See: Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes-and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, and Touching the Beyond 

Learn to control your body - your hormones, endorphins, and autonomic nervous system (ANS) like a yogi, by "thinking the right thoughts." By having faith and putting yourself in the proper frame of mind. Develop an affirmative meditation: "This climb will be pure joy. It's challenging but doable. I can power through any hard moves with increased strength. I'm completely focused on the movement and my body. I'm one with my breath and it energizes my arms and fingers. The climb is pure joy and infinite, sublime transcendence."

Alex Honnold free-soloing in Yosemite

See: Alex Honnold soloing in Yosemite and Mexico!

Quite your mind, lower your heart-rate, lower your blood pressure and fine-tune your adrenaline hormones for quickness and increased physical performance. Move quickly for greater endurance. Increaseyour endorphins/morphine/opioids for less stress and less pain. Focus on your body and then push your limits.  Magic becomes a habit after we do the difficult, or the near impossible, over and over again, where pain and fear can be alchemized into pure joy and confidence, changing everything.

You can get that altered state of consciousness -- that peak performance and ecstasy; pure joy and satori enlightenment; omnipotence and bliss; intuitive insight and transcendence -- day after day. It's the secret of the running prowess of the Hopis running 40 miles in the desert without the slightest trace of fatigue. What do they have that we don't? A feeling of oneness with the world around them. The unity. The yoga.

See: Bone Games: Extreme Sports, Shamanism, Zen, and the Search for Transcendence 

I've personally achieved peak experience and a samadhi state in the Yoga of Climbing several times, thanks to many years of practice, hard work, and extreme situations. For example, above the clouds and above the abyss on the extremely steep snow-slopes on Mt. Rainer, I experienced a pure bliss, heightened senses, and a unity of being. I had similarly profound experiences on the Grand Teton Traverse, almost dying several times while sliding down scree fields and free soloing thousand-foot cliffs.  I've also had a samadhi experience free-solo onsighting a 5.11c, onsighting a 5.12d while doing a one-finger pull-up, and on several ultra-marathons like running on torn Achille tendons -- things that I can definitely not typically do. But I did it, while in the zone, pushing the limits, and achieving profound states of higher consciousness, which is the promise of climbing and unites the climbing community with love and dedication for this sacred practice. I've also experienced samadhi while working, eating, driving, and sleeping. Everything is yoga!

When you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing.

-Zen parable.