What Type of Climber Are You: A Dancer or a Fighter?

I have an issue with a particular grade in climbing. It’s not the hardest grade I climb, nor is it the easiest. The problem revolves around routes that I can do quickly, but are challenging enough to make me want to tick them on 8a.nu or Mountain Project.

I call this the “Ego Grade.” For me in sport climbing, that includes routes between 5.12a and 5.13a.  On a climbing trip last year, I realized that my relationship with an Ego Grade was holding me back from becoming a better, happier climber. While my Ego Grade has different numbers in sport climbing, bouldering, trad climbing, and in the gym—they all stem from the same concept.

What’s an Ego Grade?

Simply put, an Ego Grade boosts your ego, or conversely, challenges your ego. It doesn’t necessarily contribute to your progression, and it may not even deepen your fulfillment from the sport.

Picture this: You walk into your local bouldering gym and at last, there is a fresh set on the wall. Before your shoes are even on, you lock onto the climb. It’s probably not the hardest problem you could try today, but it’s just hard enough for your ego to feast on. Honestly, how can a session feel satisfying if you don’t send one V“X”? Your ego eats it up like a fresh juicy burger from the Lander Bar after a long weekend in the Winds.

But the real question is: How many times do you need to do this before your ego is “full”? How many V”X”s of that style do you need to tick before you’re comfortable working your anti-style?

You might be unaware that your ego needs validation every time you climb. If this is true, you are not alone. Reworking this emotionally triggered mentality may bring more growth and satisfaction to your climbing.

Recognizing that you often partake in ego climbing and its performative satisfaction is no easy feat.

I struggled with my own Ego Grade for quite some time. My chest would puff up every time I climbed that idealistic, beautiful 5.13a grade. This mindset shaped my outdoor sport climbing for the better part of five years. Admittedly, there are silver linings: I got very good at sending my Ego Grade quickly. It helped me send stacked 5.12 multi-pitch climbs and get lots of volume on climbing trips.

Even with these successes, I truly believe prioritizing my Ego Grade has stunted my ability to progress to higher grades. Even worse, I became mentally uncomfortable struggling on almost any climb below 5.13. This robbed me of a significant amount of enjoyment I would have otherwise taken from the sport. At the end of the day, I still have so much to learn from climbs at a variety of grades.

Watch Casey Elliott climb past his Ego Grade as he explains the Dancer vs. Fighter binary

 

The Fighter and the Dancer

My friend Nicki is one of the most composed climbers I’ve ever seen—no grunts, no screams, not even a power peep. When we climb together, we feel the stark differences in our style. When I went for an onsight, I gave it my all every time, sometimes kicking and screaming. Nicki, on the other hand, had a habit that baffled me: While onsighting routes within her Ego Grade, she would often just … take.

It drove me nuts. “Why would you do that?” I’d ask. “You could’ve powered through and sent it. Then we could’ve moved on!” For years, I have been trying, mostly in jest, to coach her on how to try hard while onsighting. I assumed the reason she called “take” so often revolved around a fear of falling. It turned out I was completely wrong.

Nicki wasn’t afraid of falling, nor was she getting too pumped to continue climbing. What Nicki truly disliked was climbing through moves that felt unsure, awkward, or imprecise. She was a perfectionist. As a result, she eventually executed hard routes with grace and a deep understanding of the best movement. This type of approach requires time and does not lend itself to high-level onsighting. Her record shows that while she is more than capable of onsighting climbs closer to her redpoint grade, she often opts to sacrifice the onsight and work out the moves so she can climb it smoothly and confidently on a subsequent go.

In Nicki’s words: I know I’m physically capable of holding on longer and flailing my way up a harder route. While I can appreciate the sense of accomplishment that comes from sending something that way, it often feels at odds with how I approach most things in life. I prefer to act methodically and with precision, relying on preparation and a sense of predictability. Venturing into the unknown, both in climbing and in life, feels inherently challenging to me.

After our latest climbing trip together, we finally figured out how and why our approaches are so different.

The Fighter Mentality

On one end of the spectrum, there’s me, screaming through off-balance moves, pumped out of my mind, often successfully onsighting like an off-brand Sharma. I feel like I should send that grade quickly. So I send, regardless of how poor my movement is, because clipping chains justifies the effort. I call this the Fighter Mentality. 

Fight·er Men·tal·i·ty:

Noun: 75% try hard, 25% technique, likely to run out of quickdraws while climbing

Signs that you might be a Fighter include:

• You skip anti-style routes because you can’t visualize the beta quickly enough.
• Your onsight/flash grade is very close to your project/redpoint grade (5.12c flash and 5.12d redpoint, for example).
• You often send in a way that you don’t think you could repeat, or “black out” and have no idea what you did.
• You struggle with or don’t spend time memorizing beta.
• You are embarrassed if you can’t figure out the moves quickly.
• There is a large gap between your style grades (e.g., V7 steep compression, but only V4 vertical crimping).
• You give it 110% every time you get on a rope or a boulder problem, often sacrificing learning opportunities and putting yourself at risk for injury.

The Dancer Mentality

In sharp contrast to my Fighter tendencies, there’s Nicki. She rehearses every move, even if she looks totally in control. Onsight-averse, she usually repeats a route several times. Eventually, she climbs like a dancer performing a beautifully choreographed piece. She loves the feeling of climbing immaculately. So if there’s uncertainty in her beta, she won’t try nearly as hard, because imperfect execution may not yield the same level of satisfaction or achievement. I call this Dancer Mentality.

Danc·er Men·tal·i·ty:

Noun: 25% try hard, 75% technique, likely knows the route length and puts the exact number of quickdraws on the appropriate side of their harness.

Signs you might be a Dancer:

• You take your time to dial in routes so that by the time you send, it feels like muscle memory.
• It takes multiple attempts or sessions to send routes even below your redpoint grade.
• Your onsight grade and redpoint grade are very far apart (5.11b and 5.13a, for example).
• You don’t want others (or yourself) to see you climb with sloppy beta.
• It is difficult to give maximum effort, even on a “send go.”
• You don’t fall often and opt to take if you feel uncertain about a move.

Finding the balance

Ideally, you have a combination of the Fighter and the Dancer within you. For Nicki and I, that wasn’t the case. We were too far on the ends of this spectrum. Ultimately, we were serving our egos more than our growth.

While being a Fighter or a Dancer has benefits, you are likely missing out on becoming a more well-rounded climber.

What the Fighter is missing

The Fighter avoids learning opportunities on Ego Grades and loses the chance to refine their movement skills. They skip anti-style routes because their ego can’t handle projecting a lower grade they “should” flash. The Fighter relies heavily on intuition and can easily access near-maximal try-hard.

Their true potential, however, might lie beyond these tendencies. If they embraced precision and took more time to learn movements that are not intuitive, they could likely climb harder and more efficiently. Ultimately, they could become a more well-rounded climber.

What the Dancer is missing

The Dancer avoids discomfort and only sends when everything feels just right. This approach often leads to more refined ascents, resulting in a deep understanding of projecting tactics and skills. However, it often means slower progress and longer redpoint timelines. The Dancer may struggle to give 110% when a performance has not been perfected. It is important to remember that trying hard is a muscle. Just like hangboarding, you have to train it to effectively activate it.

The sweet spot between the Dancer and Fighter

As with most things, the ideal lies somewhere in the middle. A well-rounded climber can quiet the ego, accept imperfection, and approach every grade as a learning opportunity. They can try hard when it counts and embrace messy climbing to get the send, while also appreciating the value in rehearsing new movements and exploring different techniques. Over time, this balance will unlock the potential to send higher grades and increase efficient climbing at lower grades.

What does a balanced climber look like?

I have a simple rule of thumb that indicates a balanced climber: Their onsight grade is approximately one number grade below their redpoint grade, and their flash grade is about one letter grade above that.

• For example, people who project 5.12a can often climb 5.11a first try, and probably 5.11b on a good day with good beta.
• A 5.14b climber has likely practiced onsighting to the point that they can do 5.13a or 5.13b with the right beta spray, and maybe even 5.13b or 5.13c in the first few tries.
• Even Adam Ondra fits relatively well into the rule— he has redpointed a 5.15d, onsighted 5.14+, and flashed 5.15a.

By this definition, I am not a well-balanced climber. I attribute that to spending too much time and mental energy on my Ego Grade. Last year, my max redpoint grade was 5.13b, my max flash grade was 5.13a/b, and my max onsight grade was 5.13a. I had climbed around 50 5.13- routes … talk about a flat pyramid!

This was a case of an overindulgence in the Fighter mentality. Once I had tried a route five to 10 times, I lost interest. Often, I couldn’t make the hard or uncomfortable moves feel doable quickly enough. Maybe to soothe my ego, I told myself that the route wasn’t worth my time. Perhaps low-hanging fruit within my style enticed me.

Ultimately, I discovered this was a deficiency I wanted to work on, so I put it to the test on a 5.13c called Pumped Puppets at Donner Pass, California. Rather than visualizing sending the route within five to 10 tries in an epic fight, I tried my best to be a Dancer and embrace a learning-focused long-term approach. I told myself there was always another day, and I didn’t want to send it if it felt like a fight.

My mantra became: Stoicism over hedonism. I delayed the gratification of a perfect send, foregoing the quick hit of sending fast and loose.

I wanted it to feel perfect, precise, and stripped of the Fighter try-hard. I believed that the only way I could convince myself that 5.14 is in my wheelhouse (the lifelong goal) was to climb 5.13c without having to fight for it.

In the end, I danced on the day I sent, and had plenty of gas left in the tank. I glimpsed into the future of climbing even harder routes. The battle was not won in a day, however. I constantly have to calm my ego to become more of a Dancer. It has been a beautiful process, and I have started to regain some of my love for climbing through removing my attachment to the ego grades.

For all of us, the real questions become: When is it important to use whatever it takes to try as hard as possible? When is it important to adopt a learner mindset? How do you access and toggle between these two mindsets? And how do you train both muscles?

How Dancers and Fighters can coach their egos

Two avenues exist when it comes to coaching a climber to balance the quick send with the precision send.

For both the Fighter and the Dancer, this will likely take some head game and ego work. Some of the work will overlap for the two approaches, while some will differ.

A commonality in working through both the Fighter and the Dancer mindsets is coming to terms with this:

Nobody really cares about your climbing.

You are most likely not a professional. This is not your net worth. There is always someone better than you. And people don’t judge you nearly as much as you judge yourself. So to retrain your ego, go make a fool of yourself! Get into the gym and make a silly try-hard noise. Jump at a hold and fall on your butt. Be goofy. And most importantly, teach your internal critic to be more compassionate.

Coaching the ego of the Dancer

The Dancer should focus on the idea that it is okay for people to watch you climb sloppily. During your next gym session, pick a route and either decide on the beta from the ground, or go in blind and embrace whatever happens. Do your best to execute the beta you set out for yourself, even if you hesitate and feel uncomfortable.

An even easier practice? Climb only until you fall, then come down. Cement the idea that you only get one attempt. Finally, climb on the anti-ego grade or anti-style climbs. If you love 5.12c or V7 vertical tech, work on 5.11 or V4 steep compression boulders.

Coaching the ego of the Fighter

The Fighter should go to the gym and be silent. No power screams, no jumping for holds, no pushing through fear or discomfort. Your goal is to stop whenever something feels awkward or uncomfortable. I would recommend toproping or climbing lowball boulders to dissuade poor climbing due to fear of falling.

Finally, climb on the anti-ego grade or anti-style climbs. If you like 5.12c steep jug hauls, hop on 5.11c vertical tech that makes you feel like an uncoordinated gorilla. Finally, take take take until you can dance your way up a climb.

Training drills for Dancers and Fighters

As you get your ego under control, there are also some exercises you can do at the crag to practice projecting, onsighting, and flashing climbs.

Similar to training, if you cut out parts of your plan because you don’t feel like doing them, you will progress more slowly. If you show up to the crag with a plan to onsight five routes, but only try one and decide to work your project instead, you won’t get better at onsighting. If you plan to project a route, but get distracted by a different climb closer to your flash grade, you won’t get better at projecting.

Once again, we need to find the balance. Here are two sets of drills to help you do that:

Get the Fighter Training Drills

Get the Dancer Training Drills

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re a Fighter clawing through every move or a Dancer perfecting every detail, your relationship with your Ego Grade shapes far more than just your tick list—it shapes your growth.

I wrote this advice through the lens of sport climbing because it easily accentuates these differences. The tactics and mindsets of sport climbing—stretched over dozens of moves—lend themselves to large observations. However, these same tendencies exist in bouldering, trad climbing, ice climbing, competition climbing, and interestingly enough, general life. Have you ever watched someone rapid-fire a boulder problem 30 times in 30 minutes with the same beta, then someone else send because they rested between go’s and tried a variety of beta? Have you ever observed fear accentuating these mentalities in trad climbing? (This is basically the entire premise of “headpointing.”) What do the egos of successful competition climbers have in common?

By identifying your default tendencies and deliberately exploring the opposite end of the spectrum, you begin to unlock new dimensions of learning, progression, and joy in climbing.

Remember: The real progress often begins when the send doesn’t matter as much as how you send. If you can toggle between trying hard and refining movement, between effort and elegance, you’ll not only climb harder, but you’ll climb better. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll discover that your proudest ascents aren’t the ones that fed your ego, but the ones that challenged it.

Special thanks to Nicki for bravely exposing her ego and mindset, and for sharing a perspective I once struggled to see.

The post What Type of Climber Are You: A Dancer or a Fighter? appeared first on Climbing.