Climbing Training Drills for “The Dancer”

In my story about “the Dancer” and “the Fighter,” I break down the mindset and approach differences between two types of climber. To help each archetype find more balance, I developed some drills to help different climber types grow and improve. These drills for “the Dancer” require enough practice within a short amount of time that the ego can be re-trained. This of course requires practice spread out over years so that the training is remembered, internalized, and regularly utilized.

You can do these drills at the crag, at the gym, or ideally at both. Both settings will yield different results. I would recommend making these drills a core portion of one to two climbing days per week for one to three months. Then, depending on the complexity of the drill, incorporate them into a warm up or a cool down for at least one full day per month for the next six months. Finally, incorporate at your discretion. These drills will never not be helpful to practice.

Dancer Drill 1: Learning to try hard and communicate with intent

Purpose: To help Dancers fight.

Pick 10 new routes that you and your partner have never climbed. Each partner will attempt to flash five routes and onsight five routes over two climbing days. The goal is to practice letting go of perfection.

The Drill: 

Day 1: 

Your partner is the “onsighter” and you are the “flasher” (please don’t take this literally) for five new and different routes.

Your partner (the onsighter) will try to onsight a route with the goal of sending. Their secondary goal is to collect as much information for their partner, the flasher, as possible. They will try their absolute hardest, committing to not saying “take” on the attempt.

Once the onsighter is back on the ground, talk it out. Discuss where the hard moves are. Talk about the beta options and where the rests are. Eventually, you can figure out how much beta is useful, what type of beta works for you, and how much information feels like overload.

Also notice how you prefer to receive beta. Do you want the full spray-down on the ground? Or would you prefer a play-by-play as you are climbing?

Then you (the flasher) will try to flash the route, knowing that you only get to try that route once. If you fall, pull back up and rest for five to 10 minutes before trying again to flash the rest of the route. No hanging around to work beta or re-try moves.

Clean the draws and repeat this process on four more routes that day.

Day 2: 

Reverse roles: Now you are the onsighter and your partner is the flasher for five new and different routes.

Repeat the steps for Day 1. Kind of like understanding your romantic partner’s love language, remember that your beta spray needs likely differ from your partner’s. Again, you will try as hard as you can to onsight the route with the intention of helping your partner flash the route afterward.

Day 3 (Extra Credit):

Eating ice cream isn’t usually part of any real workout, but I often recommend it after a well-executed training session. So, Day 3 is the chunky monkey of this drill.

On Day 3, return to any route that you did not send on Day 1 or 2.

• Before you climb, practice discussing the beta options again with your partner, using the combined insight from both of your attempts.
• The second-go attempt of the routes will still require some flash or onsight practice since you won’t remember all the beta, even if you think you might. Work on being patient and open-minded, and don’t be afraid to sprinkle in some good ol’ fighter try-hard when needed.

Pro tip: This is a fantastic thing to do on climbing trips where you don’t want to spend time projecting. You can explore a lot of new areas, get familiar with the style of a zone, tick off new routes, and learn something in the process. I did this all the time with the students at The Climbing Academy for the first few days in a new zone as a way to find which crags they liked and explore the area, but still be targeted with training.

A Drill for Dancers who are starting to fight

I call this one the “Second-Go-Balancing-Act.”

Purpose: To help Dancers find the balance.

Planning: This drill encompasses both techniques and, in my personal opinion, is the benchmark of a talented climber. If a climber can send something very hard on the second go (or potentially the third), it demonstrates their ability to combine high effort and high precision in a relatively short amount of time.

Many pro climbers are incredible at this, especially if they have competition experience. They have this special (and by special, I mean they have spent loads of time training it) ability in which they gather so much beta on their first try that they can turn on a readily available amount of try-hard to send on their second go. While this requires serious effort, it also necessitates incredible focus and beta-finding. And it entails memorizing skills, climbing tactics, and a controlled ego.

Practice: 

Pick a climb that is higher than your onsight or flash grade, but lower than your redpoint grade. If you have redpointed 5.11c and onsight or flashed 5.10c, then a 5.10d or 5.11a is perfect for this.

On your first go, do not spend all of your energy achieving perfection on every move. Also: Don’t try to onsight the route. The goal is to spend as little energy as possible learning as many of the important moves as you can. Learn how and where to rest, and which sections require try-hard vs. slow and controlled precision.

During your first go, practice committing the moves to memory. Then return to the ground and spend some time rehearsing the moves before attempting a second go. This is the Dancer-heavy part of the drill.

Try to send. On the second go, introduce the Fighter part of the drill. Mix the Dancer memorization with the Fighter try-hard and intuition. During this redpoing attempt, give a full effort to sending the route while keeping an open mind for beta that might feel more intuitive.

Climb until you fall, rather than deciding it is time to take, or purposefully letting go. If—like Nicki determined—you aren’t actually afraid of falling, this should help Dancers practice feeling uncomfortable while trying hard.

If you find that you are scared to do the next move, then that prompts other drills that you could work on in tandem. As always, gauge the safety of where you are falling because that fear might be justified!

Even if you get so pumped that you can’t climb for the rest of the day, remember: This is still a goal-oriented session, so that is okay and productive.

Each attempt is a learning experience, and at the end of the day, it’s all money in the bank. Often, a route of that grade would take someone four tries to send normally, so this is a practice in condensing four attempts of unfocused effort into two fully focused attempts.

Explore more about the Dancer, the Fighter, and Ego Grades.

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