Is Rock Climbing a Discipline/Art -or just a Sport. Discuss.....

Climbing is a sport more than any of the other options of what to call it, period. I know there's a bunch of other wormholes to fart around with and go down just to be dismissisive and/or pedantic, or whatever. Sport just checks all the boxes totally making the rest sound like silly and mindless blah blahing.

I always thought it was deeper than that. Of course i was a martial arts instructor and into a bunch of zen stuff but climbing was pretty darn close to some kind of religion for several decades. now its just something special I do when I am not working, playing music or caretaking my property. 

A athletic hobby, a sport maybe if one competes.

I had a lovely coffee table book once, about surfing, it was this collection of photos, interviews and travel stories laid out almost like a zine. The author often started by asking people if they though surfing was an art, or a sport. Mixed responses, just like here.

 While there is a grey area, I lean towards the side that climbing is a sport.

I would say that art (fine art, at least) is more to communicate and try and express feelings or ideas to other peole - an audience. It's a vector, like the other person said.

Of course some art is done for self-reflective or personal reasons, and never shown to anyone, or destroyed. And some climbs are indeed statements or exhibitions, but the vast majority are done for personal reasons.

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsionwrote:

It’s basically golf.

Brutal, and uncomfortably true, I love it. Maybe we need the third option - is climbing neither art nor sport, but a game?

It's a sporty arts and crafts activity

Nathan Doylewrote:

I agree with much of this. The discipline part is a bit hazy, for me, however. Is a discipline and being disciplined two different things? The latter being more academic? 

Yes, I meant “discipline” as “field of study”, that’s how OP worded it. Is climbing a discipline, like Molecular Biology, or Sociology, something you can study… not for most people.  

I'd add, it's also a way of life and a means to live, for some people; those who climb for food.

It’s cringe to call climbing art. It’s a skillful physical activity which involves different aspects of fitness: mobility, strength, flexibility. Nothing artistic about it, even if somebody is performing at a high level

It's a part of your unique, amazing journey. 

I've thought that Zen and the art of climbing might have made an impact, especially during the 1970s. Chouinard wrote a short piece on it for my book long ago and there have been a couple of books since, including a recent one by Francis Sanzaro, but it has received very limited acknowledgments from climbers. However, Eastern religions are not as popular now as they were forty or fifty years ago.  I suppose if there had been a market for such interpretations of the sport John Long might have written a book about it, since he studied Zen seriously and for a long period. He might have pointed to an experience of enlightenment that could have been profound - but he didn't and perhaps wouldn't. 

I've always felt - after my experiences in gymnastics - that the sensation of flow was as important as any other reward. But I couldn't convince any of my peers of this back in the day, and it's not something one would bring up seriously today. I spent a lot more time up in the air soloing than I did on boulders, and that was where I found flow with the least effort. On boulders it was more difficult to cultivate and clashed with competitive instincts when with others. A point not easily reached without repetitions and effort. 

All those things from the past that linger on in a few memory cells among life's vagaries . . .

 Sport climbing is neither, trad climbing is both but can be more of one or the other, free soloing and ice climbing is art. 

Maybe I missed it somewhere in the previous posts, but I don’t recall seeing addiction/obsession being mentioned. It is for some.

It's different things to different people.  What it is to one person should not matter to another.  

It's a warning signal to other people -here ahead lies tedium and self-importance. It's a way to spend money on trinkets.  

option 3 , an addiction 

So many good descriptions here. Is it art? It certainly fits the definition of Process Art, which emphasizes the experience of the doing.
Definitely FEELS creative to me.  And certainly placing gear (or bolts) should demonstrate craftsmanship.  Is it a sport? For some perhaps; but I'm not even on the score card, so I'm going with obsessive activity/hobby.  (Probably what June M just said, but healthier than the usual connotations.)

Climbing is synthesized adversity 

John Gillwrote:

I've thought that Zen and the art of climbing might have made an impact, especially during the 1970s. Chouinard wrote a short piece on it for my book long ago and there have been a couple of books since, including a recent one by Francis Sanzaro, but it has received very limited acknowledgments from climbers. However, Eastern religions are not as popular now as they were forty or fifty years ago.  I suppose if there had been a market for such interpretations of the sport John Long might have written a book about it, since he studied Zen seriously and for a long period. He might have pointed to an experience of enlightenment that could have been profound - but he didn't and perhaps wouldn't. 

I've always felt - after my experiences in gymnastics - that the sensation of flow was as important as any other reward. But I couldn't convince any of my peers of this back in the day, and it's not something one would bring up seriously today. I spent a lot more time up in the air soloing than I did on boulders, and that was where I found flow with the least effort. On boulders it was more difficult to cultivate and clashed with competitive instincts when with others. A point not easily reached without repetitions and effort. 

All those things from the past that linger on in a few memory cells among life's vagaries . . .

Hey John--long time no talk! Well, not too long. I think eastern religions, or at least their awareness, might be more popular writ large, but perhaps less so in the climbing community. I'm not sure, as I wasn't around in the 70s when it was in the water. Largo and I have spoken about Zen a bunch, but, yea, I'm not sure why he never addressed it head on. I think your observation about flow is an interesting one, and I talk about it a lot in The Zen of Climbing...I do think your idea is more applicable to easier soloing, since grinding out attempts or beta on a hard project hardly puts one into flow. I think different aspects of climbing are alive today than they were decades ago...but I think you and I have an interesting disagreement about "what climbers could/should seek." For me, flow is important, and nice to have--I've had a lot of those experiences on and off the crags--but I also think what is more satisfying, and lets us improve faster, is not to chase the conditions that optimize our bodies and minds for flow, but the conditions that optimize us for real joy in the craft, getting unattached, less frustrated, less anxiety, less nerves, less fear of failure, etc. I think achieving these things is more important to a climber, since you can always have them, whereas flow arrives on its own schedule, and is unpredictable. Plus, I think if you can master your mind in climbing, or at least understand it with nuance, flow comes more often. Added bonus. 

Francis Sanzarowrote:

Hey John--long time no talk! Well, not too long. .  .  .  I think eastern religions, or at least their awareness, might be more popular writ large, but perhaps I think different aspects of climbing are alive today than they were decades ago...but I think you and I have an interesting disagreement about "what climbers could/should seek." For me, flow is important, and nice to have--I've had a lot of those experiences on and off the crags--but I also think what is more satisfying, and lets us improve faster, is not to chase the conditions that optimize our bodies and minds for flow, but the conditions that optimize us for real joy in the craft, getting unattached, less frustrated, less anxiety, less nerves, less fear of failure, etc. I think achieving these things is more important to a climber, since you can always have them, whereas flow arrives on its own schedule, and is unpredictable. Plus, I think if you can master your mind in climbing, or at least understand it with nuance, flow comes more often. Added bonus. 

Good point, Francis. If I had not been so engrossed in gymnastics on the rope and rings long ago I might not have thought much of flow. But getting up the rope really fast and fluidly and without feeling a strain, or doing a giant swing on the still rings so fluidly it seems part of you made big impressions with me. When I was in Chicago in 1958-59, I'd go up to Devils Lake with a crew from the university, including, I seem to recall, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who became a world authority on flow and the autotelic personality. 

"...lets us improve faster, is not to chase the conditions ..." isn't quite it, however. It simply comes with repetitions and focus. I don't think I've ever really chased anything. Bob Williams once told me I was an anomaly and needed to exhibit more drive.  . And recently I was told that Jan Conn before she passed away commented that she and Herb were a little anxious about making a FA in the Needles since I might be showing up and take the prize. I don't recall anything like that, having that as a goal. Curious, what others see in us.

John Gillwrote:

Good point, Francis. If I had not been so engrossed in gymnastics on the rope and rings long ago I might not have thought much of flow. But getting up the rope really fast and fluidly and without feeling a strain, or doing a giant swing on the still rings so fluidly it seems part of you made big impressions with me. When I was in Chicago in 1958-59, I'd go up to Devils Lake with a crew from the university, including, I seem to recall, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who became a world authority on flow and the autotelic personality. 

"...lets us improve faster, is not to chase the conditions ..." isn't quite it, however. It simply comes with repetitions and focus. I don't think I've ever really chased anything. Bob Williams once told me I was an anomaly and needed to exhibit more drive.  . And recently I was told that Jan Conn before she passed away commented that she and Herb were a little anxious about making a FA in the Needles since I might be showing up and take the prize. I don't recall anything like that, having that as a goal. Curious, what others see in us.

I think gymnastic-style rope climbing really does lend itself to a physiology of repetition, a repetitive grace, a rhythm, where starts, stops, hesitations, reshuffling and so on are not optimal to perform...whereas in hard climbing these things are to be expected, and arguably required. 

A really hard send by a really hard climber contains lots of mistakes and miscalculations, though they can often be masked in how we manage them in our subconscious. In other words, we might not notice them, but imperfection is always, always there. The trick is managing imperfection and not letting it be labeled as failure, since once that happens, a downward spiral always occurs. About this line, "...lets us improve faster, is not to chase the conditions ..." for me, I still think we can have our cake and eat it too. We can get better, climb hard and be awkward and scream and perform and still be in a mental space of ease, facility, poise, etc. This space resembled big mind in Zen philosophy (hence the book). The desire to inhabit a flow state isn't the same as climbing hard. In fact, if you are deliberately trying to chase a flow state on a hard climb, you might be doing yourself a disservice. I think you and I are perhaps--and this is what's awesome about climbing--working from different base value systems, which is to ask, what is the value in climbing? What can we, should we, ultimately expect from it? We can of course, just go to a crag, talk shit and send...but that's like going to Everest Basecamp and playing video games.

I like where this is going! Which, as a bit of an aside, might be the root catalyst in much/most ’climbing’ activity per se ;)

…but wanted to toss in the increasingly proximal, if cringeworthy, thought experiment of climbing in virtual reality as a test case of what the medium means to the practice (and potential message, if it is indeed a form of expression).

Also, is climbing often just…affordable healthcare