What did you wish you knew when you started climbing?

how many "friends" I'd lose 

Big B wrote:

how many "friends" I'd lose 

I get that 

Bill foster wrote:

Hey I’m a new climber and I was wondering if people had some wisdom to share and what you wish you knew when you started rock climbing.

Nothing. Best to figure it out for yourself, then you’ll understand it all more thoroughly. Too much dogma out there.

I wish I had the wisdom of 15+ years of more life experience, so I could have better meshed with my mentor.  

I was young.  I didn't get it.  I just didn't appreciate his vision as much as I should have in the moment.

It's such a shame that youth is wasted on the young.

But, now that I know, I know, and I have to rely on that strength, as physical strength ebbs.   And use that to be more effective than I was.  To be better for it.

i wish i would have known that

-some easy bouldering at the rock gym would lead to autobelay. and having to buy a harness  

autobelay would lead to top roping at the gym. and having to buy some device thing and carabiners  

top roping at the gym would lead to lead climbing at the gym. which leads to having to buy a rope  

lead climbing at the gym would lead to top roping outside. ok  we’re good  

top roping outside would lead to leading outside. which leads to buying draws and slings and carabiney things. 

leading outside leads to multipitch. which leads to more slings and biners. 

multipitch would lead to trad. which means nuts and cams and more aluminum things. 

yeah. if someone told me all that. i would have said they were super dumb….  but ya know what…

Femenine mystique, long term outlook for SSI, coding

I wish I had just gone bouldering to begin with.

I wish I had known about Mountain Project. No better source for information. 

Invest in people. Be a good belayer and friend. Your climbing partners/ friends are very important when it comes to the satisfaction level of your climbing day or climbing trip. Climbing with people who really care about you and share lots of laughters is way more important than chasing grades.

Consider the beauty of the climbing area and quality of movements over grades.

Most climbing areas have really good trails nearby to explore on "rest" days

Have you ever noticed that you research something online for hours, looking through reddit, different messaging boards and forums to find something? How many times have you done that, and once you found the answer to what you were looking for, did you make a post summarizing your findings to help someone else save time? Maybe it was something as simple as getting a stain out of your shirt or finding a climb on MP. 

I ask that because it's worth thinking about for climbing. Think about how many more climbs there are in the world, that just haven't been reported and shared. Think about what might cause someone to share that information. 

I would tell my younger self to ask people more questions in person, look for more climbs, explore the outdoors, and avoid taking too much advice from people online that spray information. Although it's almost always a great start, often times what's shared is limited and doesn't really paint the full picture. Whether that's information about gear, training, or finding climbs, the internet will never provide you all of the information you need.

For more specific notes,

There is no "best" piece of gear or shoe or harness or training method or anything. Most serious climbers have a quiver of shoes, gear, and training exercises to match each situation. Starting out you will probably buy gear that works for everything, but eventually you will want to specify everything depending on what motivates you to climb. You can even get into the niche differences between belay devices and what might be best for each situation, the world of specializing is endless.

If you have difficulty trying shoes, you can call the manufacturer, post something on r/climbingshoes, or buy online and return what doesn't fit.  

Once you start to plateau with aimlessly climbing, you'll want to specify on your weaknesses and build training plans around your 'low hanging fruit'. It's a good idea to start off with a paid training plan so you can understand what works and how to build your own training plan. Once you do one, you will probably not need to pay for another one and can become self sufficient.

Learn techniques; but, it’s more important to thoroughly and flexibly understand systems. There are usually 100 ways to do it right and 1,000 ways to do it wrong.

Edit: I wasn’t very clear. I meant learning what to do is important, but fully understanding why you’re doing it is more important. Like understanding why the figure 8 is a good/best option for a purpose, or why you have to plan for forces much higher than your body weight, or what will happen if I fall here and x fails…

Tone Loc wrote:

Learn techniques; but, it’s more important to thoroughly and flexibly understand systems. There are usually 100 ways to do it right and 1,000 ways to do it wrong.

I don't fully agree with this. While it is obviously crucially important to thoroughly dial in basic 'systems', and it is also somewhat dependent on the specifics of the type of climbing one does, but for the vast majority of climbing, there are only a few necessary systems, and most of them are quite straightforward. For some, there is really only one way to 'do it right', and while for others there might be several options, none need to be too complex. I think it is easy for some climbers, especially newer ones, to go down 'rabbit holes' of trying to learn unnecessary, and unnecessarily complicated, systems. Some will eventually need to learn more advanced systems for such aspects as big walling and rope soloing, but these aren't things that one needs to learn when starting out, as this topic posits, and will never really be relevant for many, probably most, climbers.

Learn and 'wire' simple but solid basic systems at first, the rest you can learn later, when and if you become interested in pursuing other, more 'complicated', aspects of the sport.

I wish I spent another 1-2 years climbing a lot of different stuff at lower grade to dial my movements and efficiency, knowledge about climbing systems, and sample different styles and disciplines of climbing rather than pigeon holing into projecting sports climbs. At the beginning, you don't quite understand how the sport interact with your body. It's very easy to out-do what your body can afford, especially if you have some athletic background, stoke and a community of strong/good climbers. You can really brute force your way through some some initial grades (12a for me) with horrendous technique, but the strain you put on your body is not worth it. Wait until your body and mind can afford that!

Sample different styles of climbing is important for both skill development and self discovery. What makes climbing so special even among all mountain sports is the diversity and complexity of movement. Except aid climbing, every single discipline of climbing require you to move well. Even I'm much more stoked about roped climbing, I still spend a lot of time gym  bouldering (and a bit outside) to learn how to move and body awareness. Sports climbing teach me pump management. These help me be much more safe on long multipitch trad climbs (less fatigue, less chance to fall, more stances to place gear and rest). In turn trad climbing taught me skills (stem, jam, lieback, chimney) that I can exploit in a lot of sport routes. Also, when you start climbing, your choice of climbing discipline is heavily influenced by what your friends/mentors are doing, which might not be your most preferable way to enjoy climbing. Different disciplines of climbing are enjoyable in very different way. Most most of my friends back then (and even now) are purely sports climbers. I wish I started trad climbing way earlier through other sources (e.g. guide, mountain clubs)

What makes climbing so special even among all mountain sports is the diversity and complexity of movement. Except aid climbing, every single discipline of climbing require you to move well.

Not to start this argument but efficient movement in aid climbing definitely makes a difference in how a pitch feels. Maybe not in the same way as free climbing but you can watch 2 people climb an aid pitch and the one who does not have the movement down will likely have a way harder time, even if only C1.

I think aid climbing more than anything has taught me about systems and trusting gear. My confidence leading trad and placing small gear has greatly increased since a lot of aid climbing is placing a tiny piece then jumping on it to see if it will rip.

Do you need to be efficient if you are climbing one pitch of C2 on a 15 pitch mostly free route? Probably not. Will an A4 aid climber dispatch that pitch faster than a non aid climber? Probably. Similar to how you learn to control your body, stick moves the first time, and engage muscles to keep your body in the right position when free climbing.

I figured it out relatively quickly but, the importance of finding climbing partners who are of the same mindset as you in terms of goals. Plenty of people climb purely for fun, they're very risk averse, and progression isn't a priority - and that is totally ok if that's you. 

I'm the opposite though and it made a massive difference once I aligned myself with people who treat training seriously, who want to take this as far as they can, and who have really big goals like I do. The rate of my progress and improved abilities skyrocketed once I started climbing with people who push themselves equally hard.