Gift Cards Contact Us

Chatham, NJ

May 2024 - Adult Classes

Month List
Thursday, May 30, 2024
5:30pm ~ 9:30pm
The Warrior Way - Falling and Commitment Clinic
Chatham, NJ

 

Mental Training clinic for climbers! Diminish fear of falling and improve commitment.

 

Clinic Description: This 4-hour gym clinic on climbing mental training teaches you how to become comfortable falling and making moves before reaching a rest stance with the goal of sending more routes and having more fun climbing. This training addresses falling directly to help improve commitment. We do progressive falling practice, followed by movement, breathing, resting, and body/mind awareness exercises. Finally, students apply everything to a goal route. Students leave understanding how to fall, how to take appropriate risks, and how to commit better to those risks. 

You’ll learn to:
• Fall safely
• Give a dynamic (cushioned) belay
• Break a climb into smaller risk events
• Assess risks effectively
• Distinguish between no- and yes-fall zones
• Engage no- and yes-fall zones appropriately
• Make appropriate risk decisions
• Improve body and mind awareness
• Rest effectively
• Improve breathing
• Create flow and momentum
• Deal with climbing stress
• Commit more deliberately
• Reduce fear, and more

Instructor Bio:

Dustin Portzline is your instructor, and he shares insights gained during thousands of days on a rope. Together, you'll form a team to assess and manage risk while you receive real-time feedback and tips for improving your movement and technical skills from an accomplished climber.  Dustin has been living and guiding in the Gunks since 2010. Born in Chicago and raised in central Pennsylvania, he discovered climbing in his teens and has never looked back. Years of technical training, immersion in the climbing lifestyle and varied natural landscapes has given Dustin an intimate understanding of the challenges and rewards inherent in climbing. An AMGA Certified Rock Guide, New York State Licensed Guide and Wilderness First Responder, he lives in Gardiner, NY with his wife Amelia and their talus hound Chloe.

The Warrior's Way teaches how to focus attention under stress, which allows climbers to better deal with doubts and improve commitment in their climbing. This clinic develops skills by practicing exercises in falling (introduced in small increments creating appropriate progressions), awareness, movement, breathing, and resting. All skills learned will be applied to a challenging route during the clinic, the take-away is a structured method for engaging risk with diminished fear.

 

Member Investment - $100

Non-Member Investment - $125