THIS seemed like sheer craziness: a man climbing more than 900 metres up a granite wall without ropes or a safety harness to catch him. A mistake literally meant falling to death.
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Taking a closer look at home he did it, actually provides incredible insight into what makes an elite athlete so fiercely powerful.
This was supreme focus and drive.
Experienced Californian climber Alex Honnold set a world record, some dub the moon landing of free-soloing, when he became the first to scale Yosemite’s El Capitan granite formation without aid earlier this week.
He did so, via the most difficult route Freerider, in less than four hours.
Honnold had dedicated about six or seven years to a project many expert climbers had deemed impossible.
His ability to control fear appears so unmatched that neuroscientists have studied his brain, according to National Geographic. Hannold told the magazine he felt fear, but feeling it on a climb hindered his performance. So, he puts fear aside.
Detailed, almost obsessive-like preparation complete, the climb is now mental.
This is the zone.
This is what keeps distance runners turning their legs over. This is how athletes in technical sports, scored for difficulty, pull off shock new moves.
In sports like tennis, it can be the fight. Relentless pursuit, belief and maintaining the hunger in that, until match point is won, tennis can be anyone’s game.
Perhaps mastering the mental game is the difference between great player and greatness – tennis players like Nick Kyrgios not quite reaching the levels that we can see, from they game, they have the potential to achieve.
There is that moment when you can see it in an athlete’s eyes, in all levels of sport, when they look like they could run through a brick wall. Nothing could sway them
For Honnold, many commentators describe a calmness.
But, even Honnold says he felt tension.
“At the bottom I was slightly nervous. I mean it’s a freaking big wall above you,” Honnold told National Geographic when asked his state of mind during the climb in a rare interview after the El Capitan climb.
It is Honnold’s confidence in knowing what feels right and how far he can push himself, backed up by decades of experience, that ultimately guides him upwards.
There were intricate parts with holes barely big enough to wedge a thumb. There were passages likened to walking on glass...vertically.
While Honnold’s feat was extreme the principles translate to sport and life.
Work hard, train hard, really know what you have to do then go out there and achieve a dream.
This might not make you want to get cozy with a cliff-face anytime soon. But this feat should serve as motivation to achieve your goal, whether that be training for a triathlon or plotting out a realistic exercise plan in winter.
Then sticking to it.
Part way up, Hannold started considering his next challenge and how he wanted to test his mind and body further.