The Rock Warrior’s Way, by Arno Ilgner – Book Review by Kalyanee Mam
The Rock Warrior’s Way has been recommended to me for quite some time now but somehow I always hesitated picking it up until a month ago a friend encouraged me to grab a copy at Nomad Ventures in Joshua Tree. I’m not a huge fan of instructional books that claim to offer quick and easy answers to how to do things, preferring to learn based on my own direct experiences. The Rock Warrior’s Way by Arno Ilgner shows the path to learning is this – taking appropriate risks to grow and expand your zone of comfort.
The Rock Warrior’s Way doesn’t focus on what you can do to become a better climber but rather on how to approach climbing in order to be the best climber you can possibly be, for yourself.
What I love about this book is how universal it is. The basic tenets of the Rock Warrior’s Way are basic tenets that can be followed in any pursuit that will lead you to grow and learn in your life – be prepared, take action, and while in action, embrace and live fully in the challenge, focusing on the journey and not the destination. I found the Rock Warrior’s Way helping me work through my fears in climbing and in life.
I come from a family of seven children. We immigrated to the United States in 1981 after fleeing and surviving the ruthless Khmer Rouge Regime, who took the lives of over 2 million people in Cambodia. I grew up in California’s Central Valley with immigrants from all over the world, but with no connection to my homeland except for the traditional foods my Mom prepared and the Khmer language she spoke with us growing up. And although Stockton was considered the gateway to Yosemite, I grew up in a concrete, suburban landscape filled with strip malls and large warehouse shopping centers. Our family couldn’t afford to travel or take family vacations. Sports or any extracurricular activities that took us away from our studies didn’t make sense to my parents. They brought us to this country not to have fun, but to do well in school and get the best grades. And we were expected to do well in order to succeed and “get to the top”. Our parents wanted us to belong, to be accepted, and recognized by others in a way they felt they could never be accepted in a country that did not value their Cambodian accent, their previous life experiences, or even their Cambodian name. In school, I entered one competition after another. I was taught that if I performed well, I would be rewarded with ribbons, medals, and honors. I quickly learned to associate my performance with my self-worth.
Over time, after getting into the best colleges, winning accolades and awards, I learned that this competitive, performance-based lifestyle was not only unhealthy and unsustainable, it was sucking away at my life-force. I was doing things out of duty and obligation and the need to be accepted and recognized by others rather than for the true love of learning. My body literally became sick.
In the Rock Warrior’s Way, Arno writes about this toxic mindset. Many of us grew up conditioned by our caretakers to associate our performance with external validation. If we did good, we were told we were good. If we did bad, we were told we were bad. Later in life, even without our caretakers our ego continues to nag at us, reminding us our self worth is conditioned upon our ability to perform. This plays out most vigorously in climbing. We feel super proud of ourselves when we can top out a 5.10 at the gym. We beat ourselves up when we can’t complete a 5.11 “clean”. We may be afraid to try something more challenging or “beyond our grade” if we “know” we can’t complete it.
Same outdoors. We’re super proud when we can lead a 5.8 multi pitch, but ask ourselves why we can’t lead a 5.9 like everyone else around us. As if “everyone else” is our gold standard. Arno calls these, self-limiting thoughts, that sap our power and really don’t teach us anything.
The rock warrior’s way is to be motivated not by a need to perform, excel, succeed or self-limiting thoughts that compare us to others, but by a love for climbing and learning and improving our skills so that we can expand our power to learn more about ourselves and the world around us. Arno calls this the path to LOVE. What’s interesting to me is that in Khmer, we call it តាមផ្លូវចិត្ត tam phlauv chett or to follow the path to your heart. The inverse, ខូចផ្លូវចិត្ត khauch phlauv chett, when the path to your heart has been broken, means depression.
Climbing with love is the rock warrior’s way. Be motivated by love and unquenchable curiosity. And instead of asking what can I get from this climb the rock warrior’s way reminds us to ask ourselves, “What can I give?” What gifts can I offer? What skills, techniques, and wisdom do I already have to make this climb possible? And if I don’t have the skills, how can I learn and prepare myself to climb what feels challenging and impossible? Preparation and possibility are ways to alleviate fear and expand your zone of comfort.
Once you have assessed your gifts and you are committed to climb, the rock warrior’s way is to COMMIT 100%, to climb “impeccably” with “unbending intent”, not looking back and not even looking forward at the belay station on top, but looking with soft eyes all around, allowing your eyes and your breath, which instinctively knows how to bring your body to balance, to guide you to the most balanced position possible.
As you climb, the rock warrior’s way is to LISTEN – to the rock, to the edges and holds, to the breath that flows through your blood, to your body that holds the wisdom of your subconscious and trust it will carry you through. In a state of “relaxed concentration” you learn to keep your “attention focused on the present chaos” and to dampen the whispers that may creep up in your consciousness and distract you away from your present purpose.
“When the conscious mind is engaged in thinking, a gap is created between your body and your mind. Fear enters through that gap, and attention leaks out.”
Arno calls the listening, loving, curious and engaged mind the JOURNEY mindset. “The Journey mindset is love-based and ready to engage the risk. It’s not rooted in escape or avoidance as destination thinking is. When you love the challenge, you freely give your attention to it. You are in tune with the flow of the experience. You aren’t fighting it, avoiding it, or wanting to end it.”
My climbing journey began over two decades ago with friends. Our first climb was at Stony Point, the birthplace of climbing, then Pt Dume and Echo Cliffs in Malibu. I remember climbing in Joshua Tree one night by the light of the moon, and I felt I had fallen in love. What was this thing that allowed me to touch and be so close to the rock that I could even taste it? I remember saying to myself, “I could climb and only climb for the rest of my life and I would be so happy.”
Unfortunately, for nearly two decades after that, I didn’t listen to this love that I felt deep in my bones, led astray and distracted from my heart by my ambitions, duties, and obligations… until now.
This spring, I climbed After Six, my first multi-pitch climb in Yosemite Valley with an all women team. This summer we climbed to the top of Cathedral Peak, a mountain I’ve been admiring from below for nearly twenty years.
My husband and I met in Yosemite 18 years ago and every summer we make our annual pilgrimage to the high Sierra. I remember our first drive up to Tuolumne Meadows that summer we met. We were stunned by the granite peaks that loomed above us, Tenaya Lake just below us. At first the Sierra was a place I could admire for its beauty. Over the years, I learned to taste the land and to orient myself to the mountains and rivers, flowers and trees, and the birds and animals that make their home here.
As we climbed Cathedral we were greeted by phlox, wooly sunflower, and penstemon that had already faded, an aging lodgepole pine, and on the belay ledge before the last pitch, we munched on delicious mountain currants. On the way down I could see clearly where the lodgepole pine forest ended and the white bark pine forest began. I was amongst friends. I felt totally safe and at home.
I realized all these years looking up at Cathedral, I didn’t want to just climb a peak. I wanted to hug the rock and feel its warmth against my body. I wanted to reach a perspective I would not see otherwise so that I could orient myself to this place.
This is the Rock Warrior’s Way – to embrace climbing as a way of life, a way of learning and growing with the world around you.
“Accept the journey. Be at peace in it. Watch it. When you can be at one with the difficulty and the chaos, then you transcend it. You simply walk your path, being observant, paying attention, learning and growing in your understanding of who you are and what is possible for you. Approached in the Warrior’s way, the rock will teach you.”
I also realize none of this would’ve been possible without the support of a community to encourage me to get on and stay on the rock. Alejandra Rodriguez founded the Women’s Lead Club in Santa Rosa, CA just a couple years ago and invited me and many of us to join. Her enthusiasm and stoke was contagious. Since then, the club has grown to nearly 200 members and has become a source of friendship, mentorship, and dream building. I absolutely believe I would not be the climber and the human being I am today without this loving and supportive community.
What I would add to the Rock Warrior’s Way is that the climbing journey, like all the journeys we take in life, doesn’t have to be a solo one. We can be rock warriors, climbing in community with others and learning and growing together, uplifting each other, trusting that we are not alone. In Khmer the word for trust is ទុកចិត្ត toukchett, which means to place your heart in something or someone. Trust therefore requires our heart to be in a relationship with something beyond ourselves. .
Every day I place my heart on the rock, on the earth that is my home, and in this community that has become my home too. And I climb with a love to learn, grow, and expand this heart.
I end with a beautiful quote from The Rock Warrior’s Way that guides me in climbing and in the way I choose to live my life for the rest of my life:
“When you love something, attention is automatically focused in the moment because there is no other place you’d rather be.”
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