Podcast

Ep. 11 - Psyched on the Psyche: Performance Psychology & the Ethics of Development with Tom Beirne

Aaron Gerry

on Dec 20, 2023

• 2 min read

You don't rise to your level of expectation but fall to your level of training.

🧊 About the episode

In today’s episode with Tom Beirne, we talk about the psychology of performance and the ethics of developing a new drytooling crag.

Tom doesn’t love labels — and definitely don’t call him the drytooling guy — but to help paint a picture he’s a mixed climber from Seattle who especially enjoys questing, runs The Barn, a dry-tooling gym, helped to develop Wayne’s World, a dry-tooling crag, and is a former high-level collegiate athlete and World Cup competitor… in dry-tooling.

Through all of his experiences he’s been fascinated by the psychology of learning, training and performance — especially as it relates to exploring choss piles or competing. As Tom quotes in our chat, “you don't rise to your level of expectation, but fall to your level of training”.

Interested in how to raise your own level of training and rise to the occasion? Listen on.

And I just remember suffering, just trying to understand how pick torques work and how my crampons were staying on. And I just, in the same way as trying to onsite a route, getting in trouble and having to figure it out. Your mind is on fire and just accepting it and being like, this is fine, this is okay. Let's figure it out. It just lit a spark for me.

🧊 Resources and links

In the area and looking to climb at Wayne's World? This is the Mountain Project page. And here is an article with both Wayne and Kyle talking more about the development.

Ready to dive into your own motivations and psychology when it comes to climbing? Tom was greatly influenced by Arno Ilgner's "The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers".

Lastly, a big thanks to Kyle for offering a few Ice Screw Cannons for this episode's giveaway. To learn more about his speciality climbing gear, including ultralight backpacks, aid ladders, and portaledge system, head to highmtngear.com.

You can connect with Tom:

📸 @tom.beirne

🧊 Credits

Intro music by Hannah Noelle Enomoto (thanks, sis!).

🧊 Sponsors:

Big thanks to our sponsors for supporting this show!

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