We all have our specific way of doing what we do, especially the things we love to do or do a lot. Maybe our knowledge is widely known; maybe it’s hidden information. In climbing we call information about a route beta. This one word represents a huge body of knowledge and years of cumulative personal and community wisdom. I’m not really sure how this term made it into climbing lingo. I can tell you that it’s the second letter in the Greek alphabet, and in the case of climbing, refers to second hand information about a route, climb, or move. Any information that I relay to you from my primary experience is called beta.

When a climber is working out moves on a route I’ve done, they might ask me, “Hey, what’s your beta there?” What they are asking is, what’d you do? How’d you do that?

This term has a comical way of bleeding into other aspects of our lives. This past year, I had to tell my brother that he was banned from the house because he had upset the Wife (who lives by the wise words of Miss Manners). Last Thanksgiving he showed up for dinner in a Bhutanese Buddhist monk robe, soccer shorts, and an Astrakhan hat, while the rest of us were dressed up (not in costume). It also didn’t help that for weeks before he badgered her to change the menu, to prepare a deep fried turkey rather than her traditional turkey. When told I him to apologize and that she was sensitive to these formal situations, he responded, “Thanks for the beta!”

This is funny, because it’s as though my wife is a Rubik’s Cube, some sort of puzzle or route that with the right information, the right beta, can be figured out.

Beta is key information, it is The Way, like the Tao.

Beta unlocks the mysteries of a route. Little Si, the area where I climb, is notoriously difficult to read, meaning that you can’t tell what to do on a route just by looking at it. All of the holds are hidden behind the features in the rock, and the feet are difficult to see because of the grey/white colors of the wall. These sorts of areas, we’ll say, are beta intensive.

There are other climbing areas where the moves are more obvious–the chalk that we use on our hands (to dry the sweat) indicates the key holds with its perfect white halo, and the black rubber from our shoes gets caked on to key feet. True we don’t use every hold, we’ll still need to find our way through the maze of holds–our own beta–but it is easier to find the way.

Over the years I have had many insights into the nature of beta as I attempt to answer the question, “How do people do things?”

I can tell you exactly how to do a route, how to do a move. I can tell you how to climb 5.14, how to start a business, how to do successful projects, solve interesting problems, get everything that you want, but that doesn’t mean that you can do it. Why? Because YOU are the one that has to do the work. And knowing the path is not the same as walking the path.

I can’t climb the route for you. No one can. You have to do it. What’s that mean? Well, it means a few things:

It means that you have to find your way of hauling your ass up that problem. If you’re 5-foot-nothing, you won’t be able to do it my way (use my beta) because I’m 5′ 10” with a plus 4 1/2 ape index.

A short aside: Rock climbers are obsessed with the length of their wingspan because we have to constantly reach for holds just out of reach. We call this height-to-wingspan ratio an ape index. They are supposed to be equal, but it’s rarely the case. You can check your ape index by spreading your arms against the wall, from floor to as high as you can reach, really getting every last bit, and then marking the tip of your middle finger on the wall (it also helps if you have a buddy assist you, but you can do it solo.) Then stand under the mark. The distance (in inches) between this mark and your height is your ape index. Keep in mind that this number can be positive or negative. There are benefits to both, but we’ll talk more about that in a later post about strengths.

Because of our differences, we all have to find alternative ways of doing the same moves. Too often we get caught up in the subjectivity of the grades (as in difficulty of a route, move, or task). We argue at length with others and ourselves about which way is easier or best.

But it doesn’t really matter, does it? All of that is irrelevant in the end. If you really want to do something, it doesn’t matter how someone else did it, or that it was easier for them. Because that doesn’t answer the real question, which is how the hell are you going to do it?

The beta is there, you just have to find the way … your way.