The very first time you work a new project, you have no idea what to expect, so it’s a good idea to scan the whole thing to see what is in store. You’re going to be working this project for a while, so doing some recon isn’t really that much trouble.

This very first project burn (a burn is an attempt), you shift away from the overarching goal of sport climbing, which is to actually complete the route. Instead you simply commit to going bolt to bolt. Essentially, you set your expectations so low that any movement upward is viewed as a win. At this stage we’re not trying to do the route, we’re just working out the moves.

Anything that you find out about the route is good, be it, “Oh man, I think I could do that thing!” (in about 2 months), or “Nah…screw that route, it’s tweaky,” (meaning you will probably injure yourself on it, and then fall into self-loathing because you have to sit out the season to recover, which takes you to a different sport, and because we’re active people, you take up something like mountain biking, only to injure yourself further. Meaning you have to sit out even more, so you just have to sit there in an endless cycle contemplating your life choices, and drinking yourself to sleep.) I know that seems like a super specific example, but unfortunately too many of our climbing partners have fallen victim to biking. Just don’t do it.

Shifting your mindset to “going bolt to bolt” is at the heart of what it means to dog your way through a route. At this stage, it’s not about climbing — that will come later — it’s about how well you can figure shit out, how well can you aid past difficult sections. Aid climbing is when climbers stand or hang on protection to haul themselves up, pulling on gear, not the rock.

This skill is critical as you hang dog your way through your climbing projects, and, honestly, through life.

People always do it the hard way, like they’re trying to prove something. They climb up and fall, climb up and fall. Sometimes you need help. And that’s okay. We all need help.

It doesn’t matter how hard the route is, you should remember that there is always a big hold — the quickdraw itself. “Just grab the jug,” we’ll say, or, “That’s the jug!” when they do grab the draw. A jug is what we call larger holds. Starting out, we often don’t see this as an option, because we are so focused on following the rules to complete the route without falling or weighting the rope.

There are many ways to get the rope up to the next bolt, but in this example, we’ll assume that you “climb” up to it. So you do a couple moves, usually grabbing the obvious holds that you can see, then, once you can reach the draw, you grab the webbing, and clip the rope into draw. Your belayer takes and you just hang on the rope.

At this point, you can lower back down to your previous bolt and work that entire last section that you pulled past on top rope.

Why is this skill so critical? There are several reasons: You can’t always see all of the holds from below. Sometimes they are hidden. Sometimes you have to figure out a specific body position, foot placement, precise way of wiggling your fingers into the holds.

My entire world exists in these 10-foot sections of rock, going bolt to bolt. That is it. I can’t think about the entire route. What am I going to do when I get to the top, the other 80 feet, and oh, right, the crux moves too. No, that doesn’t exist in my world yet.

In project climbing nothing else matters except what is right in front of you at that moment. You have to learn to let the rest of the noise go.

The other major reason to dog your way through is stress or fear. You don’t see all of the options when you are freaking out and worried that you are going to fall. You go with the first option, and if you stick the move, well, that’s the way you’re going to do it from then on, whether it’s the best way or not; it’s the only way you know how to do it.

By dogging your way through, and lowering back down, you are able to look at the moves objectively, see all of the options. Try a few different ways, this is where the body positioning really comes into play. You find the right way for you in a calm, stress-free environment. That’s what you must create.

As you work on your projects, ask yourself, “How can I dog my way through the difficult parts, the parts that aren’t immediately apparent, and lower back down into the problem? How can I remove the stress that is limiting my ability to see all of the options, and by removing that fear begin to see a wider range of possibilities?” Because absent fear, you are free to create.