The Importance of Mentorship for Growth
How do we learn in the outdoors? A lot of us go through the school of hard knocks.. Having one epic and another until we either become resilient, or scared of our environment. This process is taxing, slow and at times can bring us into dangerous proximity of some very real hazards. If only there was a better way!
The smiles of topping out in a new zone, all while being confident you are on belay!
As climbers continue to flood the indoor climbing spaces, a group of them will also venture beyond those spaces into the outdoors where supervision, guidance, and instruction are all generally less available than the super social setting of the gym space. Leaving those users to navigate this new venture on their own. I was fortunate enough that early on I found someone who had a 10+ year collection of experiences in the outdoor spaces that could show me the ropes so to speak. With that opportunity, I was also capable of growing so much more and so much faster than if I was left to my own devices and just figuring it out with my peers. Sometimes mentors are there to help us with the little things like just showing us where the approach begins, while other times those same leaders can help you analyze the bigger picture risks that you were navigating on the day and help you expand your awareness so that you can become a long standing user of the outdoor spaces, free from the pitfalls of injury or epics.
The issue with peer led mentorship is that in some cases it can be an example of the blind leading the blind. It is typical to have a friend who is so excited by this new adventure of the outdoors that they will doing anything possible to pull their new friends into their new pursuit and on occasion position themselves to know more than they actually might. These instances may feel as if you’re being led down a positive path and gaining valuable instruction, but how do you know for sure? Mistakes happen, and you cannot know what you don’t yet know. Many folks in the outdoor space have stories of close calls from there formative years. Anyone who is teaching you, should be able to answer a series of why and why not questions on the topic at hand with some confidence. You should never be afraid of asking questions, and if you do have questions, seek out answers from qualified sources like ACMG Guides.
