The Ultra Performance Musician: Lessons from Climbing Legend Lynn Hill

Lynn Hill is among the greatest rock climbers of all time.

-Jon Krakauer

Photo credit: John Bachar

When Lynn Hill agreed to be interviewed for this project, I was reminded of seeing her climbing posters on the wall at Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder, Colorado in the 1990s. I was inspired by her, not just as an amazing climber, but also as a trailblazer for women. Watching her videos, I was amazed by Hill’s fearless moves and strength on extreme pitches.

While living in Boulder in my twenties, I realized that rock climbing and the clarinet were not compatible. Choosing the latter, I took Hill’s inspiration with me into my concerts. She exemplified a fearlessness and intensity that reminded me to take chances in performances and to keep it all in perspective.

Starting climbing at age 14 in California, Hill went on to become one of the greatest legends of her sport. Her record-breaking one-day free climbing ascent of the Nose, a majestic, sheer route on Yosemite's El Capitan, remains one of the most significant feats in climbing history. (Free climbing refers to the use of ropes for safety purposes only and not to assist in climbing.)

https://gripped.com/profiles/lynn-hill-freed-el-cap-in-a-day-30-years-ago/

 This endeavor took incredible mental and physical fortitude, attributes that also define a great musician. In the film, Valley Uprising (https://www.redbull.com/us-en/films/valley-uprising), the climber Conrad Anker said of the Nose, “the next big step was when was it going to be free climbed?” Until Hill’s ascent, the climbing legends of Yosemite had relied on the aid of their equipment to make upward progress. The narrator says, “A free ascent of the Nose would mark the ultimate fulfillment of the free climbing revolution led by the Stone Masters in the 70s.” Conrad Anker goes on to say, “all the most visionary climbers kept going after it, they wanted it. And here’s Lynn and she crushes it. Oh my god, El Cap can be free climbed!”

El Capitan was just one of Hill’s many incredible accomplishments, you can check out more of her career at: https://lynnhillclimbing.com/resume/. Hill is a multi-disciplinarian; taking the lessons of disparate influences into molding her climbing. She attributes much of her success to her experience as a gymnast and runner, as well as her innovative approaches to training. Likewise, our paths as professional musicians can be enriched by a variety of influences.

Speaking to me from her home in Boulder, Colorado, Hill is incredibly warm and generous with her time, especially considering she one of the most esteemed climbers of all time and a sought-after figure beyond her sport. I appreciate the arc of our conversation; starting with practical and physical considerations, Lynn takes me beyond fundamentals, into the idea of flow and the potential for transcendence.

Posture and stretching

We start with the practical issue of skeletal health, something that climbers are well versed in. When playing musical instruments, we invariably make compromises with our posture, often slouching and forgetting to engage our core muscles. We can learn from the climbing community about strengthening the proper muscles for optimal engagement. Hill gives me stretching tips for shoulder alignment that are vital for instrumentalists:

I try not to slouch and to keep my shoulders back. Climbers have this problem where their shoulders get a little bit rounded and hunchbacked, you probably have something similar because you are reading music. You need to open your chest and do a lot of stretching: you can use an exercise ball or other modalities. You need flexible and well-coordinated intelligent muscle, functional flexibility is very important.

Avoiding injury

Though what we are doing involves less physical risk than big wall climbers or freedivers, musicians are still subject to injuries. A commonality between climbing and musical training is repetition, so I ask Hill how to avoid injury.

That's a tough one. Usually, things like tendonitis or tendinopathy happen when you are using your fingers and forearms too much and when you're not massaging your muscles enough. You can use a ball to massage your arms. If I have tension in my forearms that I can feel, I try to loosen up those knots in the muscle. It's not really knots, but trigger points. Tendonitis is hard for you as a musician because if you have to perform that night, you just have to do it. You need to stay active but not push it too far because you'll never get better. You'll never get ahead of it if you can't rest it and do enough massage.

But you do have to keep playing because there are people that stop cold turkey and don't do anything when they have an injury. They don't even really pay attention to it. They just think resting is good, but it doesn't get better like that. When you have tendinopathy you need to stretch and strengthen but not overdo it.

And drink a glass of water. 

The topic of injury avoidance is often avoided in musical training but should become part of our standard curriculum. We can avoid injuries, such as tendonitis, by addressing injuries in their nascent stages, and incorporating techniques such as self-massage and stretching to keep them from advancing.

The importance of form

Another way to prevent injury and to enhance performance is to pay attention to form. Just like a climber, musicianship starts with proper technique polished daily through scales and other rudimentary exercises. In her Introduction to the Fundamentals of Climbing, Hill says that in regards to form, she has been able to avoid injury because she uses a “reasonable approach and efficient movement patterns.” She goes on to say, “form is so important, I call it technique and it’s basically respecting the biomechanics of how your joints and muscles function.”

About injury avoidance, Hill says,

Your shoulders are really important in climbing. People throw themselves uncontrollably at the next handhold and when they catch the hold, they're not engaged in the right position or alignment with their muscles and joints. This can cause them to rip their shoulders and potentially have tears in their rotator cuffs. Once you get tears, they are difficult to heal if you keep active and never allow the chance to rest. This could become more of a chronic injury and people end up having a lot of arthritis in their shoulders because they're not using them properly. If you don't use your joints properly, they're going to start going downhill and won't get better.

Obviously, technique is extremely important and sometimes it's just how you're born. Maybe your biomechanics aren't perfect and, some people end up having to get hip replacement surgeries later in their life because they already had something that was off in their joint and then they weren't able to offset that by the way that they use their body. So many injuries come from using bad technique.

Preparation

I ask Hill what was her preparation was like for her epic climbs on the Nose in 1993 and 1994. She discusses the importance of regularity and cross training, bringing everything to bear for that one big day. There are many commonalities between preparing for the climb and a big concert. What if we took more of an inclusive approach to preparation like Hill does?

I knew it was going to be a big climb and a lot more pitches than I have ever done in a day. It was a very special occasion for me to do that climb. To prepare, I ran five or six days a week. I really wanted to keep my energy output high. I would start out warming up and then I would basically do what I call race pace, which is running at 85 percent capacity, but not 90 percent because that would be more like sprinting. You want to go at a pace that's hard enough but that you are not going to be totally out of breath. You just try to find that sweet pattern between breathing, heart rate, and your rhythm, so that you could just keep going at a high intensity for 45 minutes, an hour, or sometimes more.

For climbing, it was the same concept. I would just climb with a friend. I asked them to belay me throughout the day on as many pitches as I could do. And my mindset was that I would try to climb everything without second guessing myself, without wasting any energy and having confidence that I was going to do it well. It was really more of having faith in my decision- making abilities and staying relaxed. I was just trying to have the mindset of staying relaxed and fluid in my movements.

The incorporation of climbing and training into Hill’s entire life is aspirational for musicians. She trains every aspect of herself, physical and mental. Time allowing, we can also practice our instruments all day long, paying attention to form and relaxation. Practice breaks can turn into physical conditioning, visualization, score study, and incorporating music into all aspects of our lives. This total commitment can give us purpose and make our lives richer, instead of detracting from them. This ethos is exemplified in Hill’s preparation and drive:

Before the Nose, I knew that would need to be in the shape of my life. I began my training cycle in early Spring. I increased my endurance on the rock by climbing as many routes as possible. Throughout the months of preparation, I practiced an attitude of acceptance. No matter what the situation, I made an effort to stay patient and relaxed each step of the way. After numerous pitches on the rock, I supplemented my training by climbing on my wall at home. I did more pitches in terms of movement on my wall, which was steep and pretty much upside down, like the inside of a dome. And I had different angles to adapt to while moving from one wall to another. I got a lot of mileage in. I wanted to overload my body so that I would have the endurance to keep going after a long day of climbing.

Photo credit: Pablo Durana

Training harder

The discussion of preparation lead Hill and I to address the idea of training harder than what we will face in an actual performance or climb. I mention a performer that I knew who would leave an instrument out in his home and would play a worrisome solo every time that he walked through the room. In this way, he normalized the experience of playing that passage on demand all the time, so that in the performance it felt like any other day, just in front of more people. Lynn recounts her preparation:

I wanted to get like marathon runners, they don't run a marathon every day. As they train, they run fifteen to twenty miles, but they don't run the entire distance that they're going to run in the race. I did this but at a higher intensity and with different kinds of climbing movement. If you're on an artificial wall indoors, it's much different than outdoors on a crack on Yosemite granite. I wanted to overload my body in terms of what it would have to deal with under fatigue. My mindset was to try to be as efficient as possible in order to conserve a maximum amount of power. It helps to remind myself that I’ve done all the hard work to prepare for this ascent, which gives me a sense of satisfaction and reinforcement when I’m actually performing like I want. With the person that you mentioned, probably knowing that he had to perform on demand became just like walking through the room. He got used to accepting that, though he wasn’t necessarily warmed up, he was going to hit the notes anyway. And I think that practice is exactly what he needed to do for the performance. He practiced what he was going to have to face, and that's what I did too.

 Boundaries and humility

Early in my profession, I asked older musicians about their trajectories, life/work balance, and the idea of keeping a good average over a long career. The consensus is that there is a definite mental game to what we do. Over decades of keeping a high standard, there is a balancing act of striving for excellence and realistic expectations. I have always been interested in longevity in sport or music careers in particular, where there is a high level of physical prowess and precision required. Many of the athletes that I spoke with as part of this project have many years of experience in their sport. I ask Hill about professional and personal boundaries with her climbing. How do boundaries influence the expectation that she has on herself just because other people expect things from her?

You have to really be clear about why you're doing it and what it really means, and to defend yourself from being devoured by all the requests. But I never allowed arrogance or the expectation of being up on a pedestal. People can start taking their legendary status too seriously. When they believe in their own myth, that's when it becomes dangerous. No matter how good you are with anything, you still have to be humble and understand and accept your true motivations.

Hill’s humility and humanity are refreshing for such a living legend. Her love for climbing and joy for the outdoors have contributed to her longevity in the climbing world. In music, it is likewise important to draw healthy boundaries and expectations. In our training we are taught to sacrifice everything: health, relationships, and finances. For longevity in our field, it is important to define our boundaries in a healthy manner.

Dealing with pressure and nerves

On the subject of healthy boundaries, Hill has a great philosophy on keeping everything in perspective:

You just have to give yourself the benefit of the doubt and to remind yourself that you are a professional. You've put in the time to train and prepare and you are going to do fine. You have to believe in yourself. And even if you do mess up, what's going to happen? Nothing. You can't take it back. If you mess up, just accept it, and learn from your mistakes.

Moment of intent

As our conversation moves into the more metaphysical aspects of climbing, Hill mentions the importance of intention. Throughout The Ultra Performance Musician, one recurring theme is the “moment of intent,” when all the training and preparation turns into action. All musicians recognize the moment: that last breath before a big solo, the delightful silence of an expectant concert hall.

In the video Lynn Hill: Free Climbing the Nose, Hill is at the end of her record-breaking free climb. Exhausted, she has been climbing for almost an entire solid day and is now almost at the top of the three thousand foot climb. Depleted of all energy, she says, “this is it, no more mistakes, do it right now.” This moment of intent is akin to what we experience as musicians, right before a big moment in an audition or performance. Hill’s career is filled with these: the moment when she shifts her weight and commits to a big move. The sheer power of watching her intent in this instant can be tangible inspiration for musicians.

This is the moment that freediver Claire Limouzy Paris had to find as well, before her record-breaking dive. The amazing instant of human resolve, when we decide to go farther, faster, better, and smarter, no matter what. It is a beautiful and clarifying moment before that last breath before a solo, when we are alone in our intent, even if in a crowded concert hall:

We can find examples of this moment with weight lifters:

And archers:

The beauty of the “moment of intent” is that it is free of distractions or chatter. You are alone in the pure essence of the music, or the cliff, or the ocean. There is nothing left to do except for being in the moment. In Eckhart Tolle’s work about living in the present moment he says, “your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself.”

Activities like music or sports can be exquisite for the ability, or even requirement to be fully in the present moment. Through surrender to this immediacy, we can find peace and surrender through our craft. Tolle also says, “Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as you have chosen it."

Transcendence/flow state

In Lynn Hill: Free Climbing the Nose, Hill describes the pay-off for all of our hard work; when we reach our flow state. Having started her famous climb on the Nose at around 10 PM the night before, Hill says,

I arrived at the last strenuous section at nightfall. After barely making it past the last overhanging bulge, I felt an alarming sense of fatigue in my arms. I’d already gone well beyond any sense of fatigue I had ever known, but I knew I could access the necessary energy to keep going, all the way to the top. My dream became reality, as I made the last few steps to the summit. After 23 hours of climbing, I had reached a place of complete peace and serenity.

In Hill’s Introduction to the Fundamentals of Climbing she says,

Since our actions are guided by the mind, it’s clear that our mental state has the greatest impact on our ability to perform. Optimal performance follows when the mind is calm, undistracted, and in a constant state of adaptive focus. One of the biggest distractions that can inhibit our ability to climb naturally is the perception of danger or a sense of fear. There are other mental distractions such as secondary pressures related to the ego, negative self-talk, or other people’s expectations. Accepting our thoughts and feelings and learning to direct our attention to the right things at the right time is the single most important skill of all. Once we achieve the right state of mind, we are able to focus on the more subtle aspects of technique.

Conclusion

One of the most profound lessons from Hill is her fearlessness as a trailblazer. Her refusal to take no for an answer is what drove her to do more than others. Who knows what feats are possible for musicians if we adopt that same mindset? We should never accept the standard way of how things have always been; instead we must be innovating and moving forward.

In the preface to Hill’s Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World, John Long writes,

Mastery is admirable in any field. But when this mastery plays out by slaying gender stereotypes, embracing primal terrors (always a factor in climbing), having the vision and chops to do long-established things in novel ways, fighting through injuries, slim wages, and one’s own doubts and insecurities, and growing more modest in the process, a mere rock climb becomes a victory for the human spirit.  Through choice or temperament, most of us are followers. Greatness, on the other hand, is almost always a path leading into the unknown and unproven. And Lynn walked that path like a giant.

Hill reminds us to reach for the best that we can. Whether it’s a weight lifter digging deep to set a record or a twelve-year old clarinet student popping into the altissimo register, the attempt to better ourselves is what takes us forward. Striving for greatness can define and expand our human experience.

Resources

Hill, Lynn, with Greg Child. Climbing Free, My Life in the Vertical World. W.W. Norton and Company, 2002.