Kids should not hang-dog too much

Hang-dogging means that you multiple times hang in the rope and also use quickdraws in order to get to the top. It is a common practice that also the second try is done in a hang-dog mode in order to refine the beta. At the beginning of the sport climbing era, this was not allowed. Lynn Hill explains the very old school ethics. "If a climber fell on a route, they were immediately lowered back down to the ground. It was considered cheating to hang on the rope and practice the upcoming moves. If you hung on the rope even just to look at the up-coming moves, you were called a "hang-dogger".

The disadvantage of hang-dogging too much, directly after you have failed an onsight attempt, is that you lose a great opportunity to train to be in the onsight mode and also training being in the zone. In the short run, obviously, it is best to practice all moves and hang on every quickdraw several times before going for the second go attempt. In any case, especially the youngsters should not hang-dog too much as for them, what is most important is to train the tactical and technical skill. Short time progress based on extensive hang-dogging will just increase the mental pressure.

Adam Ondra, the best onsight climber in the world, and Alex Megos, who onsighted the first 9a, did not hang-dog much being youngsters. Their focus was the climbing challenge instead of starting a long hand-dog process in order to optimize the beta. From Megos latest Insta we can see it is often still the quest. "I really enjoy trying routes second go. It usually ends up being a big fight with not very refined beta and feels great when it works out."