Kai Whaley is a really strong, young, up-and-coming climber based in the Las Vegas area. You may not be too familiar with the sport, but when we’re talking about climbing, specifically bouldering, the difficulty of a climb is measured on a scale called the V scale. It goes from V0 up to, as of right now, V17. Incredibly for us here in Vegas, out of the 7 or so confirmed V17s in the world, 2 are in Red Rock. Kai, in his years of climbing up to his current age of 19, was very likely the youngest to climb a V10, a V12, a V16, and soon he might be the youngest to climb the V17 extension of that same V16 called Return of the Sleepwalker. I wanted to know how someone gets to be that good at something, so I asked him.
"Lot of years of training, I guess. I don’t take training all that seriously for how hard I climb I guess, but I’ve just been climbing my whole life so naturally I’ve got pretty good at it. My dad’s a climber. My dad’s been climbing since probably when he was 15 and he’s in his 60s now so he’s been climbing for 40-odd years. Of course, when I was like two, I wasn’t completely into it. I played soccer and skateboarded for a little. It’s always been in the background, and then probably the last like, I don’t know, five years I’ve taken it pretty seriously."
This is Kai’s truth, he’s slowly built up this strength with a combination of natural talent, encouragement from his family, and gradual progression. We can’t turn back the clock and change our circumstances, this isn’t necessarily applicable to us, but I was intrigued by this lackadaisical attitude where he says he doesn’t try all that much, which seems to be counter to our general understanding of hard work and its relation to outcomes. And then surprisingly I wound up talking with Kai about golf.
"I get upset if I don’t do climbs and stuff but I’m not going home and watching videos and critiquing myself or something. I’m just like, agh, didn’t do the climb, I’m gonna go play golf now or something."
You alright at that?
"For how long I’ve been playing, I’d say I’m decent. I have a great time when I’m like bad at stuff."
On the one hand he's climbing these very hard boulder problems, and on the other he tells me his peers are training harder than him and he's spending time instead just doing things he enjoys. What appears to be a tension resolves itself just fine, when you realize that working toward a goal doesn't require a constant rate of improvement. In fact, sometimes a break like the one that he took before completing the V16 Sleepwalker, is necessary.
"I went on like a four-day trip to another climbing area. I don’t think I did it on purpose to take time off of trying Sleepwalker, but it definitely helped. Because then I came back with a fresh start and then I did it the second session after being back."
It’s apparent that this is where some of his strength comes from, this understanding that progress isn’t linear.
"When you’re trying something super hard, you don’t only get excited about the end goal. When you’re on these super hard climbs, I’ll go and try one and get excited about doing one move. There was one try where I did the big move, and my hand like paused on the hold for half a second, like half a millisecond even, but I felt my hand slow down. And I felt then in that moment … sticking the move is possible."
Small incremental progress, even failure, can be an indicator that we are progressing. I think this is why sports are so compelling to us, we get to see a small simulation of our own lives. When you're growing up, maybe the story your parents tell you is a lot simpler to try and motivate you. The reason Michael Jordan was so good was because he worked hard, right? That's a lot of it sure, but sports like rock climbing there's not going to be this perfect gentle upward slope we get to climb to our goals with effort. Falling is an essential part to summiting anything worthwhile. I'd like to thank Kai for reminding us to appreciate those falls.
