Climbing is an Infinite Game
Finite games have defined rules, playing fields, and a way to “win.” Many of the games we are most familiar with, such as football, chess and redpointing, are finite games. Infinite games, by contrast,are played “for the purpose of continuing the play.”¹ You can, and should, change the rules, boundaries and strategies by which you play in order to continue the game. Failure to do so inevitably leads to staleness, ennui and the death of the game.
While everyone can define infinite and finite games within their own lives, I think of my climbing as an infinite game made up of thousands of finite games. I can (and have) completely upended the rules by which I play in order to continue playing it and I am certain that I would not still be climbing had I not done so.
I encourage all my athletes to look at climbing in this way as it’s all too easy to be consumed in the finite games we play along the way (redpointing, onsighting, routes in a day, hangboarding) and close our eyes to the fact that we can choose how we play these games. Choosing to approach your climbing as an infinite game allows you to see the creativity that can be found in the finite games that you choose to play as well as the joy in looking towards the horizon and the potential that can be found there.
This is not to say that you should ignore finite games or that they aren’t worth playing. I love finite games and I love picking individual rules and style for them that makes the game as engaging as possible for me. But at the end of the day you should be aware that they are not the true game and “winning” a finite game is just a blip in the infinite game.
Consider redpointing - the most common finite game climbers play and what many consider to be the entirety of their climbing. The rules - climb from bottom to top without weighting the rope, prior rehearsal and pre-hanging draws is allowed, etc. - seem fundamental and unchanging, but in reality they are arbitrary. Imagine you want to develop comfort on true non-stop endurance routes, but the only route you have access to that day is a long, continuous route with a nails-hard boulder crux in the middle. If you abide by redpointing rules, the route is far outside of your ability level; but if you change the rules and french-free through the boulder-problem crux, each move feels the same difficulty. You won’t ‘redpoint’ the route that way, but does that matter? You’ve just upended the rules and the resulting new game suits your goals much better than the old.
Climbing is an infinite game that expands far beyond the finite games that consume our attention.
¹ Carse James P. 1986. Finite and Infinite Games. New York: Free Press.
