Most Popular Entries
Posted by: Solveig Waterfall
Categories: Mountaineering Fitness & Training
As a skiing and climbing guide, athlete, and yoga instructor, I am continually impressed by the correlation between success in the mountains and a regular yoga or meditation practice. In my personal experience, by taking time each day to completely focus my attention on simple movements in conjunction with controlled breathing, even for a just a short period of time, I have found that I can dramatically increase my ability to handle a higher mental stress load and consciously reign in a respiratory-system-gone-rogue.
The primary intention behind a yoga practice is the alignment of a series of movements with the coordination of the breath. Beyond the poses, aside from the stretching, before the flow, and without regard to the brand of clothing you choose to wear or the space in which you practice, is the synchronization of intentional movements with focused and controlled breathing. That is the essence of yoga.
One of my favorite quotes is by Sharon Gannon: “You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you areas where you are resistant in your natural state”. Instead of hand-eye coordination, think body-breath coordination.
This training allows the individual the ability to more easily and calmly focus on a specific task and execute difficult movements with precision—especially, and perhaps most importantly—when pushing towards exhaustion.
The goal of starting a mindful movement practice is in taking this basic principle and applying it to any activity of your choosing.
I understand yoga is not for everyone. Personally, I love the quiet space, the dance of a well-sequenced vinyasa flow, and in the winter months I crave the warmth and full body lymphatic cleanse of a heated studio; they are always significantly cozier than the mid-January temperature of my 1920’s craftsman and warm my core after a day of skiing far better than even the highest, most overworked setting of my Subaru's seat-heating capabilities. That being said, I know plenty of guides and world-class athletes who firmly believe that yoga—of any sort—is not, and never will be, for them.
The secret is that these individuals find other activities with which to strengthen their mental game and incorporate mindful movement. Biking, running, swimming, pilates, even those post-work hikes with a heavy pack, all provide the opportunity to spend a few moments really thinking about and tuning in to your body positioning, your motor patterns, the rate and quality of your breath, all while tuning out the external static of life.
So my challenge for you in writing this blog post, if not to inspire you to rush off and attend the nearest yoga class, is to move through a few minutes of your next workout focused on not just exercising, but moving with intention, breathing in coordination with the efforts of your activity, and turning off the music in an effort to quiet your mind and direct your attention entirely to the task at hand. By practicing mindful movement in your daily tasks and familiar workouts, you will increase and strengthen your ability to use those same techniques to lower your respiratory rate and remain calm, thus allowing you to be more relaxed and move more efficiently when confronted with new and/or difficult tasks in an unfamiliar or uncomfortable environment for a longer period of time: situations much like those found on Mt. Rainier and other alpine objectives around the world.
_____
Solveig Waterfall is an AMGA Certified Ski Mountaineering Guide and has been working professionally in the mountains for 12 years. She guides in Alaska as well as the continental U.S., Ecuador, Mexico, and Argentina. She also teaches backcountry skiing programs and ski mountaineering courses for RMI. Outside of guiding, she instructs yoga and fitness classes designed to complement an active life outdoors.
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!
Posted by: Tyler Reid, Solveig Waterfall
Categories: Guide News
Glad your team made the safe decision. The mountain is not going anywhere hopefully for awhile. Jenelle
Posted by: Jenelle on 7/3/2012 at 12:18 pm
Too bad it did not work out for today, Steve and Chad. Looking forward to your safe return. Take care - G
Posted by: Gretchen on 7/3/2012 at 9:25 am
Posted by: Kel Rossiter, Tyler Reid, Ben Liken
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 10,060'
High Camp On Phil’s Birthday,how cool is that. Now that you are older Phil take it easy on all those kids up there.
Posted by: Bob & kate Rosso on 6/4/2012 at 4:04 pm
I don’t care how long it takes to get off the glacher just be happy you are all safe and that the piolts are making the right decissions. Just make the best of it, in a few months you will be wishing you were back up there. Have fun Maile and all
xoxo love Mom
Posted by: ginny myers on 6/4/2011 at 4:41 pm
Brent, thank you so much for your wise decisions regarding our loved ones. I appreciate that. Zac we miss you so much and we can’t wait to see you when you get safely off the mountain. Love you, M, T & B
Posted by: mary candelario on 6/4/2011 at 1:57 pm
Posted by: Dominic Cifelli, Jack Delaney, Jess Wedel
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
Elevation: 18,000'
Last night, we were sitting in the dome at camp 2. Dinner was finished, and everyone was in their tents for bed. The steam of freshly boiled water was rising as we poured the last of it into the hot pot.
We sat as a guide team, looking at updated weather and coming up with a summit strategy when in popped one of our team members,
“Hey, Can I talk to you guys?”
“Sure, sure. Come on in.”
She stepped through the door.
“I’d like to help carry this teammate’s weight tomorrow. I want this for him so badly and he’s struggling.”
This morning, after a breezy night straight into a breezy morning, I sleepily walked from the guide tent to the dome tent. Jack immediately handed me my little 1/2 L Nalgene filled with warm coffee,
“Dom made it for you.”
Packing up our bags to carry a load to Camp 3,
“How is your morning, Reacher?”
“I didn’t sleep well. I woke up early to the wind and helped tie down other people’s tents.”
Climbing mountains is an inherently selfish sport. We work hard to get ourselves to the top. It benefits us, the climber, more than anyone else. And there’s no problem with that.
I found my own healing in the mountains, my own growth, the ability to drive and push myself further than I thought possible.
And I fell in love with guiding because I loved helping others do the same - get out of their comfort zone, try really hard, take a really big risk.
But if there’s one thing this team keeps teaching me, one tiny miracle at a time, is that there is more than just our own little dreams happening. Even though 14 days ago we were total strangers, we are now people who have built deep relationships, so much so that we’ll offer to help carry another’s weight because we already believe in that other so much. We’ll share our bag of banana chips at every break, even though instinct tells us to hold fast to those calories we hefted all the way to 18,000 feet. We’ll tie down tents in the lonely early morning just because we don’t want our friends to blow away after a windy night.
And today, when all of us felt a touch alone in our struggle to Camp 3 at 19,600 feet, I looked a little closer and saw the sort of miracle that was a team coming together. Climbing a mountain not just for ourselves but with and for those we are inspired by. I saw that whatever has happened between us is profound and no matter if we stand on top or not, we won’t leave here unchanged.
That is an Awesome right up about your Team and climb to high camp! Very heart felt l!! Best wishes getting to the Summit!!
Posted by: Dave Kestel on 2/2/2023 at 5:23 pm
Posted by: Mike Haugen, Hannah McGowan, Gloria Roe
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Elevation: 20,310'
RMI Guide Mike Haugen calls from the summit of Denali.
On The Map
My heart continues to swell with pride for all that my son SCOTT has accomplished this past 12 months
Posted by: Roger Coffey on 6/29/2018 at 7:54 am
Congrats you all, that is super exciting. Enjoy and soak up all the goodness of your time together as a kick ass team on your decent.
Posted by: Sabrina on 6/29/2018 at 7:22 am
Posted by: Billy Nugent, Solveig Waterfall
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
Jennifer and Nick…I am so happy for you. You are awesome!
Posted by: Karen Pratte on 7/15/2013 at 9:20 am
Posted by: Jake Beren, Leon Davis, Zeb Blais
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
Elevation: 16,200'
On The Map
Keep going #1. Thinking of you every day. Enjoy the views man.
Posted by: Jon on 12/30/2012 at 4:10 pm
Stay strong Josh. we love hearing all of the updates and are saying a few prayers that the weather continues to be favorable for the ascent to the summit
Posted by: Matt and Jazmin on 12/30/2012 at 5:34 am
Solveig
I have been taking yoga classes for the past 10 or 11 years now I don’t know perhaps longer and I can seriously identify with all the techniques Strank’s and benefits that you ascribe to taking yoga classes with regard to clarity of thought power of intention and overall mental strength conditioning as you delineate the Power of Yoga elementals.
Possibly the greatest payoff to the sports enthusiast is the concept of correlation of each of the aspects you point out into an efficient unified focused and energized state of mind!
These Very qualities derived from my own Baptiste Power Yoga practice have been an important element of whatever success I’ve had in Mountaineering, and many other strenuous, challenging and sometimes dangerous pursuits
I’d like to share a specific example from a recent Guided Assent of Mt Baker, North Face with RMI August 25-27 2019
This Climb was considerably more challenging than my previous RMI Guided Assents of Rainiers DC Route or Kautz route, which I did with you Solvieg in 2017
I was not aware of just how much more challenging it was going to be
As our 6 person team got higher and higher on the mountain, the route became steeper and steeper until we were Climbing vertical ice cliffs!
The Glaciers were pretty bare and we had to retrace our steps several times as what was an uninterrupted route up the Mountain had become a very broken route up the mountain…
What all this absolutely reinforced was the essential Need to Completely Trust the Skill of the Guides and execution of ALL instructions from the guides immediately and without question!
Absolute Resolution of Focus and consistent galvanization of thought to decision to action!!
Every Single step, Every single ice pick thrust… spacing of turns, rope slack, managing challenges, breaks, managing each emerging concern as they arise…
One of the strongest contributors to success on that kind of Expedition, on that Kind of Mountain for me was the years of Learning and practicing the Yoga strengths and tools you so eloquently pointed out
Looking forward to another Rainier Assent in 2021 and hopefully a Denali Assent 2022
Posted by: Ken Tessier on 3/3/2020 at 7:36 pm
Beautiful article! You inspire me.
Posted by: Patti sandow on 10/12/2017 at 9:11 pm
View All Comments