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Climbing with Janja Garnbret. One thing I learnt

by Pete Whittaker
Dec 30, 2025
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Hello Cracksters

A couple of weekends ago, I was invited to the 24-hour climbing marathon by Janja Garnbret. The event was organized to raise money for charity and build community within the climbing space. It was a fantastic couple of days and, from my experience, a great success!

 

I’m lucky that through my own climbing I get to meet and climb with these top-level athletes. Whenever I do, I always try to understand what makes them so good—and not only that, I like to share my thoughts with you.

 

This might sound really simple, but the thing that stood out to me the most was her willingness to learn. Janja is the best in the world, yet she never let ego get in the way of learning something new.

 

In our training session back in February, she wasn’t afraid of failing, looking bad, or trying to impress. She embraced the situation, treated crack climbing as a new skill, and gave it an honest go. A couple of other climbers I’ve seen show this same attitude when crack climbing with me are Adam Ondra and Will Bosi.

 

For context, I’ve also climbed with professional climbers who held back more—or even refused my offer to teach them crack climbing altogether (maybe out of pride, ego, or simply a lack of interest).

 

That’s why I felt the three climbers above all shared the same mindset: a genuine willingness to learn and no fear of failing. (And I think those names speak for themselves!)

 

Janja even put herself in front of a huge crowd at the climbing marathon event and tried new crack climbing techniques on the spot. Considering everyone expects her to climb everything with ease, I actually thought that was a pretty brave move.

 

So what can we take away from this?

  • Don’t be afraid to try something new in your field of expertise. Grasp it, fail, learn, and improve.
  • The easy option is to back down to protect your ego—but if you don’t fail, you improve much more slowly.
  • Always stay open to new ideas.
 

 

Want to learn more about crack climbing technique? join Global Crack School

 Join here

 
 

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