What One-Star Book Reviews Teach Us About Training

Articles
Written By Nathan Drolet

People say that the eyes are the window to the soul. They’re wrong, though. The true window to the soul is the one-star review. If I want to read thoughtful criticisms about a product or service, I’ll scroll down to the three-star section. But if I want to watch Kathy fighting her demons in the review section for a forty pound sack of Lucky Charms Marshmallows, I’m going straight for the one-stars.

Recently, I decided to go through one-star reviews for climbing training books to see what I could find. A common theme quickly appeared:

“This book contains nothing that could not be found on the internet for free.”

“This book would be good for beginners, but not for anyone advanced.”

“It’s all obvious stuff.”

“The author spent the entire book coming up with different ways to explain basic advice. Don’t waste your money.”

Do these people follow all of the advice that they are calling basic? Of course not. If they did then they would know how much value there is in simple ideas that are taken seriously.

These people want something new to explain why they haven’t been improving. If their climbing is plateaued because of a reason they already know about, then the fault falls on them. It’s far more comfortable for us to blame ignorance for our lack of progress than it is to blame our own efforts.

Stop waiting around for shiny new advice to come save you. Exhaust the basics. They keep showing up in all of these books for a reason. They work.

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