Learning Fast
Sun Aug 10 2025 17:00:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Learning A New Skill In A Short Timeframe
You can become proficient in almost any skill in just a few months if you go about it the right way. Don’t expect a miracle. You have to be willing to put in a lot of work for this, and you won’t be an expert, but you can accomplish in months what takes most people years if you organize your learning the right way. Just look at the language programs of the CIA and the Mormon church. Both are able to get their students fluent enough to operate in a foreign country in a matter of months while high schools and colleges take three to four years to reach this level.
Act Like A Kid
If you get one thing from this article it should be this. Kids learn fast because they have fun. Sure they’re wired for it, but this is only half of it. A kid that’s psyched on skateboarding is going to spend all of their time on a skateboard. They’ll try tricks over and over even if they scrape up their knees, they’ll do random weird things like skating on their bellies into each other, and they’ll continually look for new ways to have fun on their board. This is the ideal learning attitude. Open enthusiastic curiosity. You don’t learn anything by doing the same rote task over and over again. You don’t learn if you don’t make mistakes. And you definitely don’t learn if you aren’t enjoying yourself.
When you’re having fun, your brain is surging with a wonderful cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters that are there to help you perform and learn. Dopamine in particular is coming along with that and it doesn’t work as well when you’re stressed or angry. It is goal based and is there to motivate you towards success and reinforce whatever you did when you succeeded. This is an important note to make because this means that you aren’t suddenly motivated while laying in bed. You become motivated when you get out and start doing the thing you want to learn and make progress. That kid that loves skateboarding goes out because it’s lame to sit inside and comes back happy after hitting an ollie for the first time.
Skip The Basics. . . Sort of
People spend way too much time doing basic exercises. Mostly this is out of a fear of diving into harder, more complicated challenges. Don’t ever get comfortable. Stay uncomfortable and push into harder territory before you think you can handle it. You learn the most when you are stretched to your limit, trying your hardest to figure something out. But won’t I be sloppy? Yes, and so are kids when they first learn to walk.
BUT. . . We’re talking about learning backcountry skills in hazardous environments where sloppy can mean severe injury. To solve for this you need to break down a skill into individual sub skills. If you want to climb a technical winter route on a remote mountain you need to be able to: pull hard moves on rock and ice, place rock and ice protection, manage rope systems, stay warm in a winter bivouac, and take care of your basic needs in an alpine environment. You can learn almost all of this on level ground or on a top rope. Spend hours placing gear, building anchors, and mock leading on the ground. Go out in your backyard in a crappy winter storm and practice melting snow, cooking, and managing your bivouac. Set up your tent blindfolded, climb the mossy junk rock beside the ice climb you set a top rope on, hang an inch off the ground on one ice tool until your forearm is burning and place as many ice screws as you can until you can’t hold on. You get it. Stay safe, have fun, and keep giving yourself greater challenges. Soon you’ll have built all the sub skills to the point where climbing your first entry level mixed route will feel like fun play.
Play With People Better Than You
Faster
Take the word seriously. I can’t tell you how many new people will say they want to learn how to trad climb and then feel satisfied after placing a few cams and nuts. Then sit around for a bit and maybe place a few more. This is not enough. You should be placing pieces constantly around the base of the wall. Place them with your eyes closed and use your hands to judge the crack size. Bring a tether of some sort and yard and yard on them to make sure their bomber. Top rope a route and aid the entire thing. Place as many pieces as you can and jump on them with your tether. More more more. Faster faster faster.
Hog The Fun
All of it. Hit every jump and turn on the ski hill and every surf wave and eddy on the river. Climb a route without your hands. Squeeze as much as you possibly can out of each session or outing. You’ll learn the most by shaking up your routine and doing something new and unusual. There’s almost always gold hidden between the lines everyone else is following if you’re willing to think outside the box to get to it.
Put In The Work
Have fun with learning, but take it seriously. If you really want to learn a skill fast you have to treat it as if it’s your job. You need to put in weekly hours and hold yourself accountable for reaching new skills. Do whatever it takes to get more time learning. If you need to sacrifice some sleep in order to learn then do it. If you have a short weekend and there doesn’t seem to be enough time to reach a backcountry area where you can climb new routes then walk through the night in order to get there.
Set A Goal
A dream will stay in your head unless you plan it out and set deadlines to make it happen. Choose some kind of event to test your new skill. Maybe its a sick route at the end of a season of climbing or maybe a ski trip into the Alaska range or whitewater festival with races. Pick something that gets you stoked to learn your new skill and set a timeline so that you can perform well at that point.