When you do hard routes, you have to try hard. They're not easy routes. You have to give everything you have. You have to get totally animalistic. When you're super pumped, I have to yell to bear down. [...] It's like martial arts. When Bruce lee threw a punch, he had to mean it. Haahhh! Like that. When you're doing a hard move, there is this excess energy you have to let out. Air explodes out of you.

When I was 17, I blew out my knee bouldering, and I wasn't able to climb for a year. It was hard for me to have to stay away from what I love and what makes me happy. But it was a wake-up call to take care of my body and not be too reckless.

I really learned to approach climbing not just with a pure athletic mentality, but also to appreciate all these beautiful places we get to go to.

Climbing is this long term, lifelong journey. It's really important to just take your time with it and keep it fun. I've seen a lot of people burn out because it starts becoming this job for them. It stops being fun. For me, it's been really important to keep it enjoyable. Listen to your motivation.

The rock still has something to teach me.

Most injuries happen when you're not motivated, too, and you're forcing yourself to do something. Your mind's not aligned with your body and you're just going through the motions. That's when you're most likely to get injured.

Climbing is my lifelong journey. And in the same way you go running and you have days where you really feel in tune, you have some days where you don't feel that good. It's this never-ending process. Accepting that and enjoying that for what it is, that's really where the life of climbing is.