Everyone starts with two jars: one for luck and one for experience. When you begin rope soloing, your luck jar is full, but your experience jar is empty. Every “uh-oh” moment takes a marble from the luck jar and moves it into the experience jar.

 

Over time, the luck jar empties as the experience jar fills. Eventually, you’ll have no marbles left in the luck jar. From that point on, you’ll have to rely entirely on the marbles in your experience jar—because there’s no luck left to save you.

 

This idea stuck with me, and I wanted to share it. If you’ve heard this story elsewhere, please let me know—I’d love to read it!