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disobey_gravity2011-08-23 03:07 pm
fadeaccompli) wrote in disobey_gravity2011-08-23 03:07 pm
On Fear Of Falling
I'm relatively new to climbing--about three months now--and mostly climb at the gym, and I'm running into some interesting psychological blocks in my bouldering lately. If I've fallen off a route before--especially if it happened unexpectedly, and high up--I find it a hell of a lot harder to get back on that same route again later, despite not having picked up any real injuries or even pain in the process. (Hurrah for padded gym floors, plus crash pads.)
So...is there any particularly good way to work past this block? It keeps coming up especially on routes that go fairly high, or that are really tricky to climb back down from. It's not bothering me at all when I'm on a rope; after a few rounds of that, I knew I wasn't going to fall very far, so I can cheerfully plummet off the wall again and again. But in bouldering, sometimes it's enough to make me not try a route at all, because I've done a solid thud from the top hold before.
Suggestions? Anecdotes? I'm just hoping there's a better answer than "wait for it to go away."
So...is there any particularly good way to work past this block? It keeps coming up especially on routes that go fairly high, or that are really tricky to climb back down from. It's not bothering me at all when I'm on a rope; after a few rounds of that, I knew I wasn't going to fall very far, so I can cheerfully plummet off the wall again and again. But in bouldering, sometimes it's enough to make me not try a route at all, because I've done a solid thud from the top hold before.
Suggestions? Anecdotes? I'm just hoping there's a better answer than "wait for it to go away."
no subject
You can try working up from floor level: find an easy problem with huge holds, go up a few feet, jump off, go up a little higher, jump off, etc. etc.. Just gently pushing the edges of your comfort zone, getting more experience with how falls feel and building more confidence in your ability to land a jump/fall safely on the mats.
For fear of specific falls -- e.g. if you've already come off a problem and had a big/scary fall -- I have some tips.
Stuff that works for me:
*Treating the psychological element as part of climbing, and part of specific problems. So, working with fear is part of the climbing experience, not something you have to get out of the way before you get on with the climbing. And when a bouldering problem is scary, that's part of the problem. I've noticed that some route-setters are excellent at setting problems which are physically not difficult to do, but scary as fuck because they have a big move right at the top of the wall, or force you into a position which feels precarious or awkward. That's part of the problem, just as having tricky technique-y moves or horrible slopers is.
*Absolute permission to back off. Sometimes I'm in the right mindset to push myself into things that feel scary (I was yesterday, and had a terrifying but awesome time), and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes it feels right to get back on a problem immediately after a scary fall (on the "get back on the horse" basis); sometimes it feels better to go do something else. Sometimes I can do something scary for a while, but then get shaky and drained and need to go climb something less psychological. It helps to give myself permission to play it by ear. Ultimately, if I'm not enjoying it (at least on some masochistic level), there's no point. And the less pressure I feel, the braver I'm likely to be.
*Going up and experimenting. Sometimes it helps to climb up to the tricky point and just feel how it is to be at that height, before downclimbing, or experiment with deliberately jumping from there in a controlled way, with no expectation that you're necessarily going to try the scary move. It's okay to get up there and decide that you're really not up for it today. Maybe another day will be different.
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It may be one of those things that varies from place to place, but I've found a lot of boulderers -- including some seriously hardcore ones -- are pretty open about saying when they find something scary, and when they're opting not to do a particular problem because it's too scary for them. Everyone gets The Fear at one point or another.
the tension builds up between "That's scary" and "But if I don't do it anyway, I'm being a wuss."
*nods* It's been a really positive thing in general for me to work on developing that internal sense of whether it's right to push myself at a particular moment or not. It turns out to apply to a lot of things, not just climbing.
Er, excuse the tl;dr. It's a subject I'm kind of fascinated with.
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Knowing when I need to push myself past the block, and when it's okay to take a break for a while until I've regenned some energy/confidence/stamina/whatever, is one of those things I really haven't figured out yet.
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*nods a lot*
For me, it's made a huge difference to tell myself over and over again that I'm the one in charge of this, I don't have to do anything I don't want to, and this is not a school sports lesson.
When I'd just started climbing, I tended to be very very nervous, and I did a deal with myself that if couldn't handle anything more than traversing to and fro a few inches above the ground for the entire session, THAT WAS FINE. That was all I ever had to do.
And I don't think there was ever a session where that's all I did; taking the pressure off somehow made me much braver, so I'd start thinking "Actually, that hold up there looks quite appealing ..."
Sometimes I overdo it and sometimes I underdo it, but it's really powerful to feel I'm developing that sense of intrinsic motivation.
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It's amazing how much damage school sports classes can do to a child's actual desire to do anything physical, isn't it?
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Bastards. *g*
Seriously: it helps to remind myself that other people are often starting from a completely different baseline from me.
For example, of course someone who's from an athletic background and physically confident is going to have a headstart in many respects compared to me (dyspraxic and twenty years spent avoiding all forms of sports with fear and loathing). That doesn't say anything about intrinsic ability, or about what I'm capable in the long run.
I get anxious about whether I'm improving enough, or at all.
Yeah, it's sort of inevitable when you're really into something -- of course you want to get better at it so you can do more cool things. And being competitive can be natural, too.
But occasionally I have to recognize when I'm getting obsessive and too focused on external markers of whether I'm doing "okay", and make myself spend some time climbing things that don't have grades on. *g*
Anyway, IMHO working on developing your sense of when to push yourself and when not to is one of the most important things you can do to improve your climbing in the long term.