Learning to fall

It seems counter productive that as climbers trying to reach to top we should learn to fall and learn to fail. I’ve learnt a lot this year most of which I won’t waffle on about (see previous posts) but learning to fall was a huge barrier over come.

Earlier this year I wanted to try a hard route in Oliana, it would be my hardest ever, but it was long, exposed and had big run outs and I was immediately put off. I started talking myself out of it and making reasons and excuses why I should try a different route.

At the same time my friend Hazel start doing some mental coaching with me, there were many parts we explored and one of the avenues was fear of falling. I haven’t always been scared of falling, it seems to come in ebbs and flows which is why I have never tackled it before. Sometimes I feel super confident and sometimes I hate leaving a bolt behind. I also think everybody thinks that everybody else doesn’t get scared but I bet 98% of climber’s get scared, even the professional ones. A prime example of this is how who many people do you actually see taking whippers at the wall or your local crag? Properly not that many? And most people probably shout take!

Once I’d decided/admitted I need to take action on this, every day when I got to the crag I’d put one of Hazel’s drills into practice on the warm up route and then take 3-4 practice falls. I instantly saw a benefit, even the same day when I went up my project I felt more confident moving between bolts.

During the summer Hazel and I arranged a couple of trips together. She came to visit me in Wales and very kindly spent the week tackling trad falls with me. Now, trad falls are another kettle of fish. Most trad climber’s attitude is “the leader never falls” and especially growing up on the grit, falling wasn’t usually an option. However, I knew climbing in the mountains and on the sea cliffs that being released from the completely irrational fear/panic of falling would a) make me a better climber but b) make it a whole lot more enjoyable.

Hazel abseiling off Craig Cwm Glas Bach

Hazel set an end goal for the week and that was to try a hard route that I would likely fall off or at least have to try really hard on, she/me (reluctantly) chose ‘King Wad’ and E5 6b in Llanberis Pass, a route I’d belayed her on 10 years previously and made her abseil and strip it because I wanted to “save” my lead (I obviously had never returned!!). We spent the next day doing trad falls, again using some of Hazel’s drills, we firstly took falls on to good pieces of gear, jumping off a little highly each time. Then we made a nest of good gear and placed bad gear above and took falls onto these pieces. It was surprising how many of the ones I thought were really bad actually held. I took more trad falls this day than I have done in my entire life!

Enjoying the exposure a little more than usual on Cyrn Las

The end of the week drew closer and I was apprehensive about it. On the final day we walked up to ‘King Wad’ and it was in the full sun (phew!) so we went food shopping and came back, it was still in the full sun. I decided to do another route in the mean time an E1 to the right. I got really scared and ended up stopping to take some practice falls but by the time I’d got to the top I’d talked myself out of ‘King Wad’. I told Hazel this and she just said “I think you will be annoyed with yourself if you don’t try”, I knew she was right. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the entire route I decided to break it down into sections and to begin with just aimed to get to the obviously flake. I climbed so much better than I had anticipated, because the climbing was hard it absorbed all my attention and I knew when I placed gear that it would hold. I ended up pumped out my tree, with my elbows up and fell onto a tiny brass offset and little purple wallnut. I was flipping psyched!

This week was about fear management and rationalising, not about eradicating fear. It is also worth pointing out that doing this for one week does not sort you out for the rest of your climbing life, it take constant practice at the wall or crag. However, I has made me realise that with these drills and practice it is possible to overcome.

Enjoying a dip after a hot day cragging