Mental Climbing Tips From A Weak-Kneed Fraidy Cat

TAKE!

Another blown redpoint attempt - not because I fell going for a hold, or misread the sequence, or broke a hold. No, as usual I blew this one by giving up, by being scared and yelling "TAKE!" when I should have pushed through. This is how way too many of my onsight and redpoint attempts have ended the last year. For me, the slow accumulation of a pump triggers a precipitous drop in my confidence, and too often I refuse to push past it, failing to commit. It took most of this year before I ever took a real fall here in Tucson, always falling back into my comfort zone and resting on the rope instead of going for it and risking a fall.

Knowing this was my biggest weakness in climbing, I have been working on the mental aspect of my climbing lately, and making some progress. I have taken a bunch of falls, and the fear of falling is dissipating. I have been pushing myself to keep climbing once I am pumped, and fighting the urge to yell TAKE. I have had a handful of climbs now where I felt completely committed, focused solely on the climbing and irrational fears of falling entirely gone from my mind. This was a new experience for me, and it has led to positive results - I've had my three hardest redpoints ever in the last couple of months, and looking forward to some even harder sends.

The mental aspect of climbing is frequently a trouble spot for climbers, and I know many people who struggle with fear of falling and difficulty committing. I have been pretty proud of my progress so far, and if I can improve my cowardly and yellow-bellied ways, anyone can. Here are a few things I have found useful in improving my mental game.

1. Read "The Rock Warriors Way"

This book by Arno Ilgner is a must read for anyone serious about rock climbing. If you too are plagued by the fear monkey, stop reading this post, open a new browser tab, go here and buy the book.

I read this once about 5 years ago, but I was mostly bouldering then, so I didn't get a whole lot out of it. I recently re-read it, and I am a much better climber for it. Subtitled "Mental Training For Climbers", RWW outlines a seven step process for preparing for the climb, transitioning into the climb and acting on and enjoying the climb. Emphasizing a "journey" mindset as opposed to a "destination" mindset, Ilgner stresses that your goal is not the redpoint, but diving into the risk of climbing, and learning from the experience. It helps you take an honest look at where your weaknesses are, and how to face them, giving lots of practical ideas and tips along the way. Anyone struggling with fear and indecisiveness while climbing should read this book. (Some of the following ideas are things I learned from the book)

2. Practice Falling

This is a simple but effective exercise - TAKE LOTS OF FALLS! 99% of the time when we start to get that nagging fear of falling while climbing, the fall you are facing is safe and harmless. In these instances, fear of falling is pretty irrational. Sure, there are plenty of situations where you do not want to fall, but those are in the minority and your decision making process should be different in those situations. But if you are facing a nice clean fall, take it. Just let go, climb back up, and let go again.

A good way to start this is to incorporate falling into your warm up. What I've been doing lately is getting to the top of my warm-ups, clipping the anchors and then asking for 5-8 feet of slack. Letting go, I'll fall 8-10 feet, climb back up, and do it again. Getting a few falls in early in the day on easier climbing loosens up your nerves, and helps your mind control those irrational fears. When I start the day falling, I worry about it much less while climbing harder routes.

3. Toproping

While I am not usually a big fan of toproping (and it seems counter-intuitive to suggest it as a way to improve your lead head), I stumbled across a way to use it to enhance mental learning. I was belaying a friend recently who is working on establishing a new and difficult (solid 5.12) trad line on Mt. Lemmon. It looked like a great climb, but I certainly didn't want to try leading it my first go, so I toproped it. It started off pretty casual for about 20 feet, but then is all business for another 30 feet. Past the first crux I started feeling a little fatigued, and I was unconsciously about to yell TAKE when I thought about how dumb it was to do that on toprope, and instead kept climbing to the point of total failure.

The only way to get better at something is to break old and bad habits, and for me, associating PUMP with TAKE is my worst habit in climbing (that and climbing with a White Man's Overbite). By toproping - the safest and most risk-free form of climbing - I was able to break out of the cycle of Pump = Fear = TAKE. By doing this you are not only destroying that negative association, but I also realized just how much stamina I had left after moving past my normal breaking point. That last bit of remaining strength is often enough to climb up to a rest, or an easier section, and can be the difference between another blown attempt and a redpoint.

4. Do Nothing (Or Do Something)

This one is similar to the idea behind #3, in that you are working to break the association between Fear and TAKE. Let's say you are climbing, doing pretty well on an onsight attempt. You cruised past the crux, made a clip, and moved a little higher. The bolt is at your knee now, the next one is looking a bit out of reach, you don't see any great holds ahead, and you are starting to get a little pumped. Those voices in your head start chirping, and you want to TAKE. Don't instead, here is what you do: Do Nothing. Just hang there and do nothing. Don't fall yet, don't take, just hang on. This works to eliminate that automatic response. Just hang there for a few seconds and recognize that you made a conscious choice not to TAKE, and that you can do so in the future.

Or Do Something. Throw for a jug, find a real high foothold and try to make it work, even down-climb. The key again is breaking the almost involuntary response to TAKE.

And whether you choose to just hang there or to keep moving, you might again be surprised by how much juice is let in the tank, giving you more confidence the next time you face a choice between TAKE or climbing.

5. Climb with people who go for it

From Team Tuesday, Clayton and Austin have always had very "go for it" attitudes, taking lots of falls, always pushing themselves. It has been good to watch, but for most of the year I wasn't focused enough on learning this myself to benefit from their examples, but it always reminded me that I needed to improve.

For the last couple of months since I have been working on developing my mental strength, I have also been fortunate enough to have climbed with some new people, many of whom are great examples of confidence, poise and commitment. In the example above where I was toproping a hard trad project, watching my friend calmly and repeatedly take whippers on small cams was great to watch. It was obvious from watching him that he trusted his gear, he trusted the fall was safe, and he trusted his belayer. He trusted every link in the chain fully, and fear of falling was not even a small blip on his climbing radar screen. Never hesitating or failing to commit, watching him climb was a great lesson.

6. Have a Mantra

This seems hokey and cliche, but it worked for me. A simple little word or phrase to help you stay focused and committed. While working my most recent project, I developed the mantra of "Breathe. Trust.", which I would say to myself before I started climbing and at each rest. It reminded me to take long, deep breaths at each rest, helping to get my racing heart back down to a more sustainable heart rate. It reminded me that I was climbing on very steep terrain (as if my throbbing forearms weren't enough of a reminder of that), and any fall would be a safe drop into open air. And most importantly it was a reminder that I was in the middle of a learning process, and that the only way to get better was to push beyond my comfort zone and give 100% commitment.

If anyone has any good ideas or tips, I'd love to hear them. I'm getting better, but still have a long ways to go.

Good luck out there, and hopefully I'll be catching you on a 20-footer real soon.