I'm seldom afraid of falling while roped up. My fear comes while free soloing. I think with this old body I have to work with that a lead fall even while roped up could be scary in and of itself.

Yeah, thats why you should solo many grades below your limit (or not at all, of course). You have to expect that some 30% of your mental CPU is taken up with extra thoughts about security. Testing holds, making a dozen small choices every minute, probing motivation, considering downclimbing possibilities, etc.

My "fear of falling" thing was more about realizing that I couldn't push myself to climb harder sport climbs unless I got really comfortable with falling and quit seeing it as a big deal.

As for trad climbs, out here in the limestone alps you rely on fixed pins a lot. I reeeally don't feel good about falling on those. I did fall on one once and it ripped out. It was at the level of my ankle, maybe a little lower. You don't often get the kind of bomber nut placements you can in granite. The cracks out here are kind of "garbled." Take a beautiful parallel sided granite crack and boil/morph it for 10 minutes until it's all bubbly inside, and twisted on the outside. That's a "Kalkalpen" crack

Borut Kantušer wrote:

mvs wrote:As for trad climbs, out here in the limestone alps you rely on fixed pins a lot. I reeeally don't feel good about falling on those.

Yeah, I preferred falling on the ones I nailed in. But then, that happens more while FAing.

Yeah! Borut, how would you test a piton for soundness? Do you need a hammer and would you try to get it to move? Or is it impossible to do more than look at it and tug on it with a sling?

mvs wrote:Hi all,
I just wanted to share that recently I recognized that I'd allowed a fear of falling to become part of my climbing. I think it was a gradual process, kind of sneaking up on me. I did some reading about it (see here) and find it very interesting how it can occur. Basically you acquire some skill, then seek to protect or preserve that skill, avoiding things that might challenge you too much. Before long you are standing on a very small island with no room to move.

Anyway, I started doing this trick in the climbing gym today called "clip dropping." After that I could lead much closer to my limit, and generally felt more creative, free and happy on the lead. This trick managed to introduce (hysterical) laughter back to an aspect of climbing that had become gradually grimmer and dimmer over a while. I can't wait to get back to the gym in a few days.

An article about the technique is here. Check it out if you think you have developed an irrational fear of falling in safe sport climbing situations.

--Michael

Michael...... Hi, Fear of falling is a pretty good thing IMHO. I think It's not good to fall on trad climbs, in 30 something years I don't think I have taken more than 10 real lead falls. ( not counting the BS falls you take to show your partner "I am trying" )

Trad climbing is more of a never fall, downclimb, upclimb, downclimb, upclimb etc deal. I think this is especially true on eazy climbs that are low angle. You die on 5.5 you fly on 5.11

Sport Climbing is fun, toss all the worries about the "proplacements" and just figgure out the climbing. The clip dropping is a great way to work through ones fear of the fall and resulting injuries.

When I watch sport climbers, the most dangerous thing I see, is the old rope behind the leg trick. I guess most climbers don't see this as a "problem" because of helmet usage

The other real danger I see is just plain old "bad belaying" .......

Trad or Sport, about 20% of the belayers don't have a clue.... AT ALL.

gk

Falling is neither good or bad, it is just one of the outcomes. On easier trad routes which tend to have ledges and stuff, it's really a bad thing. When you get onto the cleaner, hard stuff, and if there is gear, what's the problem.

Dingus Milktoast wrote:I don't have a bad falling fear... I have impact-fear.

Well earned, in my case. I think I should keep it at this stage.

Cheers
DMT

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back in the day, the leader did not fall, for many reasons, many of them fear.

Tie a bowline around your waist and run it out, with your partner giving you a shoulder belay, see if you've got a fear of falling.

The advent of harnesses didn't help initially. Tie into a Whillans "ball Buster" sit harness and run it out....

Sierra Ledge Rat wrote:.... Tie into a Whillans "ball Buster" sit harness and run it out....

We called them "Soprano makers"

This thread is giving me some inspiration I think maybe it's time to go get my lead card in the gym.

So I was in JTree this past weekend and we found ourselves climbing Overhang Bypass. I had only led the first pitch before, back in 2006 and thought maybe it was time to try leading the second pitch.

Really this isn't a good idea for me .. I don't have much upper body strength after the accident, particularly on my left side. But the fall looked pretty clean and I managed to place a couple of cams.





Took a couple of small (4 or 5 foot) falls on this thing. Glad I had my helmet on because the second one had me swinging around a bit, and I think I scraped the wall with the back of it. I gave up on the idea of leading this one

The next day we were in Indian Palisades Corridor. I was looking to lead a bolted 5.7 but we didn't have much beta and found myself looking up something that was .. ah, 5.9+ I was about to downclimb and go to the next climb over, but my partners egged me on, since I had the first bolt clipped.

I gave it a couple of tries and think maybe I could have made the moves, but was worried about losing it further up and hitting my feet / ankles on a dish just below the bolt. I have broken both feet / ankles and don't want to go through that again, so I backed off and went to the 5.7 next door.

Did I do the right thing(s) ?

rhyang wrote:Did I do the right thing(s) ?

Look at it this way...for sure you get to try again. Had you done otherwise...maybe yes, maybe no...

rhyang wrote:............

Did I do the right thing(s) ?

You made a decision. Don't look back and question it. On the day you made it, it was a decision. Don't look back but only forward.

CClaude wrote:

rhyang wrote:............

Did I do the right thing(s) ?

You made a decision. Don't look back and question it. On the day you made it, it was a decision. Don't look back but only forward.

Yep that's right. It's natural after being "bitten" to be a bit more cautious, but that's just wisdom. The main thing is you are out there gettin er done and asking yourself those questions. Keep that up!

mvs wrote:

CClaude wrote:

rhyang wrote:............

Did I do the right thing(s) ?

You made a decision. Don't look back and question it. On the day you made it, it was a decision. Don't look back but only forward.

Yep that's right. It's natural after being "bitten" to be a bit more cautious, but that's just wisdom. The main thing is you are out there gettin er done and asking yourself those questions. Keep that up!

Rob.... It's BESTnot to fall to much in JT, IMHO....

Just the fact that you are uptight and worried about "the falling" would tell me that your head is not into the game. Coupled with the fact that you couldn't lead "Bypass", a climb about FIVE grades below what you have done. This shows me you have, "Compounded Negativity" ...... an aliment I have had in the past.

If I was your climbing doctor, my RX to you.

Go follow "Tons of climbs" from 5.0 to 5.11+ .... Have fun, always.

Maybe take a year away from leading, but not climbing.

Sit down and evaluate your strengths and weakness, and work on them.

Don't worry, just improve your climbing and don't have any more mishaps. One day you will look up a route and say to yourself, I can Lead that. ( not- I think Ill TRY and lead that...)

Good luck with this.

gk

Thanks guys. Sounds like some sage advice in there .. I'll keep it in mind.

Got my lead card at the gym last night .. hard to believe I've been pulling plastic for 5.5 years at that place. I will be logging some air time for sure

Well said DMT! I didn't even have to break an ankle to start getting a creeping paralysis about harder leading. And like you, it irks me to find myself getting used to the habit of pulling on pro: that's not what I want to be doing out there .

I've had a great experience with this "clip dropping" stuff. In the gym I'm leading basically at my limit now again...and that helps me push my limit some more, also it generates excitement about the future.

I am fascinated by this topic of how your mind works dealing with fears real and imagined. Just now, reading DMTs story I remembered another incident that MUST have contributed to my growing scardy-cat-ness in the last few months: in August my partner at the gym (who remains nameless!) actually dropped me while lowering me from a route. I hit the gravel from about 15 feet up and smacked my tailbone really hard. I was hollering and carrying on a bit to work out the pain. (The problem was that he thought he'd lower me quickly but he didn't look at where I was in relation to the ground. His bad. Lesson learned.) I was okay again a week later. But I think it left a kind of "mental scar."

The point is I trusted a system completely and it failed. It made me less willing to trust the system. Now I've had to make a concerted effort to trust again.

For me, my abiity to concentrate on climbing and not on the fear of falling waxes and wanes, and I think tgis is probably the case for many or most people.

Some advise I have learned over the years from friends and friends of friends, (thanks Mikhail, Doug Sprock, Tom McMillan, Mike, Matt.... I don't always seem to be listening but it sinks in).

1) Have fun. Your time is valuable and if you are not having fun, you should be doing something else. And how can you be scared if you are having fun.

2) Separate the ego from it all. Sometimes its not the fear of falling but when you look at it, the fear of failure. No one REALLY cares if you fail (unless failure is defined as death). Your personal worth, and for that matter no one elses, is dependent on how hard you climb.

3) If other things are going on in life (death of loved ones, getting married/divorced, finishing school) your mind is elsewhere and concentratee on just having fun and nothing that requires too much mental work.

4) Hang out with positive people. Only recently (about a decade ago or so) did I start climbing with people who didn't stress about falling (a conservative viewpoint) but more on climbing while being critical about systems that make the risk reasonable (a more progressive viewpoint). It sounds like the same but viewpoint but one is concentrating on a negative and the other a positive. Who you climb with WILL influence your viewpoint. I am still trying to undue the influence of those I had previously climbed with.