spelunking

Every night before falling asleep I close my eyes and visualise myself downclimbing. It has really improved my downclimbing performance over the last 10 years since I first tried this method.

Do you have climbing gyms in NZ?

If you do, may I suggest couldering as a way of improving these skills. Climb the problem, and then retrace your footwork on the way down, rather than simply falling to the pad.

If you are lacking in the climbing gym department, you have several other options:

Find a small building and find a way down from atop the roof.
Get real good at setting up fast rappels.
Whilst your friends are down climbing, roll small boulders (designed to criple, not to kill) down upon them to slow their progress.
Learn to BASE jump.
Set up a zip-line to the car (buy a spool of 8mm chord).
Lure a yeti to the base of the climb and teach him to scare your friends off route.

mattski wrote:what do you do to get down climbing fit run backwards there must be better ways

Vitaliy said it. Best by doing it, but sometimes the hills are too far away.

The muscle groups used for coming down seem to suffer more (DOMs) when out of the hills for extended time, at least for me. It helps to find training options to simulate the motion. Work on balance activities and lower leg work, running stairs in buildings or bleachers-not just for ascending but some limited down running- may help. I think there have been some past threads around here discussing this.