Flying practice!

Last week a good friend and I decided to raise our heartbeats at the climbing wall with a little flying practice.  I personally have always hated falling off, disliking the feeling of being out of control rather than worrying so much about the consequences of the fall.  This is a good example of a self-limiting belief, where the perceived risk is not really related to the actual risk.  These things dont go away by themselves, and in fact, the more you avoid falling off, the more entrenched the fear will become.  

Graded exposure is a good way to progressively work up to your most disliked or feared situations.  Start as we did, taking falls which feel comfortable - it may be small lead falls, or it may even be second falls with a slack rope, etc.  Whatever, start in your current comfort zone, and repeat until you feel completely relaxed.  Then move up a tiny amount. For example, move one move above a bolt, and keep falling off there until that feels comfortable.  Then move up again, and so on.  The important thing is not to rush through - its easy to fool yourself that you are conquering your fear by going for a huge fall just the once.  However, we need to habituate to the anxiety, allowing enough practice for the adrenalin levels to drop and for you to become relaxed taking that fall.  This might take a long time - adrenalin levels can remain high for up to two hours in most people! - and one practice session will not be enough.

My friend and I started off with some small lead falls with the odd strangled squeak, and ended up taking some nice clip to clip falls.  Not massive by any scale, but a good start for both of us, and leaving room for us to keep practising over the coming weeks!