meditation's what you need...

Having been poorly with a chest infection for the last couple of weeks I have been obliged to take some time off climbing and indeed any exercise and focus on getting well.  I've used the time to really practice meditation, and have been trying a few different techniques which I thought I might share with you.

The first is the bodyscan, a mindfulness technique which involved deliberately moving your awareness around your body, from big toe, to breathing, to hands, to top of the head.  Sounds easy in principle, but staying focused in the body, at the point where you want to be focused is actually quite hard, as our brain's tend to wander off topic!  And also in my case, sometimes to sleep - proving what I needed perhaps was a little more rest!  In climbing terms, a useful technique to practice for moves which require precise body placement.

The second technique is a yoga breathing technique, moving breathing through chest wall to deep abdomen.  Again, harder to do than it sounds, but useful for keeping breathing rhythmic and smooth at times of stress.

The third technique is a deep relaxation and visual imagery.  I have in mind a particular route I would like to do, and after progressive muscle relaxation, count myself down in steps to the crag, visualise gearing up, and then doing the route.  Its very important during this kind of visualisation that you both feel the route and that you see smooth progress.  So again, if the mind wanders, bring it back gently to the task in hand.

I teach some of these techniques on my courses, but there are lots of excellent cd's out there if you want some help getting going on your own.  Great mental training!