working with fellow celts!

Today I had a great day working with Colin and Kevin, a Scot and an Irishman respectively.  They spent a day with Silvia Fitzpatrick (my friend and colleague) yesterday working on movement and tactics,, and today we covered body awareness, mental warmups and anxiety management techniques.  The rain held off for most of the day so we were outside bouldering for much of the day before a quick trip up to the slate quarries to finish off.

Both Kevin and Colin were initially not that into bouldering (but were converts by the end!), but it is a great way of putting into practice the anxiety management techniques.  Essentially its about refocusing yourself back into your body through visual tricks, breathing techniques, and muscle relaxation.  Trying progressively harder and/or higher problems allows people to master the techniques within their comfort zone, and then take small steps out of their comfort zone to practice the techniques again.

Both Colin and Kevin did really well, sending some good problems, and putting into practice everything they had learnt over the two days - well done guys!

Motivation up again!

So those few evenings of wandering about and playing on pieces of rock I hadn't been on for a while really paid off!  Yesterday I found myself feeling more motivated again, and brought my sense of playfulness back to some problems I had been trying for a while.  I realised I had been trying them in exactly the same way each time (which hadnt been working).   A fair few people were around so I watched closely to see how they tried the problems, and then had a go at doing it in their style - "imitating" them if you will!

Result! One move higher on a front face problem, and much nearer grasping the jug on the dreaded horizontal overhang!  Both problems now feel within my grasp and I reckon with some more sit ups over the next couple of months I may get them!  I am also off on a jaunt up north for a couple of weeks, and really looking forward to exploring new places and new rock types. 

So today's top tip; try climbing "in the style of...." - this can be anyone you see climbing at a similar or slightly harder standard than you - great for making you use your body differently and try moves or options you wouldn't normally try!   And apologies to those people I imitated the other evening!!

Further explorations!

Continuing with my exploration theme, this lunchtime I managed to squeeze in a quick bouldering session at the Orme at a newish bouldering venue.  Again, I had no guidebook and just followed my nose to some nice looking lines. Lovely!

Its so important for human adults to play!  Its something we found easy as children but many adults struggle to let go enough to play as adults.  Climbing is an activity which easily lends itself to play, yet many people I work with have forgotten how to enjoy climbing!  They spend all their time seriously training, pushing themselves and beating themselves up when they fail to achieve their self imposed targets.

Now there is nothing wrong with setting yourself goals, but ask yourself, am I so focused on the end point I am no longer enjoying the process?  If that is the case, then two things tend to happen - firstly, motivation tends to drop off, and secondly, we can become so tightly wound that choking occurs and performance drops right off.

Be sure to make time to play with your climbing.  Explore, climb around rather than up, go with friends, leave the guidebook at home, play around with new moves and games.  Have fun!

Exploring

Wasnt feeling very motivated to climb today but with a weather window I decided to head up the Llanberis Pass and away from the oft-frequented Cromlech boulders and up into the meadow.  What a delight! despite the sodden ground I really enjoyed exploring and rediscovering boulders and problems I rarely visit, with the result that my motivation improved dramatically and I ended up spending far longer climbing than I intended!  Result!  

So, if your motivation is waning, do something different!  Its easy to get into habits and hard to break them, but well worth the effort.  Happy climbing!

choking

Ok, I am not referring to when a sweet gets stuck in your mouth (despite being on a first aid course this weekend!), but when anxiety gets in the way of performance.  I have been thinking about this quite a lot recently, both in relation to myself (I have had experiences of choking both in gymnastics and climbing) and also in relation to clients. There is a brief explanation here but I will explain a little more as I think this tends to happen to climbers a lot.  What I say wont apply to everyone, and indeed may be a little unpalatable to some, but I think it does explain why choking occurs.

There is a reason why most of us climb, and why the climbing world is seemingly grade and difficulty obsessed!  Whether we like it or not, amongst the myriad of reasons we climb, for most of us there is a part which longs for recognition or approval, wanting to be "good enough" to class ourselves as "proper climbers".  This means that many of us have more than half an eye on what everyone else is doing at the wall or crag or local scene, and wondering how we are being judged.  This focus on what other people think of our performance makes climbers particularly susceptible to having too high expectations of ourselves, becoming anxious about reaching certain targets, and then beating ourselves up when we don't.   It can become quite a chronic cycle for some people, as fear of choking then occurs, setting ourselves up with even more tension before we start, making choking more likely to happen.

If this sounds like you, think about the following:

1. who are you really climbing for?  think of reasons why you love to climb which are to do with you alone rather than in comparison with others

2. take a break!  go down a few grades, take beginners out, boulder, do anything to reconnect with why you love climbing and take the pressure off yourself

3. have faith.  Your desire to push yourself will return, but don't force yourself to try harder things all the time - you will try them when you are ready

4. think of all the other areas of your life and the things that are important to you - put climbing into perspective

5. meditation techniques if practised regularly can really help to calm and focus you to make choking less likely to occur.

Happy climbing :)