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 :)