“Pulling on plastic”

Being nervous is one of those things that most people don’t really enjoy. I think its safe to say that the feeling of apprehension and over analytical thinking is enough to put people of whatever is causing them to feel this way. Unfortunately for me this is the feeling is still get every time I walk into the climbing centre where well over a year ago I had a bad fall… and an even worse landing.

This feeling quickly lifts though as I’m greeted by whichever friendly member of staff is on reception, and for a moment I forget about the past troubles and just believe everything is back to normal and I’m just going climbing with my buddies.

“Squad goals”

The nerves however come back as soon as I have pulled on my shoes, chalked my hands and started warming up on easy routes. I spent months slowly working my way up and down the easiest problems on the easiest circuits the centre had to offer, viciously over gripping out of fear slipping and falling again. As time passed I began to relax more, my movement felt more natural and intuitive. More importantly I began to enjoy every moment of climbing again. The fear of falling and re-injuring my ankle still looms over me and makes me climb cautiously and methodically, but I have noticed in the past few weeks I am less scared to fall, less scared to land on both feet and less scared to try things that may not go first try. This shedding of fear has seen my climbing grade slowly creep up motivation and psych reaching new levels.

“Hopefully back to hard projects in the future”

So I will spend as much time as can relearning this fine art of movement, put more time in to specific focused training and start enjoying climbing for what it always has been, A fun part of my life!

Hope everyone has had a great christmas, and that psych levels are running high for the new year.

Steve.