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Writer's picturePenny Scully

Can climbing psychology work?

In this blog post, I will share with you my personal experience of working with a professional climbing psychologist, how I ended up there, and how it has impacted me. Let's start from the beginning...

 

Climbing, no matter the discipline, is an adrenaline-based sport. People can take it as far as free soloing to great heights, or, like me try their hardest to perform and progress in sport climbing. What I have come to love about climbing is that the journey is unknown, of course, we can plan some directions of goals to achieve, but the discipline itself has a will of its own, after all, there are so many external factors.


During the start of my climbing career, I began like any newbie these days, in a local rock climbing gym, I’d been strong in the past as I had done a lot of team-based sports and adapted very fast to this new sporting activity. Quickly I made friends and they invited me to the rocks, ticking off my first few 7-grade routes before the end of my first year of climbing. At this point, I recall a great feeling of uncertainty in my climbing but I was high on energy and enthusiasm with little understanding of the potential dangers and risks that come with the sport. Don't get me wrong, I was not a reckless or carefree climber, but I was quickly making progress with any doubts or fears.



My first scary moment came soon after, I flipped upside down on an on-site attempt of a long route in Croatia. Fortunately, the belayer had been attentive and a helmet was worn, and no severe injuries occurred. After the fall I remember being frustrated because I had dropped the route so close to the chains, instantly flipping myself round without too much care for the fall, and started pulling myself back up the ropes. It wasn’t until later did I see the impact of this accident on my body.


I’d had a minor 'knock back' in my climbing and my mental game started to deteriorate. The more people told me horror stories and the more knowledge about the sport and risks it imposed that I learned, the more my brain began to presume that climbing was not safe and falling was not safe. And that part of my brain that had been uncertain before when I began climbing was essentially being fed, holding back my mental progression in the sport, which would quickly lead to my physical deterioration in the sport too.

The accident route - Croatia
The accident route - Croatia

It took a while for me to realise how to cope with this. At first, I thought I wouldn't and couldn’t push through it. I would be frustrated when I made progress and then all of a sudden it would slap back down to zero. I recall countless times becoming tearful on routes when I struggled to push through my comfort zones and sometimes even resorting to telling myself and my partner "I have to quit". However, as we know climbing is not for the faint-hearted and I’m a pretty stubborn individual and my love for climbing was too great to let it go at the first major hurdle. I was going to try everything possible to break through this barrier.


I made a lot of progress on my own, teaching myself breathing techniques and learning how to exert nervous energy on the wall. I do this by making sounds or wailing noises, which can be quite amusing for my belayer. Once, trying a dynamic move on a route in the north of Spain, I actually recall telling myself out loud to "MOVE", and as if by magic, my body did move to the next hold successfully, to which my belayer rightfully quizzed me, "did you just tell yourself to move?"





Also taking 'confidence or practice falls' has helped me greatly, with every fall I am reminded of the feeling, and it helps me build my relationship with my belayer. You can read more about confidence falls in a previous blog post here.


It was getting better. But the bad days paid a large toll on me, I could not understand why they were bad and why my mental game could not be good 24/7. It seemed to me that everyone around me was improving and I was stuck. It was driving me insane, I’d chat to other people and they would tell me, “keep on doing what you are doing“ or "it gets better, you just need to climb for longer". I understood that I was still 'young' in climbing but I was very impatient and being blinded to seeing no end. I wanted more from my climbing, I wanted to be able to enjoy pushing hard, climbing on my limit, and become accustomed to that feeling of being on the edge, I wanted to match my physical to mental strength. And then one day, my climbing coach mentioned, “perhaps you’d benefit from psychological help more than physical training…”


Took me all of two minutes after that to find Climbing Psychology on google, a small consultancy that was founded by a climbing psychologist named Madeleine Crane (@_madeleinecrane) from Austria. I remember frantically reading all of her blogs, website material, and posts on her Instagram, not that I needed to be more convinced to give it a go, after all, I was going to try everything to help me ride this wave. After our first session online it was clear she and I both felt comfortable with one another, which is important for a patient and psychologist as you will be discussing in-depth your feelings, and we proceeded to take on more online sessions.


I recall thinking in the beginning “will this work?”, especially when I already knew a lot about the things we talked through together, like the reminders that the mind is a muscle, and it takes time to grow this mental strength, etc. However, I always kept an open mind, because I wanted it to work, and wanted so badly to understand my mindset. In just a few sessions she quickly showed me that my attitude towards myself was very negative and this could be a factor restricting my climbing. I, like many other climbers, viewed my climbing very black or white implying my perspective was 'to send' or 'not to send.' I was certainly not examining the grey area, the process in between, and most definitely not rewarding myself for the smaller progression accomplishments.


Understanding this helped me grow quickly as a climber. After sessions on the rock if I had a bad day or a good day, instead of negatively feeling bad about my performance and likely complaining about it, as I had in the past. I replaced this with advice from Madeleine to start analysing my performance, and ask myself “what had I done well today?” Even if I hadn’t sent a route, or was nowhere close to sending. The impact of the exercise was huge for me, it changed my mental mindset and allowed me to be more optimistic when leaving a sector. It reminded me that I climb for fun, yes I want to challenge myself and yes I want to send, but a send is a result of all the hard work of the little things we put together.




As sessions went on between us, it became evident there was something else that bothered me whilst I was climbing. To examine what this could be, Madeleine tasked me to record my days at the crag for some time. Recording my factors such as feeling, sensations, performance, and external factors around me, describing what is happening in the sector and who was there. Additionally noting if there was anything going on in my non-climbing life at this given time too.


It was not long until trends appeared in my recordings, showing me a couple of clear data findings, one, that I struggled to perform well in large groups of people, and two that I would struggle to perform if there was uncertainty or stress in my non-climbing life. Almost as if my climbing mirrored my feelings in my non-climbing life.


This was a revolutionary moment in my climbing career because it was the moment I realised, it’s not possible for me to be climbing on the limit 24/7, because there are so many external factors that I cannot control that could affect me. However I can understand these external factors before setting off climbing, I can take note of what is happening and therefore change my attitude accordingly. For example, if something is discerning me in my non-climbing life, I would now try not to expect or ask too much of myself whilst climbing i.e. cut myself a little slack!


After putting these techniques together for some time and quite a few other techniques, that I won't cover in this blog. I can proudly say I have more good days than bad now, and when I do have a bad day, I usually have a pretty good method of flipping the cup to be half full again. By no means is my journey over, it’s just beginning, but I’m finally starting to see myself push the direction of my goal.





Climbing psychology is not for everyone, but if you're reading this and feeling connected, you may just benefit. Don’t give up on your dreams.



 

I would like to say a big thank you to Madeleine Crane and @climbingPsychology who have helped me grow not only as a climber but a person too throughout our sessions together. And to Albert De Pablo who is not only my climbing trainer now but was the person who directed me in the direction to seek help. And a final one to every belayer who has ever had the pleasure of being on the other end of my rope, thanks for putting up with me.




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