Suffering From Climbing Anxiety, I Took Hazel Findlay’s Mental Training Course. Here’s What I Learned.
The first time I led a trad climb, I placed a cam blindly and immediately took an uncontrolled, fearless, and absolutely exhilarating fall. I have great memories of that summer; 2019 was the season I began pushing myself on lead, ticked new grades, and fully dived into the climbing life. Crucially, I didn’t yet appreciate the consequences of climbing falls.
Fast forward six years and, thanks to a string of lower-body injuries, a bombardment of Weekend Whipper horror shows, and a few scary falls of my own, I now have a very different relationship to falling and risk. Nowadays, I am often stressed out about falling, and as a result I climb grades way below my physical limit. I also choose belayers very, very wisely. As my climbing-comfort plummeted, so has my self worth. Friends, strangers, and pro climbers all seem to be taking huge falls, pushing grades, and having fun while doing it. So why can’t I?
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Hazel Findlay’s mental-training course, Strong Mind, is not a silver bullet. Strong Mind is mentally taxing, it strongly resembles therapy, and you will put yourself in situations you’ve been getting pretty clever at avoiding. The six-chapter course has 91 lessons, including “framing your mindset,” fear of falling/injury/exposure/failure, performance anxiety, and gives you actionable breathing and mindfulness tips. The depth of knowledge shared in the course is astounding—and is clearly created by two climbers with extensive experience pushing their own mental boundaries.
My favorite part of the course was doing a few practice falls at the crag, recording them, and getting analysis and feedback from Angus Kille. It was almost like the Strong Mind team was at the crag with me. In the video analysis, Kille pointed out that even taking small, clean falls made my body go very tense. And simple toprope bounces on the rope made me anxious—I was gripping my figure eight, a telltale sign I was uncomfortable.
I didn’t know how I felt about this information. I have the perception that I’m brave, that, as a trad and alpine climber, I like to take some amount of risk. Risk taking, I realized, was a big part of my identity, my sense of self. But do I actually like that risk? I began asking myself. Findlay addresses the nuanced fears (unrelated to climbing) that can affect your experience: failure, social comparisons, and performance.
In the fourth chapter, I began to do some deep thinking about the roots of my insecurities, and I learned that my fear of falling is equal parts fear of failure and reinjury. Neither fear will be solved by physiotherapy or strength exercises; I need to positively reframe my relationship to climbing by repeatedly having positive experiences with people I trust. These issues haven’t been resolved, but the team at Strong Mind helped me do my first giant leap towards having a better relationship to climbing, and myself.
Each week, participants have the opportunity to share their experiences with each other. Eventually I mustered the courage to talk about my experience with injury and how it has completely reframed my outlook on falling. So many classmates identified with my discomfort and simply said “same.” I don’t think there is a more comforting response when speaking about your trauma or insecurities.
Of course, the roots of your fears or insecurities may be completely opposite to mine, and different chapters may resonate with you while they didn’t resonate with me. The 91 lessons dive into a range of topics, and it is totally worth your time to explore them all. Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy, right?
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The Strong Mind course’s main downfall, in my opinion, is the mountain of content that’s shared in such a short timeframe. The course is meant to be completed in just eight weeks—including going out to the crag between classes and implementing its teachings—but after a few weeks of listening to videos online, participating in the asynchronous forums, and trying to join weekly Q&A sessions (which were always, it seemed, smack in the middle of my mountain-standard-time workday), it was all too much. I didn’t feel like I had enough time to go out and actually practice falling, and I certainly didn’t have time to reflect on what I learned before I started the next chapter. Just like my inability to take big, safe falls, I soon felt like I was failing at this course too.
The course’s frantic pace, paired with stressful life events, seemed like too much so I slowed my roll. After all, students have lifetime access and there was no point in rushing the learning process. I took my time with the course and finished it in the fall, when Canada’s all too brief summer ended and I had time to work the material at my own pace.
So I spent the better part of last autumn taking practice falls, breathing deeply above my gear, taking in the view at the top of the pitch, and remembering what it feels like to enjoy climbing. In my mind, it’s 2019 again, and I’m eating gummy bears in a comfy belay parka at my favorite crag. I’ve come down from sending a few hard-for-me pitches teary eyed from joy and, of course, the dopamine hit. I’m enjoying myself again.
Hazel and Angus warned that this is an ongoing process of unlearning and relearning—it’s not over! But I’m glad to now have the tools to cope.
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