So you’ve got your harness on. You’ve got your shoes. You’re good to go? Well, you might need one of these.

Attacking Fear

In today’s video, I walked a bit about managing fear while climbing. When I climb, I have found that when I don’t feel safe, I tend to become a pretty terrible climber.

I mean, it gets REALLY bad. On a typical climb, I can feel fine with having only one or two secure limbs on the rock in order to make a move. If I feel unsafe, my freaked out mind will convince me to only take a risk if three of my limbs are solid on the rock; this means that I can only move my right hand when my left hand and both of my feet will not fail me. I’ve heard it said that fear makes people do stupid things, I definitely feel dumber when I’m freaked out on the rock.

With that said, I have seen friends improve their skills simply because they wore a helmet while climbing. They felt free to step out and try something new because their head was safe. Unlike other pieces of gear, which we can forget that we are wearing, a helmet is a constant physical and visual reminder that we are safe during a climb.

Just After Editing this Video…

So shortly after finishing out my edits on this video, I took a couple friends climbing (yet another of my weekend adventures with friends). One of my friends were up on the rock and I reminded her to wear her helmet.

She went up the climb and falling. Because she was out to the right of the anchor, she swung and ended up hitting her head during the swing.

As she was slowly lowered from the op of the climb, we noticed that she was alright. Though her head still hurt, we were grateful for the injury that was prevented because she took time to wear a helmet.

Connect:

Have any stories about how a helmet (or lack of a helmet) was involved in an accident? Comment below!

 

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