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Mental Training (Read 15065 times)

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#50 Re: Mental Training
June 17, 2015, 11:17:13 am
Have really struggled when feeling expectation and pressure to climb something - specifically climbing in front of others (especially better climbers), competitions, fear of falling off on routes and failure - often failing on climbs way below my limit as a result.

Recently been reading the rock warriors way by Arno Igner, the art of mental training by dc Gonzales, Mind Gym by David Casstevens and finding some improvements. there are recent good podcasts from all of these as well as Hazel Findlay.

Key concepts that have helped-

Breathing exercises - helps slow the heart rate and to focus and then some visualization before getting on the problem/route.

Positive self talk - detaching from inner self critic, Igner describes the witness position where you can observe you thoughts from the conscious mind and ignore/deal with them.

Staying present - detach from past performances, performance of others and focusing on the process at hand - i.e. climbing the moves, rather than getting to the top.

Not being afraid of failing - accept this as part of the learning process. You need to risk failure to push your comfort zone. I think coming from a trad background  especially failure/falling off is seen as a really negative thing which can be unhelpful for long term development.

Determining phantom fears from real ones - is there a real danger if you fall off -if not the fear and resultant anxiety is irrational.

All sounds a bit cliché but I find that if I reinforce these every session I am able to be a bit less anxious, self-concious and climb a bit closer to my limit.
All good stuff  :2thumbsup:

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#51 Re: Mental Training
June 17, 2015, 10:22:04 pm
Have really struggled when feeling expectation and pressure to climb something - specifically climbing in front of others (especially better climbers), competitions, fear of falling off on routes and failure - often failing on climbs way below my limit as a result.

Recently been reading the rock warriors way by Arno Igner, the art of mental training by dc Gonzales, Mind Gym by David Casstevens and finding some improvements. there are recent good podcasts from all of these as well as Hazel Findlay.

Key concepts that have helped-

Breathing exercises - helps slow the heart rate and to focus and then some visualization before getting on the problem/route.

Positive self talk - detaching from inner self critic, Igner describes the witness position where you can observe you thoughts from the conscious mind and ignore/deal with them.

Staying present - detach from past performances, performance of others and focusing on the process at hand - i.e. climbing the moves, rather than getting to the top.

Not being afraid of failing - accept this as part of the learning process. You need to risk failure to push your comfort zone. I think coming from a trad background  especially failure/falling off is seen as a really negative thing which can be unhelpful for long term development.

Determining phantom fears from real ones - is there a real danger if you fall off -if not the fear and resultant anxiety is irrational.

All sounds a bit cliché but I find that if I reinforce these every session I am able to be a bit less anxious, self-concious and climb a bit closer to my limit.

The 'staying present' one is the big one for me. I never get performance anxiety/nerves in front of others or just my partner indoors or out, regardless of how many people are at the bouldering wall or whatever, but I find when trad climbing it helps to try and focus on the next few moves, though I think it's harder than sport climbing or bouldering as obviously you are having to ocassionally flick back to thinking about gear, runouts etc. The trick I've found is to kind of do a mental inventory of those things, and then write them off until the next update. Eg if the gear is shit, worrying about it isn't going to make you climb any better, if anything you are more likely to fall. Easier said than done but it's worked for me quite well.

 :great: for anyone looking into any kind of mental training, it is a bit of a cliche but I think it's where many(most?) people will see some good gains

 

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