[jwi]

A popular method to overcame fear in lead climbing is "fall training" where the climber is asked to climb some distance above a bolt or a bomber wire and then letting go, taking a safe fall that ends well (i.e. without bodily hurt or excessive panic attacks). This method has more proponents than I can mention, with tons of videos and articles supporting it. I am aware that there are some (including my better half) who claim that this method has helped them have less fear on lead, but for most (i.e. me) it does not seem to have any effect whatsoever and some have even suffered PTSD-like symptoms (private communication) after bouts of fall training.

I will for the sake of simplicity assume that there is a single "method" for fall training, roughly the one described in "9 out 10 climbers" and "Rock Warriors way", summarised in this article.

As far as I know the efficacy of fall training is not backed up by even a single well designed study on climbers, so all we have to go with is anecdotal evidence, which preferably would come from someone who does not have wested interest in the method. What are for instance the drop-out rates? How many start fall training and drop out because it is too traumatic? More than a few, I would wager. But as there has been zero studies, my guess, based on my own biased observations, is as good as anyone's.

Since there is no direct evidence (and a glaring lack of numerous and glowing testimonials) the method of fall-training is often justified with a reference to so-called exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is any number of therapies that are based on the idea of exposing people with phobias to whatever frightens them. Against some specific phobias, such as fear of spiders or heights, exposure therapies has been showed to be quite efficient, but against other phobias not more than tensing and relaxing. For phobias against spiders, three hour therapy sessions have been shown to have effects lasting over a year after the intervention, whereas most proponents of fall training say that it has to be done weekly forever to have any chance of being "effective".

In order to be as magnanimous as possible, I will take it as a given that exposure therapies are likely efficient against phobias in general, even if we have not been showed to work for a specific case.

I am not even sure that fear of falling is a phobia in the same sense that fear of spiders or fear of needles are, as there is strong evidence that FOF is innate to all mammals. Some researchers even argue that a lack of FOF is pathological and should maybe be treated. But let us assume, without much evidence, that population-average FOF is a phobia and let's assume that exposure therapy actually works agains FOF.

My main disagreement with fall training is that it trains something completely different from climbing and falling. "Fall training" trains letting go, rather than getting up a route. It trains jumping off rather than falling because of failure. It trains that it is ok to let go and take a fall in a controlled environment rather than actually falling because a move is actually hard or at the end of a long sequence of pumpy moves. A controlled wilful jump off in the middle of the route is not climbing. It has nothing to do with climbing.

What most people who report excessive fear on lead or toprope has a problem with is fear of heights, fear of loosing control and yes fear of falling: but falling from failure nb.

For climbers with multifaceted fears a voluntary fall, even a short one, is deeply traumatic. And even the most well-meant training exercises can, and have, induced so many repeated traumatic experiences that they lead to PTSD.

So instead of doing pointless or even possibly severely damaging "fall training" what do I suggest? The end to quick fixes. Climbers with excessive fear of falling should talk with understanding friends and try to find out exactly what the fears are (aka classical therapy or "attention placebo" as it is called in the CBT business, where—funny enough— they sometimes find it to be better than exposure against phobias). Is it fear of height? Is it fear of loosing control, of doing low-percentage moves or not knowing exactly when terminal pump hits? Some of these fears can be overcome with physical training (bouldering to be better at judging hard moves, endurance training to get a better understanding of when the pump will become untenable). Training at low percentage moves low down on extremely well-padded boulders can help against fear of loosing control. Fear of heights can be trained specifically with trying routes that induce the fear on a top rope, or just by hanging on the bolts and chilling for a long time.

All of the things I suggest are things that have seen actually work for climbers having problem mastering irrational fears.

Yeah, and another thing that can work well. I know of at least two competition climbers with severe fear of leading, both indoors and out. But when they are in competition they gladly clip below their knees or skip clipping altogether to get one move higher, take monster whippers and report no fear at all, only anger and disappointment at not completing the route. I have seen the same on climbers long-term projects where the climber start out being terrified even working the route, but when it is time to do attempt, all fears are displaced by the will to top out.

[Fiend]

Good post.

I've had very clear experiences where fall training has worked directly and effectively for me. A notable one was doing fall practise at Ratho, and a few days later trying a trad route at my limit in the Lakes. This involved some committing cranking a few metres left and up from good gear with a clean fall-out zone. Midway through the sequence, I became aware of the fall potential, and a bit scared, and almost as soon as they appeared, those inhibitory thoughts were chased away by a memory of falling at Ratho, and an increased familiarity with the sensation of falling though space. It was as simple as that and I risked the (now less intimidating) fall, pushed on, and completed the route (Wheels Of Fire, Adam Lincoln can vouch for me ).

HTH.

(BTW the fallacy in your argument is that it's based around missing out the essential follow-up step to this: "My main disagreement with fall training is that it trains something completely different from climbing and falling. "Fall training" trains letting go, rather than getting up a route. It trains jumping off rather than falling because of failure.", that step being that the climber then gets on routes, usually in a similar environment, that are hard enough that they might fall off, and then puts the "falling training" into practise on "trying hard and risking a fall now that the actual falling bit is more comfortable -training" - again something I had very clear experiences of, I can even remember a blue route in the left corner of the justice wall at Ratho that I only scraped up the top because any inhibitions about pushing on and risking the fall had been countered by previous falling training)

Edit: I suspect people who have had PTSD have not done it slowly nor gently enough.

[cheque]

If I feel like fear’s holding me back on a sport route I’m trying to redpoint I’ll jump off once from the bit I’m worried about falling from. Always seems to take fear out of the equation. Doing that’s preceded almost all my hardest redpoints in fact.

To be honest my current relationship with taking falls is both complicated and not great though so I’m not going to pretend I can comment further than that.

[M1V0]

Interesting ideas.

Although your issue seems to be with the idea of controlled falling not being directly applicable to other contexts, including falling due to hold breakage, slipping etc. I believe that the progression of fall training is more important than the act itself, e.g. start simply at the bolt and let go, move higher, and let go, through to getting on something with a safe fall zone and hard moves that you are almost guaranteed to fall off, and then exercising the mental fortitude required to move through the sequence and accepting the fall, albeit safe.

I also think that there is a strong factor of not just the falling, but the trusting of specific people. I think it can be of use in fall training to let go unexpectedly (in a safe manner on the wall) in order to build that trust with your belayer. I know that I do not necessarily trust certain people and their blasé attitude to belaying, which may be mitigating by practicing falling with them in particular.

[Paul B]

Having worked in a busy wall, people doing 'fall training' were a nightmare spending an entire session lobbing around near other punters generally without much thought.

I was a bit concerned about a fall on a route I did a few years ago. The climbing involved getting feet infeasibly high, and then standing up into an undercut at full stretch (or peeling off backwards in slow motion), by this point your last bolt is a reasonable way beneath your feet and there's a nice little overlap to add to the fun. To equip it I'd sit on the lower bolt and use my beta-stick which I think was nearing full extension (although I probably didn't risk the emergency end).

I took the fall inadvertently one day where I was successful in making decent progress on the move and that was that; it was long but I knew how it felt and didn't hit anything and afterwards I could just get on with it.

I think people often conflate fear of falling with general exposure (Mandela sticks in my mind having discussed it with a number of people over the years), the latter of which always seems to be a time thing for me (i.e. having been in that position a lot recently). I'm always a little wobbly on multi-pitch holidays for the first few routes (one bad first day a few years ago really messed with my head for the rest of the trip although looking back I think it was probably outside stress from work manifesting itself).

[Fiend]

If I feel like fear’s holding me back on a sport route I’m trying to redpoint I’ll jump off once from the bit I’m worried about falling from. Always seems to take fear out of the equation. Doing that’s preceded almost all my hardest redpoints in fact.

To be honest my current relationship with taking falls is both complicated and not great though so I’m not going to pretend I can comment further than that.

"It's complicated" - damn right for you!

The first bit is also something I've done effectively and is actually now part of my working a route - working out how to physically optimise it, but also mentally optimise it by practising the "scariest" and/or "most likely" falls.

[Ballsofcottonwool]

Surprised to hear that there are people actually afraid of the sensation of falling, given how popular roller coasters and other thrill rides are.  I've never met anybody that has admitted to a fear of the sensation of falling, a fear of falling to the ground and being killed or injured as a result of a lack of trust in belaying or equipment is what I expect someone means when they say they are afraid on a rope.

[Fiend]

It's the fear of the very start of the fall, the moment of no longer being attached.

Also I suspect a lot of roller coaster shizzle is popular exactly because it is a bit scary...

[cheque]

I've never met anybody that has admitted to a fear of the sensation of falling, a fear of falling to the ground and being killed or injured... is what I expect someone means

When you’ve had a few of the latter type of falls the sensation of falling brings the PTSD back even when you really know it’s safe.

[Dexter]

So in my experience the fear of falling nowadays comes from me worrying that I have somehow screwed up my knot or harness or something stupid like that. To that end each time I lead climb I intentionally don't clip the last draw on my first few warm up climbs as a pseudo fall practice. After coming back to lead climbing after lockdown 1 I was pretty much fine with falling again.
That being said I think for others the fear is derived from other sources (belayer not catching hitting holds/rock on the way down etc.). Depending on what the fear is I think fall practice can help, such as in my case as the thing I'm afraid of doesn't happen (i.e. my knot doesn't come undone). But if it's a fear as Fiend says of the beginning of the fall then this wouldn't really help.

FYI I used to be terrified of heights (to the point where I didn't like steep staircases or going into my parents loft as a child) and now am much more comfortable with them.

[Fultonius]

I sometimes get a bit of a fear of falling when I've been out of practise. I think a much better drill than the usual "climbing above a clip and jumping/letting go" is to find a suitable climb (safe fall) that's around your redpoint limit. Climb up to around 2/3rds and just start gunning for the top, skip clips if necessary and safe, but focus on good movement and climbing. This is much more realistic, and also better for not thinking about the falling.

[IanP]

I sometimes get a bit of a fear of falling when I've been out of practise. I think a much better drill than the usual "climbing above a clip and jumping/letting go" is to find a suitable climb (safe fall) that's around your redpoint limit. Climb up to around 2/3rds and just start gunning for the top, skip clips if necessary and safe, but focus on good movement and climbing. This is much more realistic, and also better for not thinking about the falling.

 , this works for me whether done outside or at the wall.  I am aware however that I don't really have a fear of falling, just get out of the habit for commitment.

On a related thing on current fashions in climbing - you now seem to see quite a lot of people taking the 'don't top rope' postion on sport routes even though it can often be a signicantly quicker and more efficient way of working routes.  I top rope regularly when routes style allows and don't generally have any issues when I move to redpoint mode.  Potentially this feeds back to generally not having a major issue with falling.

[Felix14]

Fall practice definitely helped me  as I was learning to lead climb when I was younger. Seems like a safer way to learn about getting the rope behind your leg and that sort of thing.

[reeve]

Good thread!

jwi: I think it's a mistake to get too involved in diagnoses like what constitutes a phobia when thinking about exposure (this is a problem with all mental health / psychology / psychiatric research, it is diagnosis driven, but the whole system of diagnosing is flawed; end rant). A phobia, in behaviourally specific terms, is unwarranted or overly intense anxiety following the presentation of a specific cue. There is an abundance of evidence that exposure will work for this.

However, I am fairly sceptical that falling practice as it is typically done satisfies the criteria for 'how to do exposure work'. Usually in exposure you present the anxiety-provoking cue for long enough until the anxiety response rises then falls at least most of the way back down. This means that, with say spiders, you'd present a spider (or spider-associated cue) for as long as it takes for the intensity of anxiety to go up then come back down to at least half of it's peak. This is usually quoted as taking 10-40 minutes, although I've never had anyone more than 20 and sometimes people at about 5 minutes. Obviously this doesn't happen when you jump off a wall with a fall-time of less than a second.

As a bit of an aside, the way that exposure works is a bit more open to debate. It could be;
1. that experiencing something to be safe helps you re-evaluate your your cognitive appraisal of the level of threat as being non-serious (like what Fiend said in his example)
2. once you have habituated to the cue's presence and your anxiety has faded, you associate the presence of the cue with low-anxiety which weakens the association between the cue and needing to be in a threat-response (unlikely given the short duration of a fall)
3. being presented with high anxiety / fear for a sustained period gives you the chance to learn to tolerate this level of emotion yet go on funcitoning in spite of it's presence (I think this is actually what a lot of 'learning to deal with fear without eliminating it like what Dave MacLeod talks about; it's probably what happens when someone is in redpoint mode and so the importance of the route makes tolerating the fear more palatable)

These three mechanisms are not mutually exclusive.

I think where it gets complicated is, as you, M1V0, Paul, and ballsofcottonwool hint at, it really depends on exactly what the cue is that you want to target. I suspect that what intensity of fear one experiences whilst climbing results from a combination of your background level of stress, fear of failure, exposure, fear of losing control, discomfort with feeling pumped (i.e. losing control), discomfort with low percentage moves (i.e. possibility of losing control), fear of the unknown (when onsighting, particularly on questy trad routes), and fear of harm / impact (plus anything else I've forgotten). I guess in this context, you can see "falling practice" as helpful at reducing the fear of this part of the equation. If you want to reduce the contribution to your fear of the fear of exposure, then go on increasingly tall routes in increasingly exposed situations. If both of these factors are important contributors to your fear whilst climbing, you'll want to do exposure on both of them. I think that saying 'falling practice is pointless because it is only about jumping off' is somewhat throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For me it's definitely helpful, but only to a point.

I'd completely agree that anyone who has suffered "PTSD-like symptoms" from falling practice has pushed it much too fast. This will be a very difficult position to come back from but the treatment of choice for flashbacks is still exposure.

A final point which I don't know where to fit into anywhere else in my post so will have to uncomfortably sit on the end: I think that the psychological demands when redpointing are very different than when onsighting. The whole questing into the unknown (even when there's a bolt by your knees) is such a different element. There's a difference between learning to be comfortable in one specific situation (i.e. facing a long fall from the crux on your proj) to generalising that skill / tolerance / low responsiveness of emotion to other situations.

(Got a bit geeky on this post, sorry!)

[Fiend]

I think a much better drill than the usual "climbing above a clip and jumping/letting go" is to find a suitable climb (safe fall) that's around your redpoint limit. Climb up to around 2/3rds and just start gunning for the top, skip clips if necessary and safe, but focus on good movement and climbing. This is much more realistic, and also better for not thinking about the falling.

That strikes me as straight out of the "Depressed? Just cheer up!" school of thinking. How are you going to gun for the top, skip clips, and not think about the falling if you're shit scared of, errr, falling?? Sure that way of curing fear of falling might work for people who have so little fear of falling they can put it out of their mind, but otherwise it seems like trying to run before you can walk...

P.S. Andy - see my initial story. It might not be a Helsby death route I was on but there was a clear transference for me.

[andy popp]

I've never deliberately let go, whether on a sport route or indoors, and have always found it very hard to even imagine doing so. I think I would find it too scary (relatedly, I've always thought I would be too scared to do bridge jumps etc.). I can't see it having any relevance to the emotional stresses involved in trad climbing, but have also long doubted it trains the responses needed for redpoint commitment.

[reeve]

I've never deliberately let go, whether on a sport route or indoors, and have always found it very hard to even imagine doing so. I think I would find it too scary (relatedly, I've always thought I would be too scared to do bridge jumps etc.). I can't see it having any relevance to the emotional stresses involved in trad climbing, but have also long doubted it trains the responses needed for redpoint commitment.

Whilst I agree that purposefully jumping off won't directly train your ability to commit, if your mid-crux commitment is hampered by distracting thoughts about falling, then reducing the salience of these thoughts will probably help you commit.

[mrjonathanr]

I have found with lots of small falls and the occasional whipper sport climbing, eventually you become unperturbed out from a bolt, but never found deliberate falls useful.

I sagged onto the bolt high on New Dawn once, worried about pulling onto the slopey ledge and then falling off. Angry with myself, I went up to the bolt just above the ledge, pulled up an armful to clip and jumped off to prove to myself the fall wasn't scary. I was very wrong about that.

Managed it next burn though, too terrified of taking the fall to let go.

[Fultonius]

I think a much better drill than the usual "climbing above a clip and jumping/letting go" is to find a suitable climb (safe fall) that's around your redpoint limit. Climb up to around 2/3rds and just start gunning for the top, skip clips if necessary and safe, but focus on good movement and climbing. This is much more realistic, and also better for not thinking about the falling.

That strikes me as straight out of the "Depressed? Just cheer up!" school of thinking. How are you going to gun for the top, skip clips, and not think about the falling if you're shit scared of, errr, falling?? Sure that way of curing fear of falling might work for people who have so little fear of falling they can put it out of their mind, but otherwise it seems like trying to run before you can walk...

P.S. Andy - see my initial story. It might not be a Helsby death route I was on but there was a clear transference for me.

Nah, but it's maybe just a second level of training that can be done post "dropping off", which has never really done much for me, short of making me think "too many of these and I'll need a new rope soon".  I've never (or not since my early days of climbing) had much issue with just jumping/dropping off, but do still find that I'm not totally relaxed at the start of any route season until I've done some of my afordescribed drills.

I guess what I'm saying is - I don't think just doing the usual "climb, drop, repeat" is enough for the exact reason JWI thinks the whole thing is not great - lack of specificity / similarity to a redpoint fall.

I've been on and off depressed for the last 5 years so you can man the fuck up back to your usual hovel fiendiepops. 

Would be nice for someone to actually do a well structured study.

As a bit of an aside, the way that exposure works is a bit more open to debate. It could be;

For someone well read and who often presents good points...stop ruining them with the ever more common misuse of the damn semi-colon!!! 

[IanP]

That strikes me as straight out of the "Depressed? Just cheer up!" school of thinking. How are you going to gun for the top, skip clips, and not think about the falling if you're shit scared of, errr, falling?? Sure that way of curing fear of falling might work for people who have so little fear of falling they can put it out of their mind, but otherwise it seems like trying to run before you can walk...

What I was trying to say, as someone who just needs a little effort to get the commitment back up this approach works very well - I can't put myself in the place of someone who is really scared of falling, so find it difficult to to comment on what might work.

 

[andy popp]

P.S. Andy - see my initial story. It might not be a Helsby death route I was on but there was a clear transference for me.

That's great, it clearly worked. I cannot imagine it working at all for me - but I'm one entirely subjective, anecdotal perspective of no more value than any other. Years back I knew someone who'd got to E4 (a highly respectable grade in the early 80s) without ever having taken a single fall - it was actually a point of pride for him. Taken to that extent, "the leader must not fall" ultimately imposes a real constraint.

But I think this is a sport climbing topic and I'm approaching it as a trad climber and should shut up.

[reeve]

As a bit of an aside, the way that exposure works is a bit more open to debate. It could be;

For someone well read and who often presents good points...stop ruining them with the ever more common misuse of the damn semi-colon!!! 

Ah drat! An honest mistake! 

[RobK]

I think that the psychological demands when redpointing are very different than when onsighting. The whole questing into the unknown (even when there's a bolt by your knees) is such a different element. There's a difference between learning to be comfortable in one specific situation (i.e. facing a long fall from the crux on your proj) to generalising that skill / tolerance / low responsiveness of emotion to other situations.

100% this, I'm always more than happy to run it out and skip clips when redpointing but my onsight head game is far worse and seems to come and go depending on what day of the week it is. Not sure what the cure is, other than more onsight mileage. Fall practice certainly doesn't seem to deal with the questing into the unknown element.

[Fultonius]

I think that the psychological demands when redpointing are very different than when onsighting. The whole questing into the unknown (even when there's a bolt by your knees) is such a different element. There's a difference between learning to be comfortable in one specific situation (i.e. facing a long fall from the crux on your proj) to generalising that skill / tolerance / low responsiveness of emotion to other situations.

100% this, I'm always more than happy to run it out and skip clips when redpointing but my onsight head game is far worse and seems to come and go depending on what day of the week it is. Not sure what the cure is, other than more onsight mileage. Fall practice certainly doesn't seem to deal with the questing into the unknown element.

I often have more fear (of failure probably) sport onsighting than trad onsighting. On a handful of infrequent onsight tad leads I've had very little fear of either failure or falling, just pure focus and a weird momentum / drive upwards. Those days are magical! 

[Fiend]

Fultonious, it sounds like we're mostly in agreement - if your initial post had read more like: "I think a great (/more important / essential) follow-up drill after the usual "climbing above a clip and jumping/letting go" is to find a suitable climb (safe fall) that's around your redpoint limit.". Pretty much what I was initially saying in reply to JWI:

Stage 1: do increasingly large (pace determined by initial fears) falling / letting go practise - IF you need to.
Stage 2: put that into practise by further training in actual normal lead scenarios.
Stage 3: crushing blah blah insta blah drone shots blah blah likes whatever