UKH

After 3 years of non-climbing I got back into it a few months back taking my girlfriend out on some easy stuff at Wilton, I was eyeing up Cheat an E3 there and at the end of the day top-roped it clean and left. 

The next week it was bugging me, the old phrase if you can top rope it you can lead it, I went back that weekend top-roped it clean again and then led it, I took the biggest lob of my life and was about 1m of decking. My confidence is wrecked, I'll solidly lead VS now (previously my best was E2 and felt comfortable at HVS/E1) I just have no faith in my feet, my hands or my head. I keep backing off or worse procrastinating on good holds until I just have no strength left.

Anyone been through something similar? what strategy did you use to build yourself back up? I've done about 20leads since but every time I've tried to make that step up in grade again to the E1/E2 range I fail and my confidence ebbs further. I'm desperate to get back on those harder routes.

You can't change events, only your response to them. Take time to reflect on the many positives of the experience .

You should be chuffed that you can clearly place bomber gear! The first big lob of a season is the one that gives me confidence that i have my eye in for a solid placement.

Good work.

Lead bolted routes until you get that friction-trust back ?? Try to be more incremental in upping your grade ??

Are you confident of your belayer(s) and are you efficient in placing gear / clipping ? 

I think one of my friends saw you take that lob! It was a talking point a week later! Well done.

Anyhow, donnae worry lad - it's par for the course on Cheat, where you know you're in for a big lob if you come off. As Shani says, take pride in having good gear - and a good belayer - and get back on that horse!

p.s. Cheat is on my mental hit list now, too, after seconding it. Your story - that you didn't deck - makes me feel a wee bit more confident! Ta

Try and focus on doing the easier routes, you can do, smoothly and with confidence. Experiment with clipping in your gear a little later than you need to. Give it some time and try not to let it get to you. Continue to top rope/second some harder stuff and try and picture yourself leading it.

Hi Jack, it sounds like you're finding it really frustrating and are really keen to get back to climbing well. Firstly, in my experience, putting extra pressure on myself to climb a higher grade seldom has the desired effect. In fact, putting pressure on myself like that tends to make me climb worse. Trad climbing is stressful enough as it is without extra stress to have to cope with.

I know what the route Cheat looks like from photos, but I've never been on it. If it were me who had taken a long fall but stopped 1m above the ground, I wouldn't necessarily have my confidence altered. In fact, I must have taken a dozen falls like that, all but one of which were calculated risks where I was fairly certain I wasn't going to hit the floor, which was proved correct when I fell off. In these cases, my confidence actually increased. 'Great!' I thought - I can try again as long as I don't fall off from any higher. On the one occasion that I did not expect to fall that far (and I did actually hit the ground on rope stretch) my confidence was dented. And rightly so. This instance showed that I was climbing a route in a dangerous manner, and if I had kept on doing things like that I probably wouldn't have survived intact. That kind of behaviour doesn't rely on confidence - it is driven by foolishness which should not be used to increase your confidence. So the question I suggest you ask yourself is: 'how accurate was my risk assessment' (i.e. did I expect to fall that far, what if some gear had pulled out, was there some extra gear which would have still stopped me hitting the ground, could I have climbed any higher and still fallen off without hurting myself?). If your risk assessment was fine (also ask your partner for their perspective) then surely there's no need to worry? But if your risk assessment was skewed - maybe from being too keen to succeed(?) - then use this experience as a hard-earned lesson and change your approach in the future.

Obviously not everyone keeps their logbook up to date, but from a quick glance at yours I can't see where you have ever been solid at E1. I know I have a tendency to remember my previous climbing through rose-tinted specs, then compare my current ability to a selective recollection of only my best efforts. Clearly this is a trap. Either way, if you have only recently started getting back into climbing then building up a broad base of experience on VS, HVS, and only then E1s would seem sensible to me. This is what I do at the start of every year, and I've been trad climbing for 20 years.

Finally, I've never heard of the phrase 'if you can top rope it you can lead it'. It sounds like bollocks. There must be a hundred thousand routes out there that I would be able to top rope but would not try to lead. Don't use this 'rule' to beat yourself up.

Good luck with it  

Excellent post, Reeve. After a traumatic fall last year it hit home on a lot of points. 

Do loads of VS routes to build confidence.

If you climb indoors then take practise lobs.

As mentioned - change in discipline could help - bouldering, sport. All will help you improve something and help you as an all rounder and will filter back to help you remake that step up. 

Would there be any benefit for you in paying for a days climbing clinic. Some years back I had a couple of days with the excellent Mark Reeves. You  say you've lost faith in hands feet etc. and someone like Mark can identify whether your technique is truly crap or whether it really is all in your head and could probably help in the head department too.