Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 8, 2013 - 10:30am PT
Mid year of 2012 I took a fall from a highball boulder and missed the pad and injured my ankle. The injury healed fast but my fear from the fall did not, I learned a lot of valuable lessons from the fall, which caused me to adjust my technique, training exercises, and fear control. Here is a video of the fall and blog link to the story:
I wanted to share this because I would like to hear others' stories or accounts of any fears or injuries (falls or tendon injuries, etc) due to climbing and what they did to overcome them. Thanks in advance for any responses!
Yeah yeah i know, no one likes the music haha, i was limited with editing and music choice experience when I made this video, that was another lesson I have learned.
@Brandon, yeah that's what I did but sometimes people have a harder time getting over falls when rock climbing. Do you still have fear when you climb, worry about breaking it again? Do you still climb high problems?
I took about an eight-foot fall onto a padded landing in the gym about a year ago and severed my Achilles tendon as a result. I finally got permission to boulder again a couple of months ago, and it took me quite a while to be willing to fall two feet, so I understand the fear all too well. I'd taken a very scary head-first leader fall in spring of 1971, and it took me five or six months to get my leading confidence back.
All this means I appreciate this thread and your photo and link, because I've been there. Ultimately, though, I come back to something Chouinard wrote almost 50 years ago. Falls tend to build confidence [provided you're unhurt]. At my age, I need to be judicious about where and how far I fall (for example, I can't do highball boulder problems any more without risking serious injury), but I found taking a few shorter fall off of boulder problems helped me regain my bouldering confidence, and a few safe and well-protected leads got my leading confidence back.
Heres an idea,,get a rope and a rack and go CLIMBING instead of high balling over talus...;-)
I on the very first trip to the rocks managed to nearly kill ma-sef in a 100'+ fall during a single biner rap... Couldnt wait to get back at it! Did it make hate rapping-- surely, but it didnt stop me. If WANTED it will be.
John pretty much nails it. Lots of pads and lots of falls. Eventually you'll learn again that falling is usually safe. I broke my heel two years ago now and after it healed I went right back after it. It took a few weeks to trust my body, my spotters, and the pads. After those few weeks that trust was there again. Now highballs are like they used to be. Also learn to downclimb if your not feeling it. There's no shame in backing off.
In 2000 I fell off a highball at airport rocks here in Apple Valley
and got 2 very bad compression fractures of my T7 and T8.
My back has never been the same and I still hurt all the time
from it.
I still climb, with rope, but I won't do any more bouldering
because of the chance of reinjuring my back and not being able to climb anymore. The Doc said, if I did take a fall bouldering and landed the wrong way with the way my back is, I could end up paralyzed.
ive taken longer lead falls-- like on "set the controls for the heart of the sun"... 45 feet to the first bolt with 10+ moves, then another fifty + feet to the second bolt with multiple 11+ moves. One can gt major fly time on such..The same mental set really...
Let us know!