Victory whip!!

I think victory whips helped me a ton. I had been climbing for about 15 years but never really "got" sport climbing. One summer two of my friends and I made it out to a nearby sport crag regularly and improved a bunch. Jumping off at the chains feels like the most valuable exercise I used for over a year.

These days I'm "comfortable falling" but it still seems like the mental/psycological side of climbing multplies every other facet of the experience. I'll try to be self aware of unnecessary hesitation or bodily tension, or reluctance to move dynamically (if that's the good beta).

If falling is scary then it's hard to stay in the moment. Planned victory whips are probably easier to perceive as fun, and that perception... uhh is what fun...is?

David Morison wrote: Jumping off at the chains feels like the most valuable exercise I used for over a year.

If the definition of "jumping off the chains" means clipping fixed anchor at the top of the climb, then pulling slack and jumping off, I would encourage you to stop. Anchor is the piece of protection that everyone relies on to get back down safely, there is no excuse of taking needless falls while doing potential damage to fixed gear.

Lena chita wrote:

What is an odd conclusion? 

Quick summary:
I didn’t used to be afraid of falling. Never used to do practice falls. Just fell when I couldn’t make a move. 
In fact, the first time I took a fall on purpose was about 6-7 years ago, the first time I had to take a lead test in a gym— many years later than my first lead fall... which must have been around 2004 or 5. 

After many years of not being afraid to fall, I became more afraid of falling. You can speculate about reasons. But I discovered that practice falls help me deal with this fear.

Your increased fear was caused by these various accidents you saw - correct?  Some of them you rationalized as belayer error. Maybe.  Even likely.  But its not a perfect world and even your most trusted belayer may make a minor mistake (in your opinion). The whole spectrum of hard/soft catch is very subjective (compare to say a belayer decking you) - but I think its safe to say that a softer catch won't necessarily solve all your woes.  Other incidents you experienced - broken biner - apparently were nobody's fault/unavoidable.  All this is pretty normal - when you are young/inexperienced you are bullet proof.  Then you gain some real world experience and get more cautious.  That seems logical.  But you don't like that feeling - want to regain your fearless attitude.  So you do the "practice" fall thing.  

All I'm saying is that no matter how controlled the situation accidents can/do happen.  You fall enough - intentional or "for real" and sooner or later...  Why waste some of your 9 lives?  You should know enough by now to decide what constituents an acceptable risk (you you) in the real situation - without needing to go through the shenanigans.  You practice 10, 100, 1000 times - eventually something is going to go wrong.

amarius wrote:

while doing potential damage to fixed gear.

They can take it.

amarius wrote:

If the definition of "jumping off the chains" means clipping fixed anchor at the top of the climb, then pulling slack and jumping off, I would encourage you to stop. Anchor is the piece of protection that everyone relies on to get back down safely, there is no excuse of taking needless falls while doing potential damage to fixed gear.

That's 100% what I meant. I will snap your anchors like little celery sticks

David Morison wrote:

That's 100% what I meant. I will snap your anchors like little celery sticks

Awesome. Best post of the day! 

Lets say you have 30 meters of rope out at the top, and you want to get a little victory air time so you climb 1 meter past the anchors you just clipped and set sail. That is a fall factor of 0.03 and if you're a 75kg climber it exerts (roughly) a whopping 1.7kN of force on the climber, and probably under 3kN (600+ lbs) on the anchor. Which is probably a fair bit more than double what you'd get by lowering the same climber. I think the anchors will be okay. 

do Y’all prefer thin crust pizza or a fully figured slice?

fully figured

You didn’t send if you don’t clip the chains! 

This is a great thread!