Week 5

Sometimes things just seem to come together.

One Saturday morning, the day after my post on how I was having doubts about returning to climbing, a copy of Climb Magazine arrived through my letter box. Inside was an article on climbing coaches on how they can help climbers develop.

One of the case studies featured was a lady called Dawn who had started using a climbing coach following knee surgery (following an injury sustained at an indoor boudlering wall- I would say snap, but that sounds a little inappropriate given the context). She talked about how , through coaching, she regained a lot of her confidence, as well as her physical skills. She said that she would definitely recommend coaching for anyone with issues with confidence, especially coming back from an injury.

I hadn't considered coaching before. I have seen people training with a coach at my local wall, but I am very self conscious and the idea of paying someone to watch me climb gave me sweaty palms. When I first started climbing I would find the room with the fewest people in and climb the problems there, and I never, ever climbed in the room in front of the reception. I know that in reality nobody is really paying any attention to what I'm doing, but that doesn't stop me from feeling self conscious and shy.

I will definitely consider giving coaching a go. In general I would say it isn't for me- I climbed because I enjoyed it and while getting better was satisfying, I was content to improve at a slower rate just by climbing a lot.

I hadn't really thought about coaching for confidence or psychologically getting over injury. I might try dipping my toe in the water and attending some of the free women's and improver classes held at my local wall to see if I would benefit from some instruction, or if its more stressful than helpful.