[xur17]

I started getting into skiing a few years ago, and within the last year have started climbing. I seriously enjoy it, but how do you get over the constant fear of a permanent debilitating injury? I've mostly rationalized this away by doing everything I can do stay safe (equipment, partners, not pushing the limits too hard), and realizing that life is here to be lived, but still..

[saiya-jin]

If you do sport climbing with bolts drilled and glued in rock or in gyms, the chances of bad injury are super tiny, and sprained ankle would be the worst possible outcome. It never happened to me, and I overshot my level by mistake few times. The more you gain experience, the less the risk.

One thing that usually helps with fear is actually exposing yourself to it rather than avoiding it - you are afraid to fall. Find safe overhang (or vertical if unavailable) ie in gym, and just fall in it. Then fall again. Practice technique - push yourself from the wall with legs during fall, not too much just to avoid contact.

Its just like SIV course in paragliding - you learn about bad situations that can happen and how to handle them by getting into them on purpose (and then either managing them or throwing reserve, usually all done above lake for extra safety). This allows you to progress further faster and gain confidence in you and your wing.

At one point, its your choice - push things always to the max for whatever reason, or just enjoy good climb that can be challenging (or not) but not scary. Progress happens on both, usually a bit less on latter.

For me, I cut off all chasing for higher difficulties, if my skill drops I enjoy the challenge of trivial routes again. And even non-challenging climb is a very fine experience for me and that's enough (especially now).

Previously, I enjoyed actually overcoming of that ever-present fear as the best part of climbing, building character and shaping personality. I do honestly believe in it, I mean you expose yourself for 2-4 hours to acute (even if baseless, but your brain doesn't recognize it) fear of death, and you continuously overcome it to achieve your goal. If that doesn't teach you about yourself, nothing will.

[xur17]

> If you do sport climbing with bolts drilled and glued in rock or in gyms, the chances of bad injury are super tiny, and sprained ankle would be the worst possible outcome. It never happened to me, and I overshot my level by mistake few times. The more you gain experience, the less the risk.

I've just started to do sport climbing (like within the past 2 weeks), and my biggest fear is a screwup (equipment, amount of slack given out, belay device, etc) that results in me not getting caught. My mother likes to remind me that her friend's son was paralyzed from falling in a climbing gym (but unfortunately I do not have the details), which certainly doesn't help my fear. This fear isn't stopping me from doing anything, so to some extent I do think it's helpful / healthy since it's reminding me to be careful and limit my risks as much as possible.

That said, even just top rope climbing has significantly helped my fear of heights. Went hiking this past weekend, and I'm definitely more comfortable near cliff edges, etc (still fearful of falling, but not in a debilitating way).

> At one point, its your choice - push things always to the max for whatever reason, or just enjoy good climb that can be challenging (or not) but not scary. Progress happens on both, usually a bit less on latter.

This is a really good point, and something I do try and adjust for in both climbing and skiing. I like to improve, and push myself, but this is something I'd prefer to do for a long time, so I lean on the side of not pushing to hard and limiting risk whenever possible.