Fear of Falling Masterclass

Welcome to our comprehensive & multi-dimensional Fear of Falling Online Masterclass.

We are really excited you are here and have decided to work on your fear management. 🎉 We will accompany and support you in the best possible way. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.

  1. First of all, if you are here for the first time and you are ready to start, sign up to automatically receive all the extra worksheets, exercises and bonus materials over the next few weeks. The reason why you don’t receive these emails automatically once having purchased this Masterclass is that you might – for whatever reason – not immediately have the time to work on your fear management. This way, we secure that you receive all these extra emails once you are ready!

  1. Download your official Fear of Falling WORKBOOK here.

  2. To access the guided breathing meditations, scroll to the bottom of this page.

  3. Here’s the link to sign up for our Fear of Falling group coachings. If we’re currently not offering any group coachings, we’ll put you on a waitlist.

  4. If you want to upgrade to the VIP program, write us a message.

  5. If you have any questions or need support, please send us a message.

    Good luck and all the best! ✨

 
 
 

Module 1 – Understanding fear

Fear is a basic human instinct. Yet, our experiences with fear are unique to us. There are numerous reasons why we get afraid. To better understand the concept, you will be given an insight to not only better understand the concept, but also yourself.

 
 

Module 2 – Cognitive biases

Cognitive biases influence our decision making and how we take actions in an illogical way. Some of these psychological biases potentially also impact our fear of falling. In this lesson you learn more about them.

Module 3 – Understand your own fear

If our experiences with fear are unique to us, one solution won’t work for everyone. Every person who has a problem carries the solution within. So first of all, we need to understand our own fear better to know where we can start to better deal with it.

Module 4 – Becoming aware of your reactions

Humans all react differently to different stimuli. Learning how you react when you are afraid is a first step to better know what kind of strategies to use in order to better deal with your fears.

Module 5 – Setting goals

Motivation and orientation is the key to overcoming your fear. Setting goals is a powerful technique to stay motivated and work in the right direction. However, it is important to set and chase these goals incrementally – not step out of your comfort zone too fast.

Module 6 – Safe belaying, safe falling & risk assessment

Safe belaying and falling are essential (and rather easy) controllable variables when learning how to better deal with your fear of falling. You will also learn how to objectively assess the risk of falling.

Module 7 – Recording your progress & building up confidence

In this module, you will learn an easy way to track your progress and focus on the positive to gradually build confidence.

Module 8 – Trusting your climbing partner

Sometimes, fear doesn’t come from falling per se, but from finding it hard to trust others. This might not only be the case in climbing, but also in other life situations. This module will focus on this aspect of fear.

Module 9 – Somatic mental strategies

There are two types of mental strategies for better dealing with your fear of falling: somatic and cognitive mental strategies. In this module, you will get to know somatic strategies. You will be guided through some exercises, which you can train on your own at home or in the gym.

Module 10 – Cognitive mental strategies

Now that you have trained somatic mental strategies, you now get to know cognitive mental strategies in this module.

 

Guided breathing meditations

Breathing helps us to be more present and mindful – and hence to better manage our fear. Learning how to breathe will help you to stay calm and focus when climbing and to stay calm next time you get into a tricky situation. For now, make sure you are in a quiet place, where you can’t be disturbed. The more often you do these exercises, the easier they will get. Practice makes perfect. Next time you go to the gym and train falling, you can use these breathing exercises to make falling easier. 

The following exercises “Breathing and Falling” and “Making Falling More Enjoyable” are specifically adapted for you to get used to falling step-by-step and collect more positive experiences when falling in order to be able to climb until you fall in harder routes or boulders in a next step.

There are more infos about how to do these guided breathing meditations in the workbook (module 9) as well as in the video module 9.

This exercise is a simple guided breathing meditation that helps you to become more mindful and focus on your breathing when the situation requires it. Learning how to breathe calmly will help you to get through stressful situations when climbing and to not panic.

In this particular exercise you learn how to combine your breathing with visualizing yourself falling. The aim is to learn to consciously use your breathing to adapt to falling. Next time, you go to the gym or to the crag and train falling you can use this exercise to make falling easier.

The Progressive Muscle Relaxation by Jacobsen is proven to be one of the most helpful and best working relaxation techniques. It relaxes your mind and body by progressively tensing and relaxing muscle groups throughout your entire body. You will tense each muscle group vigorously, but without straining, and then suddenly release the tension and feel the muscle relax. If you have any pain or discomfort at any of the targeted muscle groups, feel free to skip that step. Throughout this exercise you may visualize the muscles tensing and a wave of relaxation flowing over them as you release that tension. Focus on the difference between the tension and the relaxation.

It is important that you keep breathing throughout the exercise.

Remember, it can take some time to learn to relax the body and notice the difference between tension and relaxation. At first, it can feel uncomfortable to be focusing on your body, but this can become quite enjoyable over time. Once you have become familiar with the “tension and relaxation” technique, and have been practicing it for a couple weeks, you can begin to practice a very short version of progressive muscle relaxation – which you be better able to apply directly when going climbing, before the actual or before training falling.

Once you have been practicing the Progressive Muscle Relaxation for some time, you can begin to practice a short version of the Progressive Muscle Relaxation.

Instead of working with just one specific muscle group at a time, like e.g. your stomach, you now focus on the complete muscle group (e.g. your stomach AND chest). When doing this short version, it can be helpful to say a certain word or phrase to yourself as you exhale (such as “relax”, “let go”, “stay calm”, “peace” “it will pass” etc...). This word or phrase will become associated with a relaxed state. Eventually, saying this word alone can lead to a calm feeling. This can be useful during times when it would be hard to take the time to go through all the steps of the progressive muscle relaxation – like e.g. when climbing.

In our guided version, we will use the word “relax”.

This version will be easier applicable when climbing. You can do it yourself shortly before going climbing, before you start climbing a route or even directly on the wall when you train falling. E.g. before you let go and fall into the rope, tense up your whole body and once you relax, let go and jump into the rope.

In this particular exercise you learn how to combine your breathing with visualizing yourself falling. The aim is to save falling as something really enjoyable, something positive and fun in your memory. Next time, you go to the gym or to the crag and train falling you can use this exercise to make falling easier.

Visualising moments when we felt strong, confident and happy can be powerful to make us feel more confident in the present. If you need a boost of confidence, you should do this guided breathing meditation.

Extra Feature:

Injuries can lead to an increased fear of falling. If you come back to climbing after an injury, first of all, what do your physiotherapist and doctor say? If you are still in pain, we advise against continuing to exercise and would recommend you to get medical advice first. If you may start climbing again, you might realise that your circle of comfort – what you are currently able to do – has shrunk a lot and you might have troubles trusting this part of your body that you have injured when climbing. This guided breathing exercise aims to support you in the healing process and help you gain more confidence in your injured body part.

We use the word “the part of your body that is injured” in this exercise representative for the injury you might have.