If the thought of falling ever enters your mind while climbing, it distracts you, taking some focus away from optimal performance. In order to perform closer to your physical limit, you’ll want to develop a level of comfort with falling. The best way to do this is to develop more familiarity with falling AND, while doing that, reprogram a calmer automatic reaction to falling. The steps below outline a falling practice that will help reprogram your response to falling.

I want to acknowledge that not all falls are safe to take: you need to decide in every circumstance if the climbing is worth the possible consequence of falling. With that noted, if there’s a specific fall that you worry about on a route that you want to climb, you have two options of reducing this distraction: practice taking the fall, so you know how it feels and that it’s ok to take it OR refining the beta on top rope to a point that you feel like the likelihood of you taking the fall is low enough (for your own risk tolerance), given the possible consequence of the fall. Again, this is a decision you need to take the responsibility of making for yourself in every circumstance!

Steps for falling practice:

• Make sure you have a belayer you’re comfortable with (especially that they are good at giving soft catches!).

• Find a climb that is easy enough for you to relax while doing the moves. It's best if it's at least vertical, preferably slightly overhanging, but not so steep that it will be hard to get back on after you fall. To start with, the wall should be flat – no roofs, ledges, corners, etc that would increase the possibility of injury on impact.

• Climb well above the ground (I recommend at least 30' or 4 bolts up).

• Make sure the bolt you're falling on is a solid bolt or place two or more, solid, equalized pieces of trad gear.

• Hang on the rope below the protection. Practice a three step relaxation: 1. breath: a quick forceful inhale in, a short inhale to "top off" your lungs, then a long exhale out, controlling the release of air with your diaphragm. 2. eyes: gaze downward, toward where your feet are making contact with the wall. Soften your focus by paying attention to the periphery of your vision. 3. body: place your feet wide apart on the wall in front of you, knees soft, core relaxed. Take note of the relaxed feeling. Bounce around a little, get comfortable with what it's like to swing on the rope in that space on the wall.

• Next, hold onto the wall with your waist below the protection, practice the breath, eyes, body relaxation (plus any communication you want to add with your belayer) and take the fall when you’re feeling calm. You can incrementally increase the fall, but only as much as you feel confident with. 

• Take care of your rope! Once you’re taking falls with your waist above the protection, only take a few falls, then come back down and switch ends of your rope. This will reduce the wear and tear on the specific section of rope.

• You can begin your falling practice by just letting go. As you get more comfortable, practice falling while committing to a move upward.

• If it’s stressful for you to take a particular fall or type of fall (traversing, laybacking, etc.), start small and gradually increase it.

• IMPORTANT NOTE: You don’t need to overcome your fear of falling in one session! Work up to it, take a break and come back to it later in the day or in another climbing session. Remember, you aren't just rehearsing falling, you're rehearsing feeling the way you want to feel when you fall. If you take a bunch of practice falls, but you’re stressed out every time you take them, you are just conditioning yourself to be stressed when you fall. This won’t help reduce the distraction of falling and at worst it may even be counter-productive. Instead, practice getting into a calm, confident state, then take the fall.