tlohde

not a leader

08:51 05/04/2024 710 words
16:07 21/04/2024 (modified)
contents

the course

i am not a leader. at a stretch, it could be said that i’m a reluctant leader[1]. but i went on a course and now i can lead. learning how to lead has been on the need-to-do list for a long time. leading is neither easy nor particularly hard. it requires a degree of focus and a fair amount of trust. belaying someone who is leading, however, arguably requires more concentration[2] as you repeatedly ask and answer the same couple of questions: more slack? less slack? has your leader back-clipped or z-clipped? have they stepped behind the rope? does it look like they might be about to drop?

staying on straightforward routes – since hard climbing wasn’t the focus of the course[3] – meant that all attention could be devoted to getting into a good ‘n’ stable position on one arm – hips to the wall – and fumbling the rope into the quick draw[4]. this left little to no bandwidth for registering that i was often above my last point of protection[5]. or, to put it another way: it was easy to forget to get scared. which was nice.

we took it in turns to take (and catch) falls from progressively higher points above our last clip, and it was comforting to learn that, when belaying, despite my relative inexperience, my instinct was to grab the brake end of the rope. and it was even more comforting, when falling, to experience the stretch that makes falls from further up the wall softer (assuming you don’t bob it into the wall).

after the course, i grabbed a different partner and we each went up a few routes. naively[6], i had mistaken forgetting to get scared with some sort of mental prowess. nope. one steeper route was all it took to disabuse me of that foolishness. that said, i don’t think it’s fear that i felt. more of an acute sense of urgency: get the rope clipped. and whilst clipping quickly and efficiently is certainly desirable, rushing does not help. your arms are tired, and you’re in a bad position[7], on a crappy hold[8]. your finger is a bit hurty[9], and you’ve nearly got the rope in, but you haven’t. but you’re trying. but nearly is the same as not at all. there is a sense of failure looming. and then comes the frustration[10]. which also doesn’t help.

i think failure scares me more than falling

fortunately, there are things that do help. like the person you’re tied to, or the fact that you’re in a climbing gym and there are several nearby holds[11] to grab. or better still (something about how climbing can help you tackle your demons and navigate a stormy thought-scape).

anyway

next: get plenty of practice. make it second nature. climb lots. fall a bit.

oh, and by the way

for those at the back: i’ve not been talking about some corporate-schmorporate leadership training course, but climbing.

footnotes

  1. someone who might make a decision in a group setting only to avoid the awkwardness intolerable situation of x number of people all saying “i don’t mind”. ↩︎

  2. maybe not more. but certainly a different type of concentration. ↩︎

  3. good. because my finger(s) are yet to fully return to their pre-whoopsie condition, and after ~60 minutes they quietly tell me that they’ve had enough. or if i attempt something a bit too crimp-y (or slope-y, for that matter) they remind me that i’m terrible at listening to my body. ↩︎

  4. without the muscle memory that will hopefully make it a breeze in no time. ↩︎

  5. that’s the whole point of leading ↩︎

  6. with a pinch of arrogance ↩︎

  7. because you have poor (no?) technique ↩︎

  8. that is actually fine – you’re just weak ↩︎

  9. because you picked up a little injury – a consequence of having no technique and being weak ↩︎

  10. of not having that mental prowess ↩︎

  11. yes, i mean the ones that are a different colour to the ones you are already holding ↩︎

#climbing