About Psychology and Physiology Suggestions for Climbing Ice

After climbing an ice season, he has not yet tried Pioneer and has only conducted simple simulation training. The reason why there has been no pioneer is that apart from knowing the danger of pioneering ice climbing, another reason is that mentality has always been an obstacle. I happened to see George McEwan's article about the ice climbing psychology. I took it and read it for my own psychological counseling. I hope that it is helpful for me to complete the "virgin" pioneer's children's shoes. We also welcome the climbers to join the discussion and share their experiences. The text is as follows.

"Come on... keep your feet together... hiccup... test the load bearing - ok, take a step up. Now you're playing another fuck - mom! This ice is too bleak! Come on, Stay Calm - Good - This ice looks good, go for a rest, Snoring - Breathing - Keeping Breathing - Force on the Legs - Good, Clean Ice - Continue - Keeping Breathing - Hey, the cones can't go in! Come on, scold, bastard! Relax - stay well and relax. Continue! Great! - Lanyard - Inhale, 2, 3, 4, Exhale 2, 3 ,4--Very good, relaxed.This is a good one!Not far away,the feet are stressed,good feet.Nice!Points of concentration--hail weight bearing.Ok,there is another one--going upward--good of..."

I was exhausted at the protection station, but I was pleased with my performance. I saw a hailstone appearing on the edge of the ice wall and deep into the ice covered with ice crystals. Matey's smile appeared. He squatted up and buckled himself into the protection while saying, "The leader is climbing well! This short rope looks like you're climbing so easily!"

Fear and tension

Just like the swan sways gently across the calm waters, ice climbers seem to be so. It looks so calm, focused, and accurate every time you fight, planning the most effective climb. However, ice climbers are dealing with a lot of information in the process of climbing, and their hearts are full of struggles.

When the ice climber is pushed to the edge of his comfort zone, facing the unknown, facing both the imaginary and the real possibility of a fall, the ice climber will have a variety of psychological and physical conflicts. demand. These conflicting needs can be summed up in one word: tension.

The tension within the controllable range can make the pioneer ice climber at the edge of excitement, thus improving the ice climbing skills. The tension beyond the control is just the opposite. If you are fortunate enough, you may have no problem after a pitch is over; if you are not lucky enough, before you make up your mind, you will have a devil in your inner darkness to suppress you, stop you from continuing to climb, and kill you. Will until you collapse. This article describes the relationship between mental performance and physiological performance in the ice climbing process, and gives simple and easy-to-apply suggestions to control the psychological and physical tension during ice climbing and helps ice climbers focus attention. force.

Whether or not to start a fight

During the ice climbing process, fears come from many aspects, and the most obvious fear is the fear of falling. It is very serious to fall in ice climbing. In recent years, improvements in ice protection technology and equipment have meant that the protection of ice climbing is easier, faster, more reliable, and more dependable on parameters such as ice conditions. But in fact, you have a variety of sharp iron guys on your body. Once you fall, the result is likely not to be an injury. Therefore, fear of injury during the ice climbing process is the most fundamental fear.

Human beings have a mechanism of survival called "war or openness." When humans face threats or sudden events, this mechanism is turned on. We will assess this threat very quickly and see if we can overcome it. If you can, go for a fight; if you can't, go for a walk. If you are faced with a big dog bear or a group of madmen who don’t want to live, you can choose to drive. But when your body is attached to a rope and hung on the ice wall, it's not so easy to drive.

No matter what kind of decision we make, our physiology will be immediately reflected in the body to produce a lot of adrenaline, to prepare for later actions. This adrenaline will have a strong influence on our physiology - such as rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath and emotional embarrassment. However, adrenaline is a double tough sword. It will allow us to show beyond imagination in our later actions or make us panic. The ice climber is faced with the problem of controlling emotional excitement. They must balance the influence of adrenaline between the positive impact of hitting chicken blood and the negative influence of Zhang Huang's anxiety.

First of all, regardless of whether the ice climber made the decision to climb or not to climb ice, it was influenced by a series of factors. These factors include past successes (successful examples of challenging routes that have been climbed in the past), past failures (climbing experiences that have scared urine), current emotions (fear/relaxation from the status quo), Self-confidence (I can do it!), and determination to climb (mentally and psychologically). Even though we already understand the comprehensiveness and have decided to prepare for ice climbing off the ground, you will also find that you may also face an emotional crisis during the climbing process, resulting in a change of mentality. So, how can ice climbers better deal with the potential dangers of this kind of climbing and the performance discounts?

Pioneer ice climbing necessary skills

To see how each aspect of the ice climbing process affects each other, we have divided the ice climbing movement into four parts:

Physiology - The ice climber's muscle strength, strength and endurance.

Technology - mobile skills in ice climbing, use of hail, skilled use of ice protection spots, etc.

Tactics - how to climb the line, such as where to stop placing the ice pick, where to rest, identify where the technical difficulties and so on.

Psychology - Insights into changes in psychological moods and strategies for managing emotions.

As shown in Figure 1, our psychological quality, which is our ability to control vanguard pressure, is closely related to all other factors. Our brain controls the operation of each element. The various elements in the figure also directly affect each other. Just because every element affects our brains, it means that these elements will directly affect our emotions. The changes that happen in our brain will also have a direct impact on our physical performance - this is actually a Feedback loop.

Therefore, in the process of climbing ice, our weaknesses will have a profound effect on our overall performance. Although our strength can help us to advance to a higher level, the weakness is always more hindered than the strength. Therefore, in theory, recognizing your own weaknesses and giving them special training can improve the overall level of climbing.

But there is also a problem. Many ice climbers who feel the soreness of the arms during the ice-climbing process think that they should practice stronger and improve ice climbing techniques. However, if they look closely, they will find that the reason for the soreness of their arms is not because the arms are too thin and boring, but because they are too "tense", specifically, when tensions prevail, The ice man will grip the hail vigorously, causing the soreness of the arm.

Here are some pioneering ice climbing techniques that are easy to learn and use, including technical skills, strategic skills, and psychological skills. The use of these development skills will allow us to remain relaxed, cool, and controllable, and to use physical energy more effectively, which will increase our safety factor and success rate, as well as make it easier to reach the top.

Technical advice

Let's start with a key but technical proposal that is often overlooked by newcomers to the ice. This proposal will enable us to go further with a relaxed and focused mindset in achieving our ideals.

Although ice climbing protection technology has been developed, placing ice cones on the natural ice wall is still a painstaking and painful task, and the fact that you have a lot of sharp weapons on your body means that you are falling. May be injured. In order to prevent these things from happening, the basic idea is to make sure that every trip is as stable as possible when climbing ice. It is necessary to spend time to ensure the stability of the fight. Conversely, if the war is unstable and just careless, then you will always worry about whether you will be able to hold on to you when you reach the next level! Then your next encounter will be equally bad because you have been tangled up. This state will continue until you either complete this pitch or arrive at a place where you can rest and adjust, or your defect does not return, and then you make a scream.

Steady snoring is the key to climbing a steep ice wall. Make sure that each anchor is anchored as an anchor, so that you can have enough courage to go beyond the point of protection and continue climbing. If you burst into position with two crampon kicks or a position hit by a hail, then the other crucible that is firmly set at this time will be a glance (or both will be stable). You may therefore And avoid suffering long-distance crashes. I have seen this kind of thing happen to my companions. At that time he was turning over a hail and the feet had suddenly collapsed. His feet were hollow and all the weight was hung on the hail. Fortunately, both of them were very strong. Inspired by adrenaline, he strove to do several pull-ups before he let his feet step on the ice wall. And he is a long distance away from the last one placed on the ice cone (it may be a long distance swing, very dangerous).

Psychological advice

Although good technical skills are the key to safe ice climbing, maintaining a relaxed and focused mood is more conducive to the use of skills. As we saw in the previous illustration, panic can cause physical tension and then affect the body's mobility and coordination.

In the ice climbing process, physical tension can be manifested as excessive forceful grip on the hail which causes the forearm to sore quickly. When your forearm is sore, your "soft blemishes" arm affects your swing and the placement of the ice pick. And when you feel that the ice cone is not in place, you become more nervous. Your footwork will also be affected when you step into the ice before you step on it to stabilize.

In order to stay focused and deal with physical and mental tension, ice climbers can use some basic psychological skills.

Breathe

A small experiment...

Sit and take a pencil or pen in hand. Began to use the thumb and index finger to turn the pen - to ensure that the pen speed is stable.

Now hold your breath and hold your breath equal to the length of your pen.

What changes have you found in your skills in pen transfer? What happened to the pen speed?

How would you describe your emotions in this exercise?

Another small test

You can add these on the basis of the first quiz.

Adjust to sit in a very comfortable position.

Think about the top of your head connected to a long line, and then this line is pulled up gently and your head is pulled up.

Then take a deep breath with your nose and mentally count 4 numbers slowly (while thinking about a shot in your stomach, the ball gently sinks slowly as you inhale, until the bottom of your stomach)

After the inhalation is complete, begin to exhale slowly with your mouth and count a few more.

Did you notice any effect of this practice on the technology and speed of your pen transfer?

In this test, how do you describe your emotional state?

I hope you can feel it. In the first quiz, the speed of writing will be disturbed and become faster. This is due to the lack of oxygen. In the second test, your writing speed should be uniform, and you will feel very relaxed.

When you are ice climbing, do you hold your breath?

The questions raised in the title may not have a clear answer. However, based on my teaching experience of ice climbing, I would like to say that most of the ice climbers are accustomed to holding their breath during the climb, or just breathing shallowly so that they breathe after completing a pitch. This breathlessness is not due to the oxygen demand of ice climbing, but simply because the ice climber does not breathe enough.

Using breathing to control emotional state is very simple. In fact, consciously breathing deeply has been widely used in meditation and martial arts practice. When you've climbed to a comfortable break and you realize that your breathing is shallow and shallow, you can apply breathing techniques and try to do four-wheel breathing exercises.

You can also combine breathing with your climb, although this requires a lot of practice. When you are climbing, exhale with your mouth and how long your mouth will exhale. Re-establish balance, inhale, then climb and exhale again. You may feel weird at the beginning, but after a period of practice, your climbing will become firm, relaxed and fluid.

Self-talk

Imagine that when you are climbing ice, your partner who is protecting you will yell at you, say how bad you are, how bad your hiccups are, how difficult it is to climb the line, and you say How weak are you. What impact will you have on your ice climbing?

Let's imagine that from time to time, when you give your protective partner a compliment on how you look and how strong you fight, you've always inspired you. What impact will you have on your ice climbing? Is this effect more positive?

I don't want your partner to cry on you in the ice to inspire you, but there is always a voice in your heart when you climb the ice. And the voices of many ice climbers are negative, or they focus on scary aspects - it's like you've been saying that you are bad, and you've been stifling your confidence.

The rhetoric is a simple but very effective method. Through his own speech, the ice climber can discover the positive energy of the voice deep inside and give himself support and encouragement. So, when you are ice climbing, you will subconsciously talk to the deep voices inside you, just like -

"Great! It's awesome!"

"Oh well. Well done! No problem, get another shot, okay, now get on your feet again. Breathe, relax. Great!”

"Remember to keep breathing - great" and so on.

The key here is to let your inner voice emphasize good skills or positive behavior and give it a thumbs up. You can talk to yourself in the depths of your heart, or speak out loud like other ice climbers. It depends on which is effective.

Tactical advice

I suspect that many of us ice climbers are swinging to the starting point of the ice wall, and then just glanced at the route and started the route. Taking some time to properly "reconnaissance" some ice-climbing routes may allow us to learn more about routes and select better strategies to increase the likelihood of successful summits.

Therefore, before you rush to the ice wall, spend more time looking at the ice wall. If necessary, you can use the telescope to observe the details of the ice wall more clearly. At this time, what you are looking for is the best route and tactics for success. Observe the following points.

Which route of ice is best?

First of all you need to find a good spot on the ice wall where you can hiccup or place an ice pick. What is a good point on the ice wall? This requires detailed analysis of specific conditions, but simply put, you are looking for places where the color of the ice wall is blue. There may be more air in the white ice wall so that the cone of ice that hits it will not be as strong.

Where can I take a break and where can I put an ice pick?

When climbing an unavoidable steep ice wall (stopping to hit the ice cone will be very painful), it's best to climb in stages - or whether your strength can support your safe passage? Or do you need to bite your teeth and decide to continue climbing upwards?

To first observe the position of the rest point, divide a section of pitch into multiple components. This will give you a physical break when climbing ice. In spirit, you can also divide an ice climbing route into several small segments that can be completed. As the old saying goes, “How do the elephants eat?” “Eat little by little...”

Is it potentially dangerous?

Notice what is above the top of your planned ice climbing route. Before you begin to climb ice, remember to assess the possibility of falling icicles or avalanches, which have been encountered by other teams. And my own principle is, never to climb behind someone else, unless I'm sure I can avoid the fall route. Falling pieces can be deadly.

to sum up

Climbing steep water ice is a brain game. Climbing on this long, physically-strength, steep terrain requires ice climbers to stay calm when they exceed the point of protection or challenge. Due to the inherent dangers of pioneering ice climbing, tensions and crashes can have serious consequences.

When climbing ice, the key to controlling the situation is to maintain a calm and focused mental state. As for the success of the security success, it is just as important to develop mental skills and learn to use the latest wave of ice climbing equipment.

Therefore, during your next ice climbing, focus on each snoring, try to stabilize the snoring as much as possible, focus on breathing, and let the deep voice of your heart inspire you.

The chief ice climbing proposal

Take the time to confirm if the war is stable, and play it well. Don't overdo it.

When climbing ice, use simple techniques such as deep breathing or self-talk to distribute power and avoid over-gripping.

Look carefully at the route before starting ice climbing, and develop tactical ice climbing, such as where is the difficulty, where to rest, and where to place the ice pick.