There I was hanging upside down, suspended from a 54-foot high ceiling, a searing pain traversing in a circular motion around my right knee, adrenalin surging through my body. Spectators gasped at my unexpected predicament.
“You okay?” my belaying husband, Jay, yelled.
“I’m okay,” I called out, righting myself, but a rash of negative thoughts screamed inside my head: Crap, I did everything wrong. I don’t get it. I’m too weak to do this! I’ll never get it right. I’m afraid to try again. I can’t tell the kids!
I’d been top roping (climbing with a harness from a suspended rope) for almost two years. In that time, I’d gotten braver and stronger — almost never crying halfway up the wall any more. I had wanted to take the next step: lead climbing.
Learning to lead…and fall
Lead climbing requires you haul the rope up with you clipping in to anchors along the way. It requires more strength because every 5–10 feet or so you have to hang on with only one hand and clip in. It’s more dangerous than top roping too because you can fall farther. Equally daunting, in order to practice lead climbing in the gym, you have to pass the test.
It’s an initiation of sorts. You have to both lead climb properly without falling and prove that you’re not afraid to fall. There are three rules: no Z clipping, no back clipping, and no getting your leg between the rope and the wall. Once you’ve climbed to the top with correct technique and without falling then you must intentionally take an unannounced fall, dropping 20 feet or so, before climbing back up and securing the final anchors. Intimidating and scary!
We prepared by reviewing the requirements, but the physics of how not to get your leg between the rope and the wall in certain climbing situations was psyching me out. I went over it and over it with Jay, but it wasn’t sticking.
Being tested
Nevertheless, we set out one day to take the test. Jay made it up, puffing slightly from the exertion of the overhang and the adrenalin from taking the test, but passing the first time! Yay.
I tried next. My heart pumped and I held my breath as I was climbing. Not more than a third of the way up, I began to freak out about where my feet were with respect to the rope. I stopped and hung on the wall, down-climbed a bit and tried moving my feet into different positions worried about getting it right. Had I failed already? I paused then kept climbing. A big overhang move loomed just above my reach, requiring a great deal of strength.
“You got this,” my tester called out.
But, I didn’t. The extra time hanging on the overhang and worrying had tired me. I reached for the next move, but couldn’t hold on and fell too early.
“It’s okay,” Jay said. “You’ll just try again next time.”
“Can we not tell the kids?” I whispered. “Maybe I’ll pass next time.” We’d see them in a week and I wanted to brag nonchalantly, “Yeah, we both passed our lead test.”
He smiled in agreement. “Sure.”
“When can I try again?” I asked my tester anxious to get it over with.
“You have to wait at least a day,” she said.
Falling…again
A couple days later we headed back to the gym ready for me to try again. The night before I couldn’t sleep worrying about the rope behind the leg warnings. Finally, I’d gotten out of bed and scoured Google and YouTube for examples of exactly what you are and are not supposed to do in lead climbing on an upward traverse so as not to get the rope caught behind your leg. There wasn’t much there. All the way to the gym I worried.
Can I use my knee to move the rope out of the way? What if it’s between my legs properly but the next move is a serious sideways traverse? Should I get above the rope or stay below it? What is the danger anyway?
There was nothing to do, but try again. The wall loomed before me, a great hulking overhang — a formidable challenge. I worried about my strength, too. Do I have what it takes?
I steeled myself and began climbing. I made it past the spot where I fell before and then spotted the tough hold at the crux of the overhang — the tricky spot where you had to be careful of where your leg was in relation to the rope and where it required the most strength to hang on with only one arm while clipping.
I made an upward left long reach, momentarily grasping the hold then found my hand slipping . . . slipping off. My body swung down hard and back to the right toward the last anchor point, positioning my leg precisely between the rope and wall, which yanked me violently upside down in a classic “don’t do this” move.
Owweee.
I swung upside down for a moment before righting myself, and getting safely lowered.
Oh, I get it, I thought. Experience giving me the lesson, my mind had worried over understanding: Position yourself so you can’t come between the rope and the wall, even if you fall.
My leg swelled up considerably that first day although not sprained, and by day two a bruise the size of Chicago was forming on the inside of my knee and outside of my thigh.
Worse, I knew I had to try again and soon.
The courage to keep climbing
I called my non-climbing friend, Durga, for support.
“You’ve got to help me,” I said. “I fell upside down while lead climbing and my leg is black and blue. I didn’t pass the test. I’ve got to get back up there before I’m too scared to ever try again. I really want to do it . . . but . . .” I was on the verge of tears.
“You’re so brave! It’s scary what you’re doing. It takes courage.”
That made me feel better. I was used to comparing myself to other climbers, most of whom were twenty-something, not 54.
“Listen,” she said. “You’re an awareness practitioner. It’s just like awareness practice. We go along doing our best to be mindful and suddenly get caught unaware; the next thing we know we’re tripped up and in the dark room — essentially we’re hanging upside down by one leg. So, what do we do then? Do we give up? Do we decide we’re done with awareness practice? That it’s just too hard? No. We take a deep breath and start over. I know you’re going to go back there and try again. I know you’re going to keep trying because that’s what you do. This is scary and hard, but it is within your reach. You can do it.“
That’s right. That‘s what I do. That’s what I want to do!
I had one more shot before we headed up to Seattle. I was still hopeful of impressing the kids, but unfortunately our youngest daughter — psychic that she is — called and asked Jay outright if he’d taken the lead climb test yet.
“I couldn’t lie to her,” he said sheepishly to me. “I told her I passed, but that you’d taken a bad fall on the overhang portion.”
There goes my pride.
But in the end it was great because both kids immediately served up a bunch of support. They oohed and ahhed over pictures of my impressive bruise and sent sweet messages: “You are strong. You totally got this mom! Focus on breathing. Take a little break in the middle.”
Initiated into leading
On the drive over to the gym the next day, the negative voices in my head were having a heyday. What if I don’t make it? They worried. Three strikes and you’re out! They taunted — though it was not true.
At the gym, I looked up at the wall, my nemesis, and thought about what Durga had said. I committed myself to keep trying, however many strikes it took. What else was there to do? I was scared. I was in pain, but I was going on up, bruise and all.
I made it to the crux, careful of where I placed my feet and then slipped a bit almost falling, but I grabbed the big jug hold ungracefully with both hands for a few moments and just held on. The voices in my head panicked, you’re going to fall again! And then followed up with, you look like an idiot.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Either way, I’m going to keep climbing.
And so I did, all the way to the top as required, and with barely more than a moment’s hesitation I also “let go” for the required fall from the top. Then, I climbed back up successfully completing the test. I PASSED!!!!!!!
Relief and elation flooded through me and I pranced around at the bottom, high-fiving hubby and my tester, looking around the gym to see who else might have noticed my amazing feat, secretly feeling there should have been a grandstand cheering my initiation into leading.
A fitting initiation it was too — something like that portrayed by the Major Arcana Tarot card called “The Hanged Man” which pictures a man dangling upside down from one leg, the other bent. The Hanged Man (related also to The Fool), interpreter Waite says, is a key figure in the soul’s journey. He represents initiation by going through an ordeal, but willingly, to further his goal.
For in climbing as in life, if you want to lead, you have to be willing to fall. And when you do, you have to be willing to get up and do it again.
