Psycho Babble

[Lepton]

Sometimes in moments of great stress there is a phenomenon that has been referred to as "psycho babble", a torrent of verbage that can erupt from a person in unexpected ways. Climbing often has moments of stress, and twice I have encountered psycho babble when I was belaying.

 

The first incident happened on the Glacier Point Apron in Yosemite. John W (real names are withheld to protect the innocent) and I were working on a mid 5.11 face climb that had a crux that was a tad run out and invited a 25 foot pendulum fall if you failed. I had had a go at it and sportingly logged some air time. I needed a rest so I gave the sharp end of the rope to John.

 

He proceeded quickly to get to the crux and tried several maneuvers to step up onto the sloping little hold that was about shoulder height. Mantling it was no good, as my experience had shown. He eventually committed himself to stemming maneuver that allowed him to get his left foot up onto the hold, pushing off a small dihedral with his right hand. But as he pushed off to move over onto the ledge his right toe popped off a little nubbie and he was suddenly suspended horizontal to the ground, left foot on the slippery hold and right hand pushing on the dihedral, with his right foot flailing away in a comical manner.

 

It just so happened that as he was in his horizontal position his eyes were focused...no...WIRED directly at my eyes as I held the belay rope ready to take up slack for his unavoidable fall. Then it happened.

 

It began with an eiree high pitched whine. At first I thought some strange cricket was sounding off from a crack in the rocks up there somewhere. Then I realized the whine was coming from John. There he was, flailing away and whining like a hurt rabbit. Then he said, "Help!" moments before his flailing dislodged his left foot and he came zipping through the pendulum fall in an ackward position.

 

I caught his fall and lowered him to the ground.

 

"What was that?", I asked.

 

"What do you mean?", he said.

 

"That high pitched whining and you asking for help".

 

"What are you talking about?"

 

He never knew that he was making any sounds or had said anything. He still doesn't believe it to this day.

 

The second time I encountered psycho babble was belaying George (again a fictitious name) on a 5.9 crack climb just uphill from Camp IV in Yosemite. It was his first attempt at a 5.9 and there were a few of us there to watch and give him support.

 

When George reached the crux it required that he move from a secure hand crack into an offwidth bulge. George was a BIG man with limited flexibility and the move was very ackward for him. He placed protection above his head, then committed to the move.

 

Then he got stuck.

 

And then out poured the most amazing verbal tossed salad at a very high rate of speed and volume...

 

"...FOOT! WHERE'S THE ... OH GOD! HELP! COME ON! HAND! GRAB IT! WHY WHY WHY! OH MY! FOOT! GET IT! HAND! WHAT THE!? ..."

 

This went on for at least a full minute. During this time the small group of us witnessing the phenomenon were looking at each other, trying to hide our laughter.

 

Finally George got into the squeeze chimney, wheezing, "Oh God! Oh God! Oh God".

 

When he lowered to the ground one of his friends asked about what he was talking about up there. George never knew he had said a word, and denied it up to his early demise (RIP).

 

Perhaps these moments merely represent the inner voice of fear that gets an outlet to reality beyond our conscious control. I find them fascinating and still think about those moments when life gets challenging. Sounding off in this manner in a business meeting may be a tad off the mark, though.

[Kevin_Matlock]

Reminds me of the girl with terrets syndrom in Duce Bigelow.

[ken4ord]

I like the part in one of the Master of Stone vids where Dean Potter says take when he is falling from a boulder problem.

[JayB]

Great story. Keep 'em coming.

 

I've only had this once - during the one and only episode when I just flat-out lost every last bit of my composure on one of my first 5.10 leads on a gear-route. I don't have time to recount the entire episode here - but I was convinced that I was staring an honest to goodness death-fall if I came off. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had some faint desire to muffle the undignified stream of whimpering, pleading, profanity, and dry heaving that was streaming forth from my mouth - but it was way, way, way back there - a lightyear away from the reality that I was contending with at that moment. I "decided" to continue climbing. I put that term in quotes because this I was well into the realm of spontaneous impluse at this point.

 

I managed to climb to a marginally better position, with both hands stuffed into a greasy crack that was just a touch too small to permit a secure jam. The only problem was that the consequences of a fall hadn't changed much - at least in my mind - and I couldn't take either hand out of the crack without the other starting to grease out. In the brief windows of time that occured between taking one hand out of the crack and the other starting to slip out, I was able to clip a pre-slung cam to the rope, then unclip the other side from the sling, then hold it between my legs while I jammed my free hand back into the crack, then slide it up and press it between my waist and the rock, then pin it to the wall with my chest. I finally grabbed the back of the cam by the stem, blindly shoved it into the crack overhead, and set off towards a massive jug that would provide me with a secure stance and salvation. I got with in lunging distance of the jug, threw a deadpoint at it, and felt it transmogrify into a sandy-sloper beneath my hands. I took the longest fall I've ever taken on gear, slouched over, dry heaved again, and mourned the fact that I had ever taken up the sport. Unfortunately, my renunciation of climbing would prove to be short lived, as was too far into the route to lower off, and had to finish the lead.

 

I am still slightly embarassed and mortified when I think back on that episode and all of the small mistakes that put me in that position, but the one tangible benefit that I got in return for shedding every ounce of my dignity that day was an improved ability to determine where I am at relative to the point of no-composure, and have thus far been able to avoid even coming close to reliving the experience.

[Dru]

I make little squeaking noises when I am about to fall off.

 

My friend AMC was really vocal at this "Ok...falling..take..no wait, I'm gonna try it...sending..falling..take..don't take...oh my god... I'm gonna die..take...No! Wait! I've got it!... Oh shit! Take!" etc.