FEAR OF HEIGHTS ? This might help

yeah yeah and so I'll just use this little saw Kaden until I run out of bar length and then I love the bigger one Fonda that tree in the video was about 180 feet the parks ranger recently or a few days previous realized that it was starting to lift up at the root place the combination of saturated soil and wind storms so did it tilt it over to one side so it was somewhat of an emergency to get it down how did I feel of there nothing really I was it was a still day I was confident that I could cope that do the business and get down I was thinking I had to Holyoke because there was a much bigger tree to do 300 yards away but that kind of state of mind doesn't happen overnight you know it happens all the time with repetition and knowledge and familiarity so I'm not an academic I'm not a psychologist you know but I have been in this job for 30 years and I was fortunate enough to travel and work as a subcontractor and you know literally work with hundreds of I've had hundreds of co-workers many of them were climbers at different levels so you know you see a lot of things when you have that kind of exposure and working at Heights it's probably you know one two of the main stumbling blocks that aspiring climbers run into and you know it can seriously hinder the progress or in some cases it brings it to a full stop and they walk away from the job because they don't believe that they can go any further the other stumbling block is obviously some sort of physical impediment or the physical aspect of the job it's too much for some so overtime of note is that there seems to be three main factors that create this fear or anxiety of heights and you know the first one is the structure of a tree that you climb in on any tree there's the lack of understanding of what it is how strong is now it evolved the second is the equipment that attaches you to the tree and essentially stops you falling and the third is a feared of a lack of confidence in in oneself you know so if we look at the first one the structure obviously the more you do something the better you'd get at it regardless of you know whatever the task is it might be tree work it might be carpentry whatever you get better with familiarity and repetition it is stands to reason you know but there's other things as well which can speed up that process and keep the anxiety at bay one is having good people around you who can encourage you I suppose you could use the word mentors I don't like that word very multiple I can't think of a better one at the moment a more fitting one so mentors and mentors and up people who've been doing their job only two weeks longer than you you know to call somebody a mentor they would have to have some serious credentials and experience of their own so they've been there and dummy countless times and this has to be a person with the best of intentions for you as well not a person that actually wants to see you fail because those individuals are out there too who have ulterior motives and they want you to fail they want you to be afraid and they want to keep you down so you know the person has to be a good character and they can fill in a lot of gaps when you are done sure you know when you are progressing and learning you know they can tell you that something is safe to do it's safe to go higher it's safe to go further out you know we're left on your own you wouldn't know that and you would be stepping into completely on familiar and unknown territory so that's really important that can help you know end and another thing you can do in your own time is to educate yourself about the actual structure of the tree you know how it grows and why it grows a certain way I never did this as you know I started the job I've just turned 17 by only a few weeks and I never did this I never thought to do it nobody told me to do it um you know in hindsight he would have helped tremendously you know it would have given me a lot of reassurance because I was solely relying on the people around me you didn't know he's up time to kind of sort of coax me through every little step I mean I managed and I got through it and I got through my worst anxieties but a lot of that was just through it was out of pride it was out of needing the money because I wanted to keep my job and ignorance too you know I had a great gift of ignorance being able to switch off it was the only way I could cope with those situations cuz I was climbing within six weeks of starting the job so you know I wasn't I should say I wasn't rushed into anything I was brought along a reasonable pace but if I'd have had the inclination encouragement to do some research homework of my own then it would have helped me know and understand what it was it was climbing on there are some really good books out there the one I would recommend above all others and it's not one that you generally associate with tree climbers but his brilliant information and it's called the body language of trees by Klaus mattock and it's saying he's a mid nineties book and it's a real eye-opener it looks at trees as the guy describes them as biomechanical structures and he explains you know the theory of how they grow how they evolve you know the form and shape that they take how they react and respond to the elements their environment etc it will teach you how to recognize strengths weaknesses defects you know what have you it's a it's a great book the diagrams are fantastic and you will come away from that feeling much more confident and at ease about climbing trees it will not take confidence away from you it will not plant the seeds of doubt you know you'll read that and you'll come away and your thing that's great it's not the sort of book you refer to again you sort of read it once and then that say it's kind of in then and it's just like a bit of an awake you know I think I gave I gave mine away naturally to a fella in Australia Australian fella ooh it was what was his reason why couldn't you buy one I think they were just so expensive in Australia at the time he was asking if I could buy one for him and send him this I know you can have mine his name is Eric it's and you cannot mine out an old problem because I've read it I want me to read it again great books so if we go from that on to the next one that I mentioned was the equipment that keeps you attached to the tree you know we've all seen people maybe we've all been in that situation as well where you're afraid to let you rope and harness take you away and you're grabbing the branches and hugging the tree and afraid to let go I mean the three major components that keep you in the tree there's your rope obviously our ropes there's your harness more subtle and there's the connectors which join everything up the connectors have been carabiner carabiners and then some sort of climbing aid which goes in between which you to move up and down on the climbing lines or lanyards what happened didn't climbing there is you could say climbing Spurs as well but they're regarded most climbing aids you know for spurring up trees but the main thing that keeps you hanging there is your climbing line your saddle and your carabiners so you know I like I say you know I've seen people hanging and grabbing at things because they're afraid to seen how peanut trees with people trying to convince them to let go and they found it really difficult just to learn to rely on your gear and you know to put it in a nutshell and this is this is really the thing that you have to remember I mean now those three components are sort of equally rated the ropes the carabiner the saddle and you know with your climbing rope alone you could you can literally pick up your car come next door's car as well knew you wouldn't you could probably do that with you saddle too but you wouldn't want to be in the saddle because it would obviously squash you at the same time but but you get the point and the carabiners are similar rated so and this hardware goes through such a rigorous protocol to be you know approved you know on the market that you know it just didn't it didn't get made in somebody's shed and he obviously saw must produced but all to a standard now that there is obviously defective equipment I get sent out occasionally so you know you do have to choose wisely I think there has been some incidents related to mechanical ascenders descenders you know the device that moves you up and down the road so I'll say again choose carefully try you know never you know compromise safety and kind of in favor of performance especially if you're just learning the job it is down to you as well to look after you gear to do the maintenance to use it as it's stipulated by the manufacturer use it correctly aligned everything correctly and dispose of it at the appropriate time when it's past its sell-by date it's not big ask to do that that's your side of things you know it's um it's not a big ask there's there's no mystery so and you have to take responsibility for that part but otherwise just think about that car being lifted up so when you're sitting in a new goal to let go of them branches to see in your harness think about your car picked up in the air you are not going to break that hardware the last one is that dreaded feared of oneself you know fear of fainting fear of blacking out fear of losing your mind up there just all these fears tend to you know come about from a very dark place it seems and there's no kind of rationality to it it's just purely because it's a bit of an unknown situation that you put me self in so there's a lack of confidence in oneself that you that you can just keep keep it together you know you can keep a grip on the on the situation you know I've seen people do some extraordinary things to escape being opening a tree you know I've seen you know climbers take off huge tops when they're nowhere near at the point high enough to where they should be topping a tree because it's not gonna fit in the gap that is down below and they've just obliterate whatever underneath and I've been there screaming and shouting to stop and they're just not listening they're just not receptive to it they don't care they just want to escape so and I'll deal with the consequences like yeah I've seen people faking injuries I've seen people pretending to vomit doesn't well there's nothing coming out but they're doing anything just find an excuse to come down you know I've seen people imagining or pretending there's swans and bees and wasps all around them there isn't but it was it was reason enough to come down I've seen people rip star cords out of sauce so the sore is no longer functional and then they can come down for that reason you know just just crazy stuff but in that moment they just all the thinking about is escaping is getting the hell out of that situation so and it gets worse - you know I've seen people who no longer trust their own sanity you know they still had it all built up and they start wondering and worrying that they're just gonna completely lose control and unclip and jump out the tree and kill themselves you know I mean that's really extreme but it does happen and you do hear about that with you know people with a severe fear of heights um they they stand on the edge of a building and and they get this impulse even but I think it's imaginary really they're worried more than anything that they might suddenly have this impulse to jump off so that's as good as having the impulse even though they did never have jumped off you know I mean I get a funny feeling if I'm on the if I'm on a bridge looking down at a river you know I feel like there is an urge to jump in just but no cuz I wanna if it was concrete there wouldn't be but there is a feeling they're like you know I wonder if I can get away with that but I'm not about to jump out of any trees let me tell you but some people worry that they'll get up there and that will come over them they'll just be possessed and they will lose their mind and jump out you know it's far-fetched but it but it's true but if we sort of you know make a comparison with day to day tasks something equally if not more dangerous one would be driving you know like as most adults drive at some point and Canada but kind of does bit tamer and a bit more of safer place to drive a thing but somewhere like the UK you know you can easily find yourself driving at 70 miles an hour down a dark windy road and you're only separated by lines on the road and cats eyes in the dark and you are missing head-on cars by feet and you're putting so much faith in yourself you know in your in your instincts in your intuition in what's embedded in you oh you know help to drive and not just that you're putting a ton of faith in this stranger that passes you at the same speed if you're both doing 70 then that's gonna double the impact if you did have a collision and it's just over you know and if the impact didn't kill you then the fire probably will after all the tree that you go career in into this a terrible way to die but it's something we do every day so you know how many of you have had suicidal thoughts then you know how many times did you get the urge just to swerve into the head-on car how many of you dummy no I'll bet because you're just not likely to do it because you are there's an instance a much stronger instinct in there to stay alive you know than anything else is as people at that's what we do you know we stay alive and you can be driving well when your mind might be completely elsewhere you just driving on autopilot your subconscious uh supposes is in control and working at Heights is no different to that you know if you know what you're doing if you wear how to go about the task then there is absolutely no reason why you'll got suddenly gonna faint or black out or have a seizure or have turned into a full-blown lunatic and jump out the tree because it hasn't happened as it happened in any other respect to your life has happened on the road no as so it's not gonna happen up there you know you do effed up some faith in yourself and just realize that it's only the fact that it's unfamiliar territory being at height that is creating all this nonsense all this you know making your imagination run wild but it is just your imagination and then you know you just have to learn to banish it and even if you you went up there and went through hell in your mind with your anxiety but still nothing happens and you still calm down and yet okay you didn't jump out you didn't faint nothing happen to you you know so you have to realize that that's the reality of it same as being on the road you know I mean when you're driving running talked about the car itself you know what are the chances of there's more chance of having a blowout than the tree collapsing on you and I mean did you know a lot of new cars now there's not even a steering column it's just a big load of wires behind the dash that is actually turning your wheels one way or the other depending on where you turn the wheel the steering wheel and that is your life you're putting into that you're putting so much faith in that vehicle in that Tim box you know but with tree climbing you all's you've got to do is rely on a few basic pretty bomb proof pieces of hardware a few clips no more than what you can count on one hand and it should not and there's no reason for it to be overwhelming and it's really a pretty safe place to be it's just that you're up high [Music] [Music] [Music] see people spurring trees for the first time you know using climbing Spurs and the be alright for a few feet you know you out getting a hang of this and then stepping into the tree and moving the line or moving the one you don't the flip why not and they're alright for up to ten feet and then they get over ten feet and then they sort get over 20 feet and things start wobbling then they start shaking and twitching and panting and and there's absolutely no reason why should happen because nothing has changed if anything tree climbing itself should be any easier as the tree gets a little bit thinner but um no we all it all changes in their mind the thought of falling even though they're touched by the Rope they're just gonna skit a little bit another one is limb walking you know when you see people limb walking you know and I'd limb that's ten foot above the ground alright they're suspended by rope if you know aware of this if you don't do tree climbing you have a rope that's suspended a very high points you can kind of lean into it and sort of swing back and forth and maneuver your way out onto a branch to do whatever work needs to be done out there you know now if that branch is only ten foot off the ground you'll see them that train near be laughing and giggling and think it's funny you know as that sort of maneuvering their way out because the further you go out there more difficulty guess cuz you see in that you're hanging on the rope less and you're leaning into it more so we the line angle get sort of wider and it becomes a little bit harder to keep going and that's where skill and practice comes into it but anyway you know if it's a few feet off the ground most people can do it you know - maybe 10 15 feet the way out but if that limb is high at all with this go to the next line which is a 24 again the old change is same as the spurting example and they start grabbing all the things and staggering and lose in the balance and there's no logical reason fight other than this state of mind other than this feeling of unfamiliar territory because now there's a distance between here in the ground if they slip off the limb nothing is gonna change they're just gonna swing back maybe a little bit I'm dignified but you know the Rope has got you and and that's what it's there for so it's you know that there's lots of reasons to decide that you don't want to do tree work but you know it might be too physically hard and uncomfortable you may not know why the weather you might like getting wet you might not like the sunshine if you live in a hot country but fear of heights shouldn't be one of them because that is purely a state of mind thinkers know a physical object that you know you've got to go over and deal with and what you have to look forward to as well is if you persevere if you put all some of these things together that I've just mentioned it can can really help like you know with the research and reading and working with other people you know and understanding your equipment and what it how big a fail-safe in it really is you know then you know we speak about limb walking and going out on branches like it will get to the stage where no matter where that limb is on the tree it becomes the ground there's nothing below it as far as you will notice like I'm looking at that plant pot over there that's from vult and you know if I was looking at through a camera lens and I'm trying to focus on everything behind that plant pot would go blur you know wouldn't you wouldn't be able to see it properly and you'd take the picture and it would just be of the plant pot and the background will be blurry well that's how it becomes when you know you work in open trees and climbing out on limbs and stuff you don't see what's behind the limb that may as well be the the ground to you because you that are ease and focused on the task of going out there and doing the work that has to be done I mean sometimes you have to look through it if you only have a small gap to actually drop branches in onto the ground so you do but it but it comes so easily and intuitively by that stage you know in some see you you have all this to look forward to and I'll say this as well like you know when I am doing these bigger trees that 204 trees and above you know I got far more out of climbing my first 50-foot tree they meant so much to me you know I in their first couple years when you when you learning and improving rapidly you just hit so many personal achievements you know maybe the people around you understand boy it makes it can make you feel so good about yourself and you you don't you can't explain and you don't have to explain it it's um it's very very rewarding I'll say that I you can't put a price on what it does for your sense of worth and your self-esteem so it is worth persevering you know you are gonna have good days and bad days you have to accept that but as long as you can look back let's say every two weeks or every month and say I'm better than I was two weeks ago I can go further you know I'm not as anxious as I was and that should just be what your goal is you know and the flip side of it all as well is that you know when you have been in the job for many years then you realize that that fear is is there to prevent accidents it's not the cause of it honey almost becomes partly a checklist you know and you know this is where the the risk of complacency wise as well when you're so familiar with with with doing things that sometimes you have to summon that fear in yourself because the task might seem so mundane and unassuming but the fact is you because you've got so much experience in the back it's just not a worry so you have to summon up these bad feelings in yourself - you know sharpen and heighten your senses to get them where they need to be focus your concentration so you realize then fear is actually your friend and it it was the dis terrible thing in the early days but it's the same thing that's kept you alive all these years and kept you accident-free you know so whatever that period is you know so you have to embrace it and realize that this is there to help me this doesn't need to be some sort of demon inside of me that's dragging me down noises that's a keep you sharp do you know what I mean and then and keep me alive and keep you're making good decisions and keep me focusing and keep you you know observing all your safety equipment and all the hazards around you and the people around you and the weather conditions and everything else that fear is good here do need a bit of that but you've just got to keep it under control so I'll finish there I'll say good look and just remember that here you're not the first and you won't be the last because I was in the exact same both I was in your shoes you know when I was starting now I kept thinking there was something wrong with me nobody else could be as anxious as me that's what you know why they seem to be progressing faster than I and why don't they seem as fearful as what I felt you know but they've probably were feeling the same thing I mean maybe they want that I caught them up you know I but you have to look at it as a task as a skill within many skills that you learned and mastered all the time working at height you know it is just part of the job it's not the whole job by any means it like sharpening a saw you know you might not be very good or quick learning out to sharpen the saw correctly somebody might be better than you at that - or you might be better than them you know you're just learning and mustering at a different rate so you just have to look at fear or anxiety at Heights as just another task within a you know broad range of tasks that makes you and will make you a competent tree climber arborists whatever so I'll leave it there hope this has helped

Channel: Reg Coates

Views: 78,402

Keywords: Fear of heights, Tree climbing, Tree work, Climbing Arborist

Id: u0TOtoewJbk

Length: 37min 32sec (2252 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020