u/HoldMountain7340

Oriane Bertone and the french team on Innsbruck World series. Honestly the french team feels like the cool kids of the comp scene.

I love lead climbing, but I get very anxious with new belay partners.

I've been lead climbing for about two years, and my main belayer is my boyfriend. It took me a long time to fully trust him, but for various reasons we can't always climb together. We also have different goals outdoors and sometimes want to do different things.

The problem is that I struggle to trust new belayers. I get really nervous and find it hard to commit on routes near my limit. Instead, I end up climbing things I'm almost certain I'll send.

To be fair, I haven't seen much genuinely sketchy belaying from most of the people I climb with. But almost everyone uses a tube device, many people tend to short-rope a bit, and I've had experiences that didn't help. For example, one new belayer told me they weren't very confident lead belaying because they hadn't done it in a while and were still getting used to it again. When I expressed concern, they just said, "Relax, you won't die."

I've also had some outdoor experiences that probably reinforced my fears. On one route, I was being short-roped so much that it genuinely felt like I was climbing with a weighted vest on. On another occasion, indoors, I took a fall with an experienced climber (20+ years of climbing) belaying me with a GriGri. Afterwards, I noticed they weren't consistently keeping a hand on the brake strand. Nothing bad happened, but seeing that after I had already trusted them and fallen made me question my own judgment.

These feelings get multiplied by ten outdoors, where I can become really frustrated because I know my fear is holding me back.

How do you learn to trust new belayers? Have any of you struggled with this? Would practicing falls help build trust more quickly? Sometimes I feel like I'm being overly dramatic and should just be able to climb freely, but that's not how it feels in the moment.

i have tried my first multi-pitch with a guide. it was interesting, beautiful place and all, I felt safe etc. but people would always say as mutipitch is the greatest of all, and it fell a bit disappointing, I’d prefer to climb 5 different sport routes. it’s a lot of work, so a bit tiring, I didn’t feel like I was enjoying the view any more than just sport climbing. why do people live this so much, what is the attractiveness for you?

fyi I climbed second the whole time, as I’m a fearful leader.