FEAR COACHING FOR CLIMBERS
FEAR COACHING FOR CLIMBERS
“I know I could be climbing so much harder”
it’s not just your muscles holding you bacK
YOU HAVEN’T FACED THE NIGHTMARE⚡️
FEAR COACHING FOR CLIMBERS
FEAR COACHING FOR CLIMBERS
You’ve been hearing it your entire climbing career, from friends, grandparents and concerned coworkers: Climbing is crazy! Climbers are crazy! What are you doing, get back down here, you’re going to hurt yourself.
Their fears feel annoying, ill-informed and oppressive. Since the worriers clearly don’t know anything about climbing, you’ve found the best way to deal with them is to tune them out and go climbing, indulging in a conversation or debate only when absolutely necessary.
What they don’t understand is the success you have earned in climbing feels so much more rewarding and meaningful than any of the other accomplishments you’ve had in career, other sports or academics.
Because of the powerful feelings and growth you’ve already experienced in climbing, setbacks and fears can feel absolutely frustrating, and on the inside, embarrassing.
You’ve applied every other tool you’ve used in the past and it just isn’t working. Showing up, following the instructions and maintaining discipline has run its course.
Climbing gets in your head like nothing else and won’t let up its grip.
The truth is: FEar reveals itself at every stage of climbing.
⚡️Fear that your dreams will always lie beyond your grasp.
⚡️Fear of Falling, Fear of Failing, Fear of Death, Fear of Injury.
⚡️Fear of what everyone else is thinking about your last attempt.
You’re not having these fears because you’re weak of heart, or not cut out for climbing. It’s because climbing is genuinely scary and invites us to answer questions and consider risk, both physical and emotional, outside normal, daily life.
The fear you meet in climbing will only compound unless you face it directly.
Avoiding fear is just the same as being ruled by fear. Fear of falling, fear of failing, it’s all the same. Climbing becomes fundamentally unsatisfying because you’re running from your fears, and deep inside you know it.
Embracing fear as an ally, and its full spectrum of difficult sensations and horrifying visions, is the only way forward.
Climbing elegantly, efficiently and inspiringly demands something more soulful than discipline, domination and simply following instructions.
Climbing well demands an ability to be in relationship with your body.
And that’s exactly why I created Climbing in Ecstasy, so you could face your fears, inhabit your body and live free.
introducing
Climbing
in ecstasy
THREE RADICAL MONTHS TO REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR CLIMBING
Each month of CLIMBING IN ECSTASY includes:
⚡️90 minute one-on-one deep dive session to witness and flush out your fears, receive custom, nourishing support and learn and implement The Nightmare Method. This takes place in person or online and is not a climbing session.
⚡️60 minute Climbing movement and technique session (in person or online) to implement your custom strategies and mindset work.
⚡️Video review and feedback to deepen your integration.
And one very special day outdoors.
⚡️The day we share in Nature is the heart of Climbing in Ecstasy and answers the questions:
Is my body a safe place?
Is Nature a safe place?
This is where you receive the priceless transmission of being in relationship and communication with your body, the Plant, Animal and Mineral Queendoms and address the nature of safety to its most profound depth. We won’t be climbing together. We will be walking, eating, drinking, resting and experiencing Nature and ourselves with Honesty and Integrity.
READY TO SIGN UP?
pay in full
$2750
($247 discount off payment plan)
payment plan
$2997
(3 payments of $999 each)
CLIMBING IN ECSTASY IS ABOUT SO MUCH MORE THAN EXCELLENCE IN CLIMBING
CLIMBING IN ECSTASY IS ABOUT
⚡️Being empowered to transform yourself and overcome limitations
⚡️Feeling safe in all areas of life
⚡️How you show up with friends and community
⚡️Your ability to experience pleasure and joy
⚡️Your relationship with something more powerful than you: Nature
⚡️Creating a lifetime of memories you can be proud of and a future that inspires you
No matter where you are In YOUR JOURNEY AS A climber, Saint Nightmare is here to help.
NEWER CLIMBERS will EMBODY:
⚡️Comprehensive understanding of safety and risk
⚡️Knowing how to pick safe, supportive, fun partners
⚡️Consistent, obvious gains in performance and a strategy for moving forward
⚡️Healthy self talk and motivation
⚡️Beauty and Grace on the wall
⚡️Confidence in your identity as a climber and knowing you belong in the community
SEASONED CLIMBERS will EMBODY:
⚡️Injury-free awesomeness
⚡️Full appreciation of ALL your accomplishments
⚡️Authentic, sustainable psych
⚡️Healthy self talk and motivation
⚡️Feeling more alive than ever
⚡️Deeper, more meaningful climbing experiences
⚡️Higher quality results with less effort
⚡️Getting to live a life of balance that embraces climbing, work and relationships
WHAT CLIMBING IN ECSTASY IS not
⚡️Climbing in Ecstasy is not a fitness or training program.
⚡️Climbing in Ecstasy is not for people who want to tick routes without doing personal growth and character development.
⚡️Climbing in Ecstasy is not a guiding service, or for first time climbers.
We address the heart and soul of climbing, fueled by a deep love that hones and refines your inner strength and aptitude. My approach creates a sustainable, lifelong relationship with rock climbing and completely respects your desire for deeper, more powerful experiences you can be proud of. I can’t wait to work with you.
THE NIGHTMARE METHOD⚡️
The most inspiring climbers, the climbers I admire, are quietly making progress on their goals in climbing and their relationship with themselves in a very specific, methodical way.
The Nightmare method allows you to embody these strategies for yourself.
Safety
My first order of business is helping you know to your bones you are safe. Finding, vetting and trusting safe partners and practices is the first priority. You can’t climb if you’re dead. You also can’t climb constantly distracted by the possibility of being dead. Knowing you are safe opens the door to experimentation with wildness and freedom.
Emotions
Next I teach you how to handle your fears and emotions in real time. You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. Suppressing them makes them even bigger, causing them to reveal themselves in inconvenient moments and keep you in an unsatisfying comfort zone. Accepting your emotions helps you both set realistic expectations and dream bigger.
Motivation
Vibrant motivation is only possible via an authentic and caring relationship with your body based on listening and respect. You will lose your passion and spark for climbing if you attempt to succeed on harsh discipline and rigid standards. I know it may be hard to believe, and contrary to everything you learned in high school sports, but you can actually climb EVEN BETTER the more you learn to be kind to yourself.
Through the swirl of my 20s, I clung to yoga as a source of emotional and somatic regulation. My childhood certainly did not teach me the skills or habits of self-acceptance or compassion and I desperately needed to hear the voices of kindness my yoga teachers sang out over the tortured process of re-parenting myself. I also was deeply committed to climbing as much as possible, where all my demons were definitely making sure I punished myself with wicked self-talk and cruel self-image. Until one day I unlocked a secret. If I went to a yoga class before the climbing gym, after letting all the tears of savasana pour down my cheeks, and then wander into the gym still sniffling, I could climb much better. I had a clear head and flow-state movement. I carried all the compassion of yoga to climbing and it was working! I was climbing better without even trying.
Ecstasy
The most important thing I want to pass onto you in our work together is a feeling of ecstasy and aliveness. I know it might sound taboo to champion the pursuit of ecstasy over the pursuit of happiness. In my world, happiness is a taste that fades. Ecstasy is an utter integration with the infinite spectrum of human experiences. Yes, it includes happiness. But it also embraces the certainty of death and inevitable dark nights of the soul. I want to empower you to live eyes wide open where no possibility of either ease or pain could truly destroy you. Living in ecstasy means embracing the reality of periods of accomplishment and periods of regression. It means accepting change and accepting the risk and complication of desire and growth.
You are a wild, powerful, sexy person, just by virtue of being alive, and it’s a waste of your time to not inhabit that reality.
Shino Jamoto. San Francisco, CA
“NICKY IS THE CLIMBING WHISPERER.
A coach that understands there’s more to crimp format and how to fall properly. With decades of experiences, she navigates performance with a heavy consideration to the mental and emotional aspects of climbing. I trust her catching me as well as with my most vulnerable thoughts and experiences.”
Sure, you could read a book. You could keep watching endless YouTube and instagram videos made by content creators with more charisma than experience. And you heard from me how much yoga improved my climbing and you could easily start taking classes today.
You could try dating someone who climbs a grade or two harder than you are right now. Or try dating someone who doesn’t climb at all and never feel threatened again.
Yes, you’ve learned a lot from your own observations, and maybe you’ve been lucky enough to learn from generous friends. After all, climbing has traditionally been a sport whose knowledge and traditions are passed on through mentorship. Mentorship might be putting it too kindly, though, when the reality has smelled more like gatekeeping, granting access to only the “hardcore” or those willing to risk their lives.
You could also quit climbing, but it’s awfully hard to thrive on memories alone.
CLIMBING IS SO MUCH MORE THAN MUSCLES.
I offer care, understanding and emotional presence beyond what a friend or partner can provide. Our time is all about YOU. Your goals, your progress, your process. Naturally, I tend to your movement, strength and technical weaknesses with the exacting eye of an expert, but I also keep us on track to face what you would easily avoid on your own—the dark side.
YES
⚡️You will need to climb about 2 days a week to integrate and see results.
⚡️You will discover the edges of your emotional comfort zone and learn how to respect them.
⚡️Climbing will feel natural and rewarding
In certain circumstances, learning how to climb less frequently but with higher quality results may be what’s called for. If this is the case I will tell you directly and honestly, but nothing I recommend will work for you in the long term unless you yourself feel it to be true.
NO
⚡️You won’t have to do more pull-ups.
⚡️You won’t have to do anything that feels dangerous or safe in order to improve.
⚡️You won’t have to cry at the crag any more.
⚡️You don’t have to figure it all out yourself.
If general fitness is truly what’s holding you back, I’m happy to refer to you to select personal trainers I trust who can help you achieve a sustainable baseline.
Kirk Ditterich, Clinical Psychologist. Truckee, CA
“I can’t believe I hired a coach to talk about climbing, but it’s so worth it.
It’s so relieving and refreshing. Nicky is an expert.
Before working with Nicky I felt a lot of pressure to prove myself to others or climb in a style that might have been dangerous. Nicky helped me have the confidence to check my ego in front of others and learn to back off routes.
Nicky helped me validate that climbing is not just a hobby; it is a meaningful part of my life, like my career, or being a parent. She helped me to value the experience I have climbing by being present, never shaming me and always being centered on what my needs are.
I never thought a non-psychologist could help me. But you gotta talk to Nicky.”
Max Braz RENO, NV
“Nicky is an enlightening force that has come into my life at the exact right moment I needed it.
She is helping me see the beauty of all life's challenges and achievements as they happen right in front of me.
Nicky has helped me tremendously with my mental training for rock climbing and has made the sport more fun and fulfilling for me in the process. She can see the minutia of details that will help you improve and pull back to show you how all those small details add up to a greater overall experience. All of these skills have transferred over to my life as well, providing me with skills I use in work and my personal life.
She is fun, funny and has all the keys to unlock your climbing aspirations and life goals. She’s a wonderful puzzle; an old soul with sage climbing advice and a young spirit with endless high positive energy”
Climbing is scary enough, and a lot of what I will ask you to do is also scary. Not on a physical level, but an emotional level. Facing the compromises you’ve made along the way in terms of risk and partners in order to climb as much as possible can bring you to your knees in awe and humility—truly, how did you survive this long? I understand these wide-eyed revelations because I, too, had to come clean about all the sacrifices I made on the path to becoming a good climber. I sacrificed healthy, equitable romantic relationships. I played it way too cool when I was overwhelmed or in over my head. I forsook rest and kindness towards my ever-giving body and most heartbreakingly, I sacrificed an ability to be present and appreciative while perched on high in some of the most beautiful and hard-to-access places in the world.
The hardest thing for me to hear is you are “happy where you are,” when we both know this just isn’t true. “Happy where you are” takes effort to look away from the people climbing with more grace and ease and not want some of that too. Only a will of steel can resist the call of a beautiful day and an azure alpine lake begging to hold and cleanse your aching body. “Happy where you are” shows me exactly how strong you are (extremely strong!). That strength is just being applied to the wrong outcome (self-repression).
I get it, taking off the bandaids and finally taking a look at the gory emotional details you’ve been covering up over the years isn’t something you would have been up for when you first fell in love with climbing. You were truly having too much fun.
I will take you somewhere so much more profound than fun.
Through our work together, you will find yourself in a place of deep, sensual satisfaction, reward, and connection with nature you’ve never experienced before in your body, let alone while rock climbing.
I believe everybody knows how to move for the sake of feeling good. When you were 8 there wasn’t anything (except a vicious grandma) that could have stopped you from clambering up onto the kitchen counter, balancing on tiptoe in slippery socks, and reaching for the cookies on the top shelf. Maybe 8 was a long time ago, but there is still a serial cookie-thief locked up doing 20 years to life inside you, and my job is to get her out of prison.
I AM SAINT NIGHTMARE, devoted guide on your journey to embracing fear. I’ve been climbing for over 30 years and truly understand your quest to climb and live passionately, because that’s how I’ve committed to living my life. I know without a doubt how much better you will feel the moment you begin cultivating a relationship with your body and Nature you can truly rely on. I look forward to meeting you.
