You're not afraid of falling. You're afraid of a fall that doesn't happen.
Ask a climber what happens if they let go above the fourth bolt and they'll tell you two metres, maybe three. Watch them let go and it's sixty centimetres.
Above the Clip is a training program for rope climbers who freeze above the bolt. It asks you what you think is about to happen. Then it shows you what actually did.
This is what the app records, drawn the way it draws it. The numbers here are an example, not a study.
The part you already know
You climb 6a on toprope without thinking. On lead you get to the fourth clip, look down, and something else takes over. You clip, you shout take, you lower off. You've been doing this for two years.
Or it's not the fall at all. You're two moves from the chains, and the next one is a throw you'd do three metres off the ground without thinking. You stand there until your calf goes, and then you take.
You've read the articles. You've been told to “just take some falls.” Nobody told you how many, from where, or how you'd know it was working.
How it works
A week has two days in it. Tuesday you tie in. Thursday you don't.
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Before you tie in — 25 seconds.
One screen, two taps. How far do you think you'll drop? What do you think will happen?
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Then nothing.
Phone in your pocket. We don't talk to you on the wall — you've got a rope to climb and a belayer to hear.
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When you come down — 20 seconds.
Same two taps. What actually happened?
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On the third one, something changes.
You see your last three predictions next to what actually happened. That gap is the whole thing — not a feeling you talk yourself out of, a number you can't argue with.
Solid is what happened.
Swipe →
Nothing gets explained to you on the wall. What you just saw is what Thursday works on.
This is where most of the work is, and it starts the day you open the app — no gym, no partner, nothing to let go of.
Five to ten minutes, eyes shut. Attention. What your body is doing and why it isn't danger. What you say to yourself at the clip. Rehearsing the move instead of the fall. And the one nobody trains: committing to something you might not stick.
Then we explain what just happened to you. Why your vision narrows and your hands go. Why the fear doesn't drop while you're on the route, and why waiting for it to is the old model. Why it comes back after a good month, what that's called, and why it isn't you going backwards. Two hundred words. One source. Linked.
And you leave with one line. Not a summary — one thing to do. Rehearse the clip, not the fall. It's on your home screen on Tuesday, sitting above the button, on the session it was written for.
A line tells you what to do. Never what to feel, and never that it'll be fine. Rehearse the clip, not the fall ships. Your falls have always been short, you'll be fine doesn't — talking yourself calm right before the hard bit is how you get through it without learning anything. Learning something is the entire point.
Half of this happens on your sofa.
Why not just buy a course
There are good courses on this. Hazel Findlay's is excellent, Arno Ilgner wrote the book, and if you want someone to explain fear to you, buy theirs — we mean that.
A course can't do one thing, and it's the thing that matters: it can't be there on Tuesday at 19:38 to record what you thought was going to happen, ninety seconds before you found out. That's not a content problem. It's a format problem, and it's the only reason this exists.
Every piece of this ends with a question about you, and we keep the answer. No library, nothing to catch up on, and nothing in here that you only read.
Where this comes from
Nobody here is a famous climber, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
What we have instead is a method we didn't invent, and the papers to show you where it comes from. The core of it — predict, then find out — is how exposure work actually functions. Not “hang on until the fear fades,” which is the old model and doesn't hold up, but: make a specific prediction, and let reality break it.
The order matters too. Fear comes back — after time off, in a new place, after a bad one. That's documented, and it has names. It's built into the program instead of ambushing you in week ten.
And the part that isn't falling — attention, arousal, self-talk — isn't filler. In a 2023 trial, climbers who trained emotional regulation got better at climbing and less anxious. The group that only trained physically got one of those.
The method is not our opinion. It's in the papers above.
What's ours is the format: forty-five seconds, on a Tuesday, at the one moment a course can't reach you. If someone selling you something like this can't show you where it comes from, ask them.
And your money comes back if it doesn't do what you hoped. One email, no form, no questions.
The program
Ground rules.
Belayer, fall technique, rope in the right place, what's under you. This one is a hard gate — nothing that involves letting go opens until it's done, and it can't be skipped or bought past. It's also free, forever, whether you buy anything or not.
- 1
Baseline.
What stops you, where, and your first recorded predictions.
- 2
Solo work.
Attention, arousal, self-talk, committing to a move. Ten minutes at home, no partner needed.
- 3
Falls.
Structured, with a stopping rule, in an order designed to prove you wrong rather than to grind you down.
- 4
Making it stick.
Gym to rock, different partners, and what to do when it comes back — because it does, and that isn't failure.
What actually changes
You'll still get scared at the fourth bolt. That isn't the program failing — it's the program working with the material it has.
What changes is what happens next. Right now fear picks your routes. It decides what you get on, when you clip, when you shout take. Twelve weeks in, you're still the one who gets scared, and you're not the one who lowers off.
Fear doesn't get to pick your routes anymore.
What it isn't
This is sports performance training. It is not therapy, it does not treat anxiety or phobia, and it will not diagnose you. If your fear shows up away from the wall, see a professional — that's a different and better tool than this one.
It also asks you to fall on purpose, with a rope and a partner. If that's not something you can do safely right now, this isn't for you yet.
Before you buy — read this bit
This program asks you to fall on purpose, on a rope, with a partner. Climbing injures people. Falling practice injures people. Nothing in here changes that.
- You are responsible for your own safety, your gear and your belayer.
- We can't see your gym, your rope, your partner, or what's underneath you. You can. You are the one who decides whether a session is safe to do today — not the app.
- If a session doesn't look right where you are, don't do it. Skipping one is part of the program, not a failure in it.
- Don't use this if you're returning from an injury and haven't been cleared, or if you're under 18.
One payment. We'll tell you the number, and then we'll tell you why it's that number and not a bigger one.
No subscription, nothing to cancel.
For comparison: the best-known online course in this corner of climbing is $249, the classic one is $199. We're cheaper because you're not paying for a famous climber's name — you're paying for the thing that runs on Tuesday.
You can't buy it today. The app isn't open yet, and we're not taking your money for something that doesn't exist. When it opens, you pay inside it — after you've seen your own numbers, not before. Leave your email and you'll hear from us once.
Your log stays yours and stays free, whether you buy this or not.
Not for you if
- You boulder and don't climb on a rope
- you're coming back from an injury and haven't been cleared
- you want someone to talk to at eleven at night — this asks you questions, it doesn't answer them.