Strong Mind  Avis 

The information and instruction in the Strong Mind courses has transformed my climbing. But the true beauty of these courses is that their reach extends beyond the climbing experience. I've been able to take what I've learned and extend it to dealing with fear in relationships, work situations, and any task that pushes me outside of my comfort zone. The practices of getting the challenge level right, honestly evaluating our internal world and fear response, and working with ourselves where we're at in the moment are invaluable tools in all of life. Hazel and Angus are smart, insightful, compassionate leaders and they have a good team behind them. I absolutely loved my experience with Strong Mind and recommend it to any climber.

Course content is great. The material is really well-produced and organized, which makes it easy to learn and return to later for review even after the course is over. The content is clear and well explained and the team is totally inspiring. Great course and can’t recommend it enough. It changed my climbing in many ways!

The course was the best money spent in 2024!

Hazel, Angus, Seb and everyone on the team are an amazing, kind group of people who share their knowledge and experience in a very nice and approachable way. The course is easy to follow and flexible - you can pick how and when you do it. I also found the community aspect a very good support group, which keeps you going.

A year in I feel more joy in my climbing experience and I see visible progression. At times when i still feel in doubt, I use the tools to ease the fear. I cherish every part of the course and I think it’s totally worth the effort and money to make your climbing experience a full one.

A course that is an investment

As a newbie to climbing, I often felt tension and fear. I didn't talk about it out loud. With this course, the elephant in the room is addressed and you get concrete tools to work with to feel less fear. It was like what you had felt was completely normal and you suddenly felt normal and in a puzzle. For me, it has been a game changer to accept that fear is something you have to work with. You become more in touch with yourself and you dare and dare to be honest with your surroundings. The course means that you have to push yourself at the same time so you get good follow-up and you meet others online in the same situation.

I have attended the Flight School course by Strongmind and the Performance Hacks before that and I can honestly say that it has transformed my climbing and my attitude towards it.

Make no mistake, it takes quite a bit effort from yourself but the lessons and insights that Hazel and Angus deliver are there to put you on the path to start doing the mental shift around the aspects of your climbing that are holding you back.

For me it was my fear of falling and the high value I placed on success or failure of climbing a route. After working on my fear of falling with the practices that were outlined in Flight School and also applying the lessons from Performance Hacks I saw real changes and improvement.

I saw an improvement on my indoor lead climbing early on with improved confidence and an ability to try harder without minding the falls. I also noticed that the high expectations were subsiding.

On a recent trip outdoors where I started with no expectations and being quite nervous I was so pleasantly surprised even from the first climbs. I found myself focused on the climb and even doing hard and risky moves above the bolt without thinking about the falling - or rather thinking that I don't mind the falling. It made all the difference! I was doing moves on real rock that I haven't done before cause I was scared, but now my mind was very much at ease!

To add to that I definitely felt a shift in my perspective and I wasn't thinking about the top of the climb or the grades but rather trying hard and focusing on the process. I send climbs and grades that I haven't done before and I could feel that the value of the send was not what it used to be - previously sending or fail would be everything , now sending something was just the happy result of the process and not the beginning and end of all!

Highly recommended for all climbers looking to improve!

This is the best online course I've ever taken. Thank you for your professionalism and attention to detail. I'm positive I will be returning to the course work often. Whenever I read a chapter and go to the crag the same day, the lesson jumps out in some beautiful way. Synchronicity or coincidence? I choose the former. Thank you Hazel, Angus, and Team.

This course is causing a major shift in my experiences climbing and helping bolster my own self awareness and mindfulness beyond just what, say, a mindfulness practice would encourage on its own. I've been really struggling with a number of facets of my climbing life and I just did not know where to start, but this course allows me to reset the compass to true north, bringing about a fresh perspective on growth, mastery, and my own "why".

This course has taught me why I enjoy climbing and everything else in life that gravitate toward - because of the spectrum of flow that I fall into when doing that task (climbing, other hobbies, my career). Understanding how it all works and how to cultivate flow has improved my relationship with climbing (it was already great), and helps me to enjoy my time spent training and climbing, among the other aspects too. Amazing information and delivery, I am very excited about the course and content

This course was an incredible experience! The recorded content was extremely thorough, the live sessions highly supportive and the opportunity to receive feedback invaluable. Hazel has a very approachable and down-to-earth way of presenting and the whole team was extremely responsive to questions and comments in the community forums. The content itself was inspiring and any climber would benefit from taking this course :)

One of the best investments I have made in improving my climbing experience and performance. The video and reading content is high quality and really covers the topic, the coaches are world class, super knowledgeable, inspiring, approachable and very responsive. I loved the course format spread over 6 weeks with weekly F2F zoom calls where I could ask my questions directly. Thank you so much to Hazel, Angus and Seb. Amazing experience, more of it!

I waited perhaps too much time before taking the course. I mainly wanted to do the course because of the persistent fear of falling while lead climbing. I was very pleased with the course and felt that my high expectations were fully met. Perhaps a couple of additional weeks would have helped me to better absorb the material (e.g., go over more fall videos). I also feel that a live diacussion/examples of meditations and additional tools would have helped. This part, which came toward the end of the course, felt pressured for me as I was still trying to go over previous lessons. I work full-time, so perhaps for someone with more time, that wouldn't be an issue.

Hazel’s climbing reputation precedes her, but she and Angus and her team deserve to be better known for this extremely thorough and life changing course. There is so much fascinating content, delivered in a combination of online study and live q&a sessions. Each course has an online community for students to ask questions and support each other. I have learned so much from the other students’ experiences.

You will learn a huge amount about your own mindset and approaches to managing fear. The chapter on fall practise is astonishingly comprehensive and the opportunity to post and view fall practise videos is so valuable. The team give really detailed feedback on your practise.

Perhaps the most valuable thing about this course for me is that it is not a “one and done” thing. I will be going back to the chapters in the course for as long as I am climbing. The confidence it has given me has rekindled my love for the sport and improved my ‘mind game’ hugely. Thanks Hazel, Angus, Seb and Rita!

The Strong Mind course is excellent. Has completely transformed my relationship with climbing and falling. Super professional- so much work has gone into developing a cohesive programme geared towards psychology and fear of falling in climbing as well as producing all the materials. Hazel and Angus have so much experience and knowledge they really help you progress. The format of the course is great too creating a community of students who support each other as we learn together. I was in N Wales so booked a person session with Angus that was excellent too. Really helped to identify what was holding me back, how to address it in a way I could manage and then how to push myself further. Thank you so much for producing this course. I have tried for 16 years to work this out for myself and this has changed everything.

Coming to this course and engaging in this community was the best decision I've made for my climbing. The biggest change I've noticed has been in my mindset. And all change I feel starts from there. I truly feel like I will be able to dig into and talk about the issues I've had, whether it's from fear of falling, failure, self-worth etc. with the tools you have provided us. I felt your support throughout the whole course. The combination of the well thought-out content and videos with the Q&A, drop zone and community really made a difference in motivation and being excited about the content and homework tasks. More than ever, I'm excited to make a commitment to fall practice and good habits around learning instead of achievement. I've even grown to like falling. Who would have thought!! Thank you! This was such a pleasure! Couldn't be happier with this course :)

I can highly recommend the strongmind course. The quality and detail of the content was extremely high. Further to this, the detail and speed of responce form the strongmind team in regards to comment, falling videos etc was awesome. Something I didn't appreciate was the value of listening to other people on the course through the comments and q@a to help further ones own insight and learning. Overall, I'm really pleased with the path the strongmind course has taken my climbing and wish I considered attending it years ago. Diolch yn fawr to the course tutors and attendees 👍

I just wanted to let you know that your bite-sized emails are really resonating, and promote a lot of positive reflection for me on life and on climbing. Keep up the great work!

Before the course I had started to reflect on why I had stronger performances on some climbs more than others. I was beginning to realise my mental performance was the key contributor and I had begun to look for patterns. This course is amazing as it is giving me a structure for my mental performance. I can now reflect on my mental state with more intention. This has made me more curious about my mental state around climbing and I have a different focus now. Climbing is becoming more about learning and developing how I am in the moment and less about getting a climb done at a certain grade. Of course climbing more challenging grades is still important to me but I am enjoying the moment and the learning more. Recently some of my high points and times of flow have been after having fallen and then tried the climb again with a different focus. Flow came as I completed a move that had seemed unattainable to me before.

The Strong Mind course helped improve my performance in climbing competitions. The guidance and tools have taught me to overcome and deal with pressure of competitions, and the associated performance anxiety. The course was very accessible and tailored to meet my individual needs.

Overall the course was a very positive and enjoyable experience. I’ve taken so much away from it, I couldn’t recommend it more highly to anyone wanting to improve the mental aspects of their climbing performance, both indoors and outdoors!

Hazel and Angus have created an incredible resource which has helped our climbing immeasurably. Fear of falling almost stopped us climbing outdoors and the tools they provide have made it possible again. Thank you so much - highly recommend!

100% great courses -- life changing -- highest recommendation!

This is the most useful thing I've done for my climbing (and general wellbeing) in years! The material is very thoroughly researched. Hazel and Angus are great -- the group Zoom sessions are incredibly useful, and the broader community you join is fantastic.

Specifically, I have done "Flight School" and "Strong Mind." Over the last few months has been incredibly interesting to watch my mental state evolve, and my climbing evolve with it! In addition to my observations, my climbing partners have all commented how I'm moving easier and taking falls as/ when needed.

Cannot recommend highly enough. Like most climbers (or most male climbers, at any rate...) I overemphasized the physical and brushed off the mental aspects. If you feel the mental parts might be the limiting factors that are holding you back (spoiler alert: they probably are), these are the courses for you!

The course work also leaves you with a structured plan to go forward -- am looking forward to continuing to develop in the months and years ahead!

Thanks so much Hazel and Angus!