MOUNTAIN TRAINING
What do you do for work?
As a qualified climbing Development Coach and Rock Climbing Development Instructor I coach online globally, through my rocksense website, in the Nottingham area in person and out in the Peak District.
The Rock Climbing Development Instructor is a relatively new qualification, how do you use it?
I use it for coaching climbing and providing Mountain Training’s Rock Skills courses, teaching head game courses and helping people progress on to lead climbing outdoors.
What do you enjoy about developing other climbers? Building a community, when joining a climber on their journey it’s hard to not build a friendship. This has led me to have a lot of regular climbers that I’ve coached for multiple reasons over many sessions, and I always enjoy catching up with them after they have been away for a little while. Seeing people progress I have also found to be a great source of motivation for my own progress.
What was the best thing you learned while working through the qualification?
The most valuable thing for me on the training course was to be able to work with other instructors who had travelled from all over, and brought so many points of discussion and slightly different ways to do things. Playing with these ideas was useful and really consolidated the principles behind the methods.
What do you wish you’d known before assessment? Prepare for everything, camping in a failing tent isn’t a great choice... More seriously, don’t try to guess the assessor’s intentions or expectations. It can be hard when you’ve worked hard for something and you want it, it can add a lot of pressure to the day. Find a way to lighten your own mood if needed and add some ease into the day. It’s about the climbers, not you, so take a moment to talk to them and remove your focus away from the assessor.
What are your plans for the future?
Currently I’m coaching online and have been exploring that more; it’s been great to connect with climbers around the world. The RCDI was all about expanding the services I can provide especially to the young people I’ve coached over the years, and I’m working hard to return to classes after covid, so it’s been amazing to be able to provide Rock Skills Learn to Lead Trad and Sport courses in the meantime. Outside of coaching I’ve just being working hard to progress my own climbing while being a father and full time coach.
Luke 48 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN.
What else should people know about the Rock Climbing Development Instructor qualification? This is not mountaineering. Yes the skills are transferable and cross over a lot. For me, I’ve never had too much interest in hill walking and scrambling so never felt passionate to teach it so the Rock Climbing Development Instructor was the opportunity I had been waiting for, on the course it made so much sense.
The decision-making and options for teaching were the real eye openers and I almost feel an extra day was needed; after five days purely on the rock, there were still ideas I wanted to play with. From the technical side of setting up through to spending a day looking at safely teaching fall practice, there were so many little gems of information to walk away with it.
Since gaining the qualification I have built an ever growing tool box for use on the crag and the foundation of this tool box began with the RCDI training, and I’m happy to say that this qualification is a great place to go for people who are passionate about teaching rock climbing.
Mansfield Rock Climbing Development Instructor
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