The connections between getting over a stammer and overcoming a difficult physical challenge were revealed to Sarah Johnson on a recent rock climbing trip.

Between a rock and a good place: both rock climbing and overcoming stammering require strength of character, says Sarah Johnson, reflecting on her recent climbing trip. Photos: Sarah Johnson.

Ten days ago I found myself 100 foot up, teetering on a coastal, cliff-top ledge in Cornwall. Having made the rather impulsive decision to take up rock-climbing earlier this year, I've noticed that the parallels between getting over a stammer and getting up El Cap are strangely similar - as with anything fearful and challenging.

Someone to learn from

First, you need a mentor. Only the loose (and prematurely lamented) cannons go 'free climbing,' and whilst they reach a God-like status in the climbing world, they also tend to reach early ends. So, you take someone with you. You learn your lessons from their experience and watch them like a hawk, mimicking their moves and taking their advice, yelled down to you from the top of the crag. It is the same with stammering. Whatever I attempt, explore and learn, I do so following in the footsteps of people who've already trodden the path. There is security in numbers, both on the rock and from the emotional maelstrom of stammering. Don't be alone.

The right equipment

I've got a harness. I've got a chalk bag. I've got a pair of those toe-pinching shoes and I am also acquiring an arsenal of shiny, clinky things that will hold a rope in place, should I fall. Whilst such physical items aren't always the preserve of the stammerer, we do have equipment, techniques and tactics to get us through the day. We've got costal breathing. We've got the initial inroads of NLP and Neurosemantics. We've got DAF devices, phonics and an understanding of the Valsalva mechanism. We've got confidence and brain scans and auditory research projects. I have found that standing at the bottom of the crag and looking up at its faceless challenge will always yield, upon closer inspection, things to use, ways of facilitating what we find - and ultimately, a way up it.

Faith

This is the most crucial bit of all, evidenced most recently when the instruction to: "Have faith in your shoes, Sarah!" was yelled to me as I looked rather forlornly out at a ledge which I was supposed to traverse. My hands could find definite safe harbour amongst a mass of rocky jugs, but my feet? Nah, they were just meant to stick by themselves. I took another forlorn gaze, this time tinged with just enough fear to kick something into action. Spending four hours waiting for mountain rescue to winch me embarrassingly into a helicopter would have been an unwarranted use of their service! So, I swung one leg out, shifting my centre of gravity so my abdomen was stolidly supporting me as my right foot followed suit. With fingers clinging, I edged along the traverse and as I did so, my feet found homes along the way in little nuggets of scree and granite. I was wearing everything I needed - slings crossed over my body like Jack Sparrow, a helmet, a chalk bag bobbing behind me and £80 shoes, but none of it was worth the investment or the training without the will to, (you know what's coming) feel the fear and do it anyway.

Investing time

You need patience. Rock climbing starts with routes that are little more than scrambles rated with an 'M' for moderate. Further up the scale, you enter 'E' grades, the single letter ominously delineating the extreme routes in which caution, practice and an acceptance of high risk are the mandatory tools of the climber. And so it is that progression from the M's to the E's takes a lot of time, backtracking, analysis, practice, soul-searching, motivation, technical ability, courage and persistence. And most of all, they all require a bucketload of patience to maintain your momentum from one dispiriting moment to the next hopeful high.

It is those same qualities that will result in improvements in your fluency, your attitude and your ability to handle your own stammer. Nothing will ever change overnight, nothing will ever leave and nothing will ever come. Everything is earned through dedication and whether on the rockface or on the phone, having patience with your own ability is key. What frustrates you will ultimately release you, when you understand that the limitations imposed on yourself can be removed carefully, gently and slowly by developing bravery, will and faith.

From the Autumn 2007 issue of 'Speaking Out', pages 8-9