didn't fall out of the maple tree

Well my first attempt at pruning a fairly large tree was reasonably successful as I cleared out a number of branches growing in parallel and/or crossing from one side of the tree to the other. That is I cleared out the problem branches to about 12 feet as that was has high as I could climb and still be able to saw off branches. I also would classify the effort a success as I didn't fall out of the tree or draw blood.