The Cheat Is Revealed....

Went to the Peak at the weekend. Hardly did any climbing though. Saturday had a brief play on Flatworld after seeing the Dob-beast crush it in Vimeovision. He made it look piss, suffice it to say I didn't. Oh well something to go back to. Sunday went to the Works and did the competition wall problems (apart from the ones I didn't do) all very nice.
Anyway today I'd arranged to crush the Cliff back to the dark ages with G-unit. However the weather had alternative arrangements in place, mist, rain, fog, arse. The suggestion was made that a session on the wall of burl could be undertaken. G stepped up to the plate and it was game on. I've been keen on getting some willing gineau pigs on the wall to get a measure of what I'm doing. It is difficult to operate/train in a vacuum so G would provide a valuable point of reference.
In actuallity he provided much more than that. He pretty much immediately spotted that my default technique was to stick in a deep drop knee or egyptian everything. I have woeful hip flexibility and I'm not a strong climber so this is a technique I exploit a LOT when I'm climbing. However in terms of training and really working the POWER it is more of a hinderance. Here was I thinking I could hang all these poor holds (feet on) when in reality I was over reliant on my feet, and my technique was taking a large part of the load. So now I'm committed to training on the wall with a straight on technique, no drop-kness or egyptians. I'm hoping that another outcome of this will be that I will rapidly become frustrated with my flexibility (or lack thereof) and thus encourage me to undertake a concerted period of stretching.
Training is about training, it isn't about doing the hardest problem you can by using all your wiles and tricks, it is about being basic and pulling hard to brutally beat a problem into submission. The graceful use of tactics and techniques to overcome a boulder problem or route is to be applauded, but to transfer this to a board problem actually defeats the point of the board. It is cheating in that environment, and I have been a training cheat, my apparent gains have been due to refined technique as much as improved power.
So thank-you G for removing the scales from my eyes, I promise to train in a more honest fashion from now on. Just think, what would Malc do.....

Stock Check.

Well the new year is well and truly started, it's only a couple of months or so until I head off to Font for two weeks. I guess the time has come to take stock, check on progress and assess my chance of success in reaching my ultimate goal. Thinking about it it is now almost 12 months since I started climbing again in any continuous and sustained way. So looking back what was I up to a year ago?
Well here's a summary:
Generally operating in the mid-sixes area
Occassionally getting a 7A in a session, but usually multiple visits
Failing on anything harder

And now?
Generally operating in the mid-sevens area
Have flashed up to 7A+
Have done some 7C's, generally in two sessions
Have sieged one 8A, multiple sessions until success.

So there has been definite progress, but is it enough? Honestly? Probably not. I still fully intend to go to Font and try to climb an 8A there. But I intend to do this with a realistic expectation of success. As such I imagine my 8A attempts will be either to rule problems out as not being appropriate for me or as groundwork for successful ascents next year (or the year after). This isn't to say that I am resigned to failing to achieve my goal, far from it. I am psyched out of my tiny mind to get on any of a number of 8A's and pull down as hard as I possibly can. But to approach the goal with an excess of confidence would lead to feelings of negativity as deadlines loomed and success receded into the distance, a downward spiral that would have no benefits on my future climbing (yes I have goals beyond 8A). It is often said that goals need to be achievable but I'm not so sure it's that simple. I think in order to really push yourself goals need to be right on the very limit of achievable. And if that means that on occassion these goals stray over into the realms of unachievable then so be it. As long as I am prepared to accept that this goal in this timeframe could go beyond my limits then I can accept failure. In fact it won't be failure, it will merely be that I reach some other goal that was that little bit more attainable.

So for the rest of the run up to Font? Well I have several lines worked that I need to get finished off. I'd like to try and flash a 7B. Another 8A would be amazing, preferably on grit. But right now I'm carrying a bit of a left shoulder/elbow injury so the main priority is getting that straight, although I am still desperate to climb, aaaarghhhh....

The Wickey Wickey Weekend.

Had a heavy week of work/childcare last week as Spud was preparing and attending interviews for teacher training. So climbing consisted of time on the board, which was actually quite nice because I hadn't used the board for a while and was a bit lacking in motivation to get on it without the impetus of otherwise not climbing. However it was also a bit depressing because I started by going through some of the old problems expecting (like an idiot) to do then fairly easily/quickly. Oh no, it was a spanking. So I quickly moved on to devising new problems which I kept telling myself were much harder and more specific to my goals than those older problems. Blah blah blah, what bollocks, I got caught out and that's that. I think part of the problem is board climbing is a unique thing and even if I think (in fact know) that I am a better climber now than the months ago when the first problems were done it doesn't transfer onto the board medium. Or at least it doesn't for me. Or am I just making excuses....
Anyway enough of the dullness of training the final interview was on Friday and Spud was accepted onto the course, hoorah! So I checked the weather forecast and cashed in a pass for Sunday. There was an open invitation to Spud and Lard but I did explain that wind was predicted and I would want to stay climbing and not run away when one of them (Spud) gets cold. Lard was still keen, but as he is only twenty months old Spud played the veto card and they stuck with the home fixture leaving me with an away match alone. The plan was go to the Cliff, meet the guru, crush Keelhaul, crush Jess's Roof, crush Demon Wall Roof Left Hand, crush Stu's Roof, have a coffee, some cake then head home for the final of the snooks.
Meanwhile in the real world it was blowing a gale at the Cliff, I got shut down completely, horribly and depressingly on Keelhaul, I couldn't be arsed dragging the mats very far through the hurricane so prepared to bin it. Then I thought I'd have a quick go at Underhand Extension, which got crushed but was a bit scary due to the gnarly landing coupled with the winds mat rearrangement efforts. Wind has no concept of Feng Shui. Anyhoos something ticked so I'm off. A quick text to let the guru know and I hightail it to Caley...

Which is damp. Oh well the guru shows up and gives me the tour (thank-you kindly sir) and I leave with a list of a couple of things to come back to.
Zoo Yorks - looks quality but was wet and has a "several mats and a couple of good spotters" landing
Ranieri's Reach - amazing line, obviously hard, but could have a go (even though slightly damp) and I'd like to go back in decent conditions.

And now it's snowing.

Tactical childcare faux pas.

Since the New Year I have made a couple of trips out.
First up a couple of days in the Peak. Kirsty had an interview for a teacher training course looming so I volunteered to take the youth away for a couple of days to give her some preparation time. Over the two days I managed to do Zippy's Traverse and breeze the part of Jerry's Traverse that was shutting me down last time, only to get shut down by a part I was breezing last time. Huh? Oh well. Then in the evening watched On-Sight which was good and entertaining and all that, but didn't quite live up to the hype in my mind. Filming onsight climbing must be about the most frustrating thing in the world (up there with filming Badgers feeding and Pandas mating I imagine) so the shortfallings of the film were not that surprising but still...Sunday had a couple of plays at the Secret Garden. G managed to crush Beachball in awful conditions, he's my hero.
But the moral of the tale is that what I did was perhaps not politically the best move. I had Dylan for two days solid but I was climbing so I was "having fun" and as such this childcare was not officially recognised by the rota executives. That is to say I haven't earnt myself a weekend (or even a day) of family free climbing through this venture. Which would be fine were it not for the fact that because I had Dylan I only had about ten attempts at climbing. In two days that is not an impressive work rate. OK it was nice to tick Zippy's but in terms of moving me closer to my objective those two days wil have done not a jot because the work rate was too low (volume and intensity) to be improving my climbing.
It would seem being a dad takes significantly more tactical savvy than I currently have, perhaps a new training regime is required?
The other day out was a family trip to Almscliff to meet up with Rick and family and The Stallion. We got there and it was baltic, the mums and kids wanted to leave immediately. Apart from Dylan who was having the time of his life climbing to the top of the Morrells Wall block over and over again. I was spotting him so I soon got warmed up. Anyway wives and children dragged Dylan off to the cafe in the farm shop up the road (good knowledge if anybody else gets stuck with a cold family at Almscliff). Dylan displayed his dissapointment in the weakness of his compadres by screaming all the way to the car, good lad :o). Anyway family duly dispatched Rick and I had a brief warm-up then onto the Keel block. I was working Keelhaul, which went quite well. I had a left shoulder/elbow problem so wasn't firing on all cylinders but I've got the crux (for me) move pretty sorted so hopefully this should get done. Rick, Stallion and Drew got stuck into The Keel after The Guru and myself had demonstrated two completely different approaches just to add to the confusion. Rick did it, effort. I think that's his hardest problem to date which is ace (as so many things seem to be this season). I fear Stallion was denied, as was Drew?...
Then the wives and offsprings returned and rang from the car, they were refusing to even come up to the crag to meet us. Very poor show. However I could hear Dylan in the background on the phone shouting he wanted to go climbing. I tell you this boy is keen as mustard, watch out world...

I'm back....

Right then lets start this new year as we mean to go on.
My last meaningful post was at the end of October and since then I have....
ummmm
I'm not really sure what I did in November, which suggests I didn't do very much.
I think that I mostly worked a few things that are currently a bit (or a lot) beyond me and was frustrated by the weather and work schedule. In fact thinking back November was a frustrating month because I was desperate to get out and climb but every tiime I did it was not good conditions. Some beasts can just crush through these things but kitten weak me needs everything just so. There was quite a lot of visiting the wall in November, which is very expensive and whilst lots of fun probably doesn't have the same training value as sticking to the board. That's not to say I regret doing it, I don't, just that in terms of absolute maximum gain achieveable the board would have been the ideal choice. However that is to discount one factor which in my case plays a huge part in my ability to train and that is motivation. I think I needed a break from trying to achieve these goals I had set myself, and November was it. As it happens it was a break of unplanned circumstance rather than scheduled rest, and I was still climbing pretty actively. But in terms of focussing on targets and such-like it was a bit of downtime. I can't say it felt like a great month of rest and such like at the time but looking back it apppears to have served it's purpose. In as much as a totally unplanned sequence of events can have a purpose at least.
Anyhoo, on to December. I got a couple of things ticked. A couple of 7a things at Burbage South boulders which were OK but nothing spectacular. Flashed Beachball at Secret Garden and did Zaf's Problem which was nice but took me several more attempts than it should have done due to incompetence, hey-ho...
Also visited Stoney in a day of rubbish weather and did two or three of the dynos there, quite good fun but useless in terms of getting better at climbing. Beats sulking in a cafe though.
Then it was off to the Isle of Man for Christmas with the in-laws. Now climbing on the Isle of Man is not great. The rock quality is pretty poor to be honest and it doesn't really lend itself to bouldering in a big way. It is probably good for adventure style trad, but that isn't really my bag. Even when I was a route climber I only ever stuck to short solid grit routes and whilst the idea of going for it on some not entirely solid sea cliff does have a certain romantic "the road less travelled" appeal I think I'd lose my resolve at the uncoiling the ropes at the start of the day stage if I'm being honest. This sin't helped by the fact that the last time I did a route on the Isle of Man the butress I was climbing on fell down a couple of days later. Anyway the bouldering is limited but there are some reasonable bits. The big problem is it's all tidal, and at this time of year daylight hours are short so awkward tide times can mean no real prospect of climbing. However I managed to get a couple of decent sessions in and did a couple of projects from previous visits. One is a sit start to a stand up 7a/+ ish wall problem which goes at about 7b/+ and the other an sitter to a 7a arete which is a steep bulging rounded slappy arete at about 7c. There is also a traverse into this arete which is yet to go, I think it would be pushing towards 8a when it goes, but time will tell. Obviously these grades are doubtless innacurate as they have had only one ascent (to my knowledge) and I doubt there will be huge queues forming to repeat them. Anyway there is a nice circuit of about a dozen or so problems in this spot now ranging from pretty easy to pretty desperate so I might put a little guide together, obviously it will never get used but thats like 99% of all the stuff on the internet anyway.
And then back to Blighty. On the 29th I got the ferry to Heysham. The family were staying over on the Isle of Man for an extra couple of days so just me and the dog which suited me fine because I had sneaky plans to pop up to Trowbarrow from Heysham before heading home for a quick hour or two on a nemesis. Iron Man is the sit start to Vitruvian Man on the Shelter stone. Vitruvian Man is a 7c and Iron Man gets 8a. Previously I had been geting to the first move of Vitruvian Man (a hard slap out right) but lacked the uumph to do the move. I was confident that if I could do that first move of Vitruvian Man after having done the sitter then I could do the rest of the problem. I also had picked up a sneaky bit of foot beta from watching a video of Adam on Vitruvian which I was hoping would help. It certainly made the first move of Vitruvian feel much steadier when done in isolation however on the first couple of attempts I still felt powered out by the time I got the move, aaaaargh....
Conditions were pretty good, it was very cold but dry. However there are, for me, two critical holds on Iron Man, the first is a blobby pinch at the top of a groove near the start, and the second is the left hand pinch which is the starting hold of Vitruvian. When the blobby pinch is feeling good the slap up with the left to the Vitruvian starting hold feels solid however it was feeling very glassy and almost frictionless so I was pinching the arse out of it which is obviously a bit tiring. The Vitruvian starting hold pinch also felt very glassy, for the stand-up this isn't so bad because you just pull on and immediately throw out right then you can move your left up to the next hold so you are only on the pinch for a short time, you can also get it really well as a pinch before you pull on so you are in the optimum position. However for the sitter you are hanging on to this left hand pinch for ages, I do a totally of nine "movements" with my left on this hold and for most of that my left hand is taking the majority of my weight. Also I can't get the pinch in the optimum position from the sitter and due to the postioning of my body I twist my left hand off the pinch as I go up so it is in an increasingly poor orientation to use the hold. Anyway all of that combined with the glassiness of these two holds meant that after a quick warm-up, work the moves and then a couple of goes I was feeling less than optimistic. So I decided to throw a stick for the dog for fifteen minutes, get a good rest and then throw everything at it in one last hurrah. So fifteen minutes later, boots are clean, hands are chalked, holds are brushed, mats are positioned, dog is watching I pull on do the first few moves then slip of an easy move, aaaaargh....
I resisted the temptation to leap back on and instead have another few minutes scootling about. Then brush holds, hit rock with towel, clean boots, chalk hands, a couple of deep breaths and away we go. The start felt easy and I got the left hand starting hold of Vitruvian. Now comes a sequence of several moves to get the right hand starting hold. Each one seems to make my grip on the left hand pinch slightly worse but I get to the position, position the left foot on the edge, put in the right toe-hook and it feels just perfect. By now the left hand feels pretty poor and ther's no way to re-position, and I wouldn't have the reserves even if there was so I just throw the right hand for the big hold, catch it, the left foot comes of and I'm desperately bearing down with my left hand on this glassy pinch trying to fight the barn-door. But my left hand is at completely the wrong angle and it feels like it won't stick but I just try a hold the body position, keep the toe hooked, keep tension and then the pull of the barn-door is controlled, a quick repositioning of my feet and then slap my left hand up for a good hold. Hit the hold and start feeling confident now, just a couple of moves left now. But the next move, up to the top with the left, feels a loooooong way. Adjust feet and just throw for it, it's all a bit wild and graceless but I'm wasted now so it's just an all out fight. Hit the hold, sort feet, match and then top out like a beached whale - nice.
Obviously the above all happened in a handfull of seconds, rather than the several minutes it sounds like.
But 8a ticked by the end of the year (just). Which was the first aim, now it's serious consolidation time, hit the board and it's game on for Font. Time to get the tick-list refined.
The final thing I would say is that generally when I get to the top of a problem I tend to think it was easier than I thought it would be, not this. It felt like the living end. And that's great.

I have also constructed a UK ticklist of 10 problems for this year. I'll not reproduce here because doubtless everyone who reads this (if anybody does) will have seen the list elsewhere. I think the list is partly made up of realistic achieveable goals, and partly hopelessly optimistic. But time will tell :o)

Oh and just to take the wind out of my sails, I went to Stanage on the 30th to try Jerry's traverse which was on my 2008 ticklist and got completely shut-down in a total and quite depressing way. Although I was very sore and tired after Iron Man the day before and I think conditions weren't great (an old excuse but a good 'un) as the Plantation was shrouded in mist and the slopers were feeling quite glassy to me. Oh well next year, or should that be this year now?

Sorry for writing so much about so little in such excrutiating detail.

Happy New Year.