Why Take Chances?

Especially if your D.A. (Domestic Associate) doesn’t want you to take chances. That’s a hot topic between this couple about an upcoming trip.

"Mountain climbing? Seriously? You almost died mountain climbing."

"K., I'm not swearing off mountain climbing for the rest of my life. I'll just be more careful next time."

My eyes shot daggers in his direction.

"I'm not going mountain climbing with you," I said firmly.

"Fine. You don't have to. And I don't have to climb on this trip. But I will do it again at some point……"

"K., I could get hit by a car crossing the street. I could choke on a turkey club. I'm not going to not do something because I might get hurt. I don't want to live like that."

I sighed. "Those analogies were really a stretch, but I sort of get where you're coming from. Why don't we shelve this topic until you plan your next climbing trip?"

Well one reason to take chances it that it’s more fun than getting hit by a car. Or slipping on an icy sidewalk.

Has Anyone Seen This?

REACH- An HD Climbing Motion Picture- Trailer 1 from Rogue State Films on Vimeo.

Ouray Ice Festival

Here are the last 3 minutes of the female winner of the competition. Story here.

Helmet Review

From Supertopo.com comes this video review of helmets. Details here.

Ice Climbing Competition Korea

Video from the just-ended UIAA ice climbing competition in Korea. Looks like all the ice was farmed. The calendar of all of this year’s UIAA ice competition is here.

New Climbing Gym

I heard today that VE is opening a new gym in late summer/early Fall at 26th & Nicollet in Mpls. It will have 60’ climbing walls and more square footage than their current one in St Paul. They will use a cherry picker to set routes. How neat is that?

Ice Climbing Tips

Lots of tips from our favorite ice climber Will Gadd. He suggests using the same rock climbing skills when ice climbing. Interesting point, because most people when given an ice tool just want to bash it into the ice above them and then hang on it to pull themselves up. But he explains:

“Push on the ice with both your hand on your lower tool and by taking your hand off the tool and pushing on the ice to balance, just like rock. I do this a lot, it's intuitive now, but as I teach and coach I remember it's not obvious until it's learned. The long head of my triceps always gets sore from pushing when climbing ice, along with the lats... If you think about rock climbing you'll probably remember all the pushing you do to move up, not just the pulling. Ice is the same, if one hand is pulling the other is pushing on the lower tool or ice.”

Biggest Boulder Field In The World

Hampi, India has the biggest boulder field in the world according to this video. Liv Sansoz (vive la France) shows how it’s done. There’s an especially striking boulder called “90° Edge” which has a perfect right angle vertical edge.

Sweetspot - Hampi INDIA from libellule on Vimeo.

Climbing In India

Lots of monkeys, laundry and rock climbing in this new video. Gotta get to India – a billion people can’t be wrong about what a great place it is to live.

Ganesh [8b+] par Gérôme Pouvreau from Petzl-sport on Vimeo.

Auto-Belays & Gyms

A detailed article on why the indoor climbing industry had to get rid of their auto-belay devices last year – still used in industry as fall protectors -  and replace them with other types of auto-belays.

 

What To Wear For 28 Days In Antarctica

With the exception of the down pants, this is pretty much winter wear for Minnesotans. More on their trip here.

Why Don’t People Go To The Gym

I guess it takes a PhD to analyze why some folks don’t want to go to the gym. So here is that analysis. Here’s what I don’t get, I fit every reason she mentions that people don’t want to exercise. Here they are:

1. Embarrassment.

2. Fear of looking stupid .

3. Inability

4. Excessive sweating

5. Belief they will fail.

6. Memories of exercise used as punishment.

7. Being teased, or worse, when failing at a team sport when young.

8. Being labeled clumsy, slow, or uncoordinated when young.

So I will continue to go to the gym even though I have all of the above fears and excuses not to go. But I’ll bet none of you have any of the above fears. I’ll bet you all feel just like the champions you really are.

The Skill Of Resting

I talked to Anthony today at VE and he mentioned how important learning the skill of resting is, especially on harder/longer routes.

In this video of a climber doing another super hard boulder problem, the actual climbing wasn’t as interesting to me as watching how long she rests. She rests on extended arms for more than one minute and then makes a hard move.

Portia does Sunshine from Sam T on Vimeo.

Ageless Runner & Jumper

She’s 63 and she has won:

“71 gold medals, 19 silver and 7 bronze.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like this part:

“An adventurous sort, she has vaulted against men and even engaged them in the decathlon, in which only men normally compete. At one meet, she entered an alien event, the triple jump, against men after two of them took her by the arms and showed her the technique. At another, she was roped at the last second into the steeplechase, which she had never practiced, to help fill out a small field.”

Whole article here.

What Sort Of Periodization Training Plan Do You Have?

Climb Strong.defines and describes several different training plans for climbers based on the proven notion of periodization.  I like the names of these:

“Undulating Periodization”

“Conjugate Periodization “