I have just returned from four days at the World Cup inspired and psyched out of my tiny mind. Filled with ideas for getting young people and normal people and aspirant hard climbers to aspire to dizzy heights and enjoy the bliss of pulling harder than you ever thought you could.
Near five hundred youth from around the world arrived at EICA in Edinburgh to climb on the world stage. Now in Britain comp climbers get a lot of grief sometimes, frequently attacked with cynical swipes of 'What have they ever done outside' or 'I bet he couldn't do that at Malham' or some equally trite quip. I deplore this, I really do, because these people are not taking into account that someone has taken years and months to prepare to to express all of their training and hard work in a six minute window. No second chances, one shot. Competition climbing is a form of expression in the diverse church of climbing and to be overly critical based on deciding it is lesser because it is not outside is to misunderstand the whole art of competition climbing. What I can say is that in that environment, the British Team that I work with were brilliant, four made the semi finals in field where 8a onsight is the norm. Our team supported one another, climbed their hearts out in front of the world and were a slick professional unit.
It reinforced that climbing is a community of people with a shared passion. People prepared to cheer on their competitors, to mingle freely with people from other nations and to be inspired by the grace and style with which the person who just beat you did their route. If the United Nations could conduct themselves like the comp climbers I was privileged to spend four days with, our world would be a hell of lot better.
As for what have they done outside? The best onsight grade of any of the climbers I think was 8b+ and there were a fair few who had redpointed 9a outside, I lost count of the people who had redpointed 8c. This is girls and boys and across all the age ranges. Now is the bit where somebody says, 'Aye but that is long European fitness routes, all steep thuggery blah blah blah' and then moves on to cite some obscure Limestone route in Peak/Yorkshire with loads of invisible holds etc that nobody could ever onsight.
Anyway, enough rant from me - check out the brief review on the IFSC website:
">http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/?page_name=home&category_id=28&item=356
Monday 13 September 2010
Wednesday 1 September 2010
Ninja monkeys (British Youth Climbers)
Psyched for next week already, nothing to do with the bouldering wall, but it is the British round of the world youth series in EICA (Ratho to most of us). As a British Junior Team coach, you go to these events and get totally inspired by the performances you see and I thought I might just recommend to everyone that you go have a look.
This is a pictorial representation of the juniors - ninja monkeys - some of them may not appreciate this, but basically it is a gesture of respect from me but in comedy form!!
The reason I mention it is that I've been doing a lot of work on the coaching stuff for the wall and it gets you thinking about how you want to help people improve. One thing that occurred to me at the last British team event where we had a superb friendly comp against the French, was that I watching 12 year old boys and girls onsight 7c. This gets you thinking about the average. X years ago 7c didnt exist etc, Sebastian Helenke ((German Junior) has onsighted/flashed every 8a he has tried since his 14 birthday)).
So I got to thinking do we limit ourselves by measuring ourselves against those around us? The weekend warriors of Catalunya in Northern Spain all send 8's at the weekend because it is normal. In Britain on routes, we seem to plateau at 6a+/6b. Many of our female climbers rarely progress past V5 despite women like Shauna Coxley and Suzan Dudink demonstrating that girls can send seriously hard problems.
Would we all climb better if we did what the wonderful Malcom Smith was alleged to have done, locking himself away, whipping himself into a state of paranoia about how everyone is Sheffield was going to kick his ass something rotten. He emerged as some kind of mutant from his bedroom to obliterate! How much of this was due to his punishing schedule/genetics/determination and finally nobody to compare himself to, to then say, it's ok I can ease off now, I have reached the limit.
My personal belief is that everyone is able to climb V5 or 7a sport from climbing twice a week if they think about what they do when they climb and apply a little bit of training theory. I would argue that they should be the average. Cast your minds forward, if the 12 year olds of now are onsighting 7c, what will they be doing in ten year when they are peaking physically and with all that experience behind them? When (as it will become) a regular news event for the pro's to be onsighting 9a and we as normal people all expect to climb 8a most trips out - what will have changed? Only our expectations I would contend. Can we use this knowledge of knowing that even if we are quite good now, in ten years our abilities would make us punters to change how we climb today to liberate us from comparison and begin a journey of exploration of our own capacities?
If you think you can or you cannot climb 'V10' I would argue that you are probably right!
Be inspired, go see the youth climb at EICA (Sept 8-12th).
This is a pictorial representation of the juniors - ninja monkeys - some of them may not appreciate this, but basically it is a gesture of respect from me but in comedy form!!
The reason I mention it is that I've been doing a lot of work on the coaching stuff for the wall and it gets you thinking about how you want to help people improve. One thing that occurred to me at the last British team event where we had a superb friendly comp against the French, was that I watching 12 year old boys and girls onsight 7c. This gets you thinking about the average. X years ago 7c didnt exist etc, Sebastian Helenke ((German Junior) has onsighted/flashed every 8a he has tried since his 14 birthday)).
So I got to thinking do we limit ourselves by measuring ourselves against those around us? The weekend warriors of Catalunya in Northern Spain all send 8's at the weekend because it is normal. In Britain on routes, we seem to plateau at 6a+/6b. Many of our female climbers rarely progress past V5 despite women like Shauna Coxley and Suzan Dudink demonstrating that girls can send seriously hard problems.
Would we all climb better if we did what the wonderful Malcom Smith was alleged to have done, locking himself away, whipping himself into a state of paranoia about how everyone is Sheffield was going to kick his ass something rotten. He emerged as some kind of mutant from his bedroom to obliterate! How much of this was due to his punishing schedule/genetics/determination and finally nobody to compare himself to, to then say, it's ok I can ease off now, I have reached the limit.
My personal belief is that everyone is able to climb V5 or 7a sport from climbing twice a week if they think about what they do when they climb and apply a little bit of training theory. I would argue that they should be the average. Cast your minds forward, if the 12 year olds of now are onsighting 7c, what will they be doing in ten year when they are peaking physically and with all that experience behind them? When (as it will become) a regular news event for the pro's to be onsighting 9a and we as normal people all expect to climb 8a most trips out - what will have changed? Only our expectations I would contend. Can we use this knowledge of knowing that even if we are quite good now, in ten years our abilities would make us punters to change how we climb today to liberate us from comparison and begin a journey of exploration of our own capacities?
If you think you can or you cannot climb 'V10' I would argue that you are probably right!
Be inspired, go see the youth climb at EICA (Sept 8-12th).
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