Friday glee is not entirely convinced by that mat arrangement

[rydra_wong]

The Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.

It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.

N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.

To enhance this week's glee: Ryan Pasquill onsights James Pearson's route "Power of the Darkside" as a highball boulder problem, then gets his finger stuck in the roof. Featuring the mat stylings of Dan Varian.

Comments

[tea]

Whoooaa. I am a physicist and when you pointed out the straight-arms thing, the force-body diagram popped into my head and said "oh, duh". It'd especially help with keeping feet on small holds by pushing into the wall rather than only down! Gorgeous.

Thank you for the comm links! I'm definitely adding them.

[rydra_wong]

Oh, if you geek out on force vectors, you will love this stuff so hard. It's one reason why I always get so excited about bridging problems: get the geometry right, and you can make holds where there are no holds!

I really rec a book called The Self-Coached Climber, which is a fantastic guide to the various strategies of climbing technique and why and how particular moves work (with diagrams!).

It may not be coincidental that John Gill, the guy who was instrumental in establishing bouldering as a sport in its own right, is a maths professor.

[emperor]

I love corner climbs! I can get my feet implausibly high, and push straight against the two walls, and then let go with both hands! It makes me feel like a Real Climber :-)

[rydra_wong]

Oh yes, no-hands rests definitely make me feel like I r SRS CLIMBER. *g*

Indoors, I keep wanting to bribe someone to bring me an espresso on a problem where I can get a no-hands rest ...