I HAVE TO SHARE OKAY

[rydra_wong]

I admit it: this was one of the primary reasons I wanted to learn how to do a full body bridge.

Some kind person has put this on YouTube:

Johnny Dawes on the Quarryman Groove (E8 7a) (from Stone Monkey, 1986)

Tragically, they've stripped off the original soundtrack and replaced it, so unless you really like Creed, I suggest muting it and possibly playing something else instead. If you wanted to be obsessively authentic, you could go for the original Zappa. Or you can find a chunk of it with the Dawes DVD commentary in here.

I've linked this before, but to give some idea of exactly how difficult it is, and how terrifyingly frictionless the slate is, here's James MacHaffie (who's currently one of the UK's top trad and sport climbers) having quite a hard time on it earlier this year.

(I'm prepared to accept that we need a "mod is a pathetic dawes fangirl" tag, btw.)

Comments

[miss_s_b]

I think I speak for us all when I say:

... bloody hell.

[rydra_wong]

Yup. 25 years later, it's still a Big Fucking Deal when someone repeats that pitch (which only a handful of people ever have), and you can see why.

[emperor]

Frickin A, that's ... implausible.

[rydra_wong]

Yeah, it's interesting to compare with Caff, who's incredibly good but does move like a vaguely plausible human being (and one who looks like he needs a stiff drink, halfway up that groove).

I'm fascinated by Dawes as a climber because he often seems to move quite differently on rock compared to everyone else.

[wpadmirer]

Damn, that guy is amazing. No wonder your fangirl him!

[rydra_wong]

Apparently his autobiography's due out around the end of this year/start of next -- should be very interesting.