Friday glee is used to being burned off by 9-year-olds

[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: Ashima Shiraishi, aged 9, continues to be more hardcore than everyone. Though you can find out more about the very formidable Brooke Rabotou (also 9) in this profile (among other things, she's the daughter of Robyn Erbesfield, which explains that slightly creepy remark about bloodlines).

Comments

[emperor]

Ah, kids! I have finally gotten used to watching them scaling the crazy overhanging routes without breaking a sweat...

[wpadmirer]

This week my partner was out of town doing a continuing ed thing for her job. So I texted a guy we've climbed with a couple of times named Cian. He's a student at the University of Florida, and I hoped maybe he'd be free to climb.

My glee is that he was! We climbed really hard for two hours. He's incredibly strong, and I love watching him figure out the puzzles of climbs I can't do - yet. (grin)

[rydra_wong]

Yay new climbing friends! It can be very enjoyable climbing with people who've got radically different physical strengths/weaknesses.

[rydra_wong]

I used an auto-belay on my own for the first time, and visited a new climbing wall! And I am continuing to rewrite my brain with the exercises from the Johnny Dawes masterclass.

[wpadmirer]

I've never used auto-belay. Was it hard to get used to?

[rydra_wong]

It's unnerving the first time you let go at the top, because you don't feel tension on the rope the way you would with a human belayer; you just have to drop and trust that it'll work.

(And also because there are all the stories about how occasionally they fail, though statistically I'm sure you're far more likely to be dropped by a human.)

That given, I seem to have adjusted fairly quickly; I fret more about whether I'm going to be able to clip in at the bottom without accidentally letting go of the carabiner, having the cable whizz up to the ceiling, and having to go and apologize to the wall staff so they get it down again. *g*

[wpadmirer]

I've wondered about it. We don't have it at our gym, but I've heard some other gyms are instituting it. The idea frightens me, so it's good to hear about it from someone who has done it.

[rydra_wong]

I was frightened by the idea and pretty positive I didn't want to do it, and then when I did the roped climbing induction course, towards the end the teacher was shuffling us round and suggested I have a go on the auto-belay, and my brain went "Sure! Wheeee!" *g* So I'm ... scared but not?

Obviously it's limited in that a given auto-belay can only really cover 4 or 5 routes, but I can see it being very useful if you don't have a partner available at a particular time, aren't feeling social, or would like to train endurance by running laps on something.

[astridv]

I went bouldering yesterday and continue to be surprised how much more intense it is. I can't count the sore muscles in my back and arms, and I only bouldered for 90 minutes. Las Sunday I went toproping, climbed 15 routes, most of them on the upper end of what I can do, and didn't feel as much as a twitch the next day.

Anyway, bouldering was fun. Sometimes I can't get really into it when I'm alone but yesterday was cool. I tried one route with a crux part at 2/3, actually got past that on my first attempt when I was still rested, got to the end and could touch the final one... and then I gave up because it was really far and I didn't dare to make the jump and smash against a wall. But the route is one of those where you can't work on a little separate problem because to get there you have to climb the entire route from the beginning. I went up that thing a dozen times more that night but didn't get past the crux again.

Well, next time!

[rydra_wong]

Yay bouldering! If nothing else, going up the 2/3 of the route that many times is a serious workout ... And I bet you'll nail it if you try it when you're fresh next session.

[astridv]

And I bet you'll nail it if you try it when you're fresh next session.

Yeah, I had a feeling next time it'll work. :)

[wpadmirer]

Very impressive.

Bouldering is different. It's much more shoulders and arms. Top-roping is mostly about legs. Your hands are used as stabilizers.

I can't boulder because it really tears up my shoulders and hands. (I have some arthritis.) It's amazing how different they are.

[astridv]

Top-roping is mostly about legs. Your hands are used as stabilizers.

That's true, it's really a different technique. Plus when I'm toproping there are occasionally spots on the route where I can take a breather, but when bouldering it's either 'on' or 'off'. It's both fun but I always recommend to newbies to start with toproping so they won't get frustrated right in the beginning.

[rydra_wong]

For me, it was the other way around -- it was great for me to start with bouldering because I didn't have to deal with other people (or equipment), I could just be shy and hide in quiet corners and bumble around doing endless traversing when I was anxious.

It's taken me three years to be brave enough to learn how to toprope. *g*

I suspect it's one of those things that's dependent on individual personality and needs.

[astridv]

Huh, that's fascinating! Makes sense.

[rydra_wong]

I think it can depend on the bouldering. A lot of boulding places (or bouldering sections in roped climbing gyms) do tend towards the overhanging, powerful stuff -- partly because it's what a lot of people want, partly because it's the safest.

But when you've got good planning and setting, or if you're outdoors, you can have bouldering which is slabby or vertical and much more about balance and technical skill.

[wpadmirer]

That's probably very true. I've never been to an outdoor bouldering site.

[rydra_wong]

On Sunday, I spent some time working on a boulder problem called The Windmill (on a little slab at Burbage South Boulders in the Peak District).

The guidebook gives the description of the problem as follows: "Ascend the slab without the use of hands or knees".

(You rapidly get to see why it's called that ... *g*)