Friday glee is with pie

[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: Jack Geldard solos round Almscliff in a relaxed manner, giving a guide to the climbing history of the crag.

Comments

[emperor]

I went to the local wall again, with some people off facebook(!), and it was good. Somehow it felt like I could remember to climb this week, whereas the last time it all felt a bit odd, and felt very out of condition. I'm still out of condition, but felt like I could actually climb stuff again :)

[rydra_wong]

W00t for climbing and new climbing partners!

Yeah, I've found that if I've been off for a while, the first time I climb again it feels like I've forgotten everything I ever knew about climbing (and I always panic a little). And then it clicks back on again.

[wpadmirer]

Nice! I hate that feeling when you first come back to climbing, and I keep having it. (sigh)

[wpadmirer]

Well, both my climbing partners will be back as of next week. So that means I should be able to climb regularly again. I've been off two weeks this time! It kills me!

[rydra_wong]

Yay climbing partners!

[rydra_wong]

I have great glee because I will be going on a climbing trip which takes me out of London during the Olympics.

[emperor]

:-)

[wpadmirer]

WHOO-HOO! Now that's perfect timing. (grin)

[emperor]

He solos E3. I have the fear now!

[rydra_wong]

I really love the presentation style. It's so different from a lot of films with free soloing -- like the various pieces on Alex Honnold where the voiceover has to remind you every few minutes that IF HE FALLS, HE WILL DIE and he's doing something so EXTREME and did we mention he could DIE at any moment?

This is just Geldard solo-ing around in a pretty relaxed manner, occasionally happening to mention that something would be a bit nicer if he had some cams in.

[fadeaccompli]

I celebrate actually getting to the gym--which has been sadly rare of late--and of sending my second V2 ever! On subsequent tries I still can't climb the first one I sent, so it's all the more pleasing to find another V2 that I can eventually crawl up.

[rydra_wong]

Second V2 woot! \o/

Sometimes repeating the same problem can be hard, because you put so much pressure on yourself to be able to (if that makes any sense).

[fadeaccompli]

Yeah, that makes sense. The first time I didn't expect to be able to do it, and it was a mad, rapid scrabble from one hold to the next. It was an odd V2, at that; lots and lots of terrible holds closely-spaced, so pretty much the only way for me to do it was to rush through each before I slipped off. And now when I try to redo it, I'm constantly falling off while trying to think of what to do.

[rydra_wong]

I HEAR YOU. Overthinking and being over-static as a result instead of using momentum is one of my big issues as a climber; my brain gets in the way.

[fadeaccompli]

One of the reasons I like top-rope stuff is that I actually can sit back and think about what I'm doing next, and then try again if I got it wrong. (Some weird tilty climbs that send me flying like Peter Pan if I let go aside. South Austin rock gym, I'm look at you.) Bouldering is frustrating sometimes in that most failures mean needing to start over entirely.