rydra_wong: Angelica Lind stretches for a hold during a bouldering competition (climbing -- reach)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2019-03-28 07:13 pm
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Petition to keep paraclimbing with the World Championships

In a spectacularly shitty decision, it's been proposed that the paraclimbing events be split off from the other IFSC World Championship competitions in Japan in 2019, and either held at a different time in France or cancelled altogether.

Rock and Ice: Keep Paraclimbing in the World Championships!

Maureen Beck, star of Stumped, is not putting up with this shit:

https://www.change.org/p/international-federation-of-sport-climbing-keep-paraclimbing-in-tokyo-worlds-belong-together
rydra_wong: Angelica Lind stretches for a hold during a bouldering competition (climbing -- reach)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2019-03-15 08:48 am
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Adaptive climbing linkspam

Because of reasons, I made a post compiling assorted videos and podcasts of various badass adaptive/para climbers:

Adaptive climbing linkspam

If you've got more recs to add, please leave them in comments over there!
rydra_wong: Lisa Rands' chalky hands on the sloper on the route Gaia (climbing -- hands)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2018-08-31 08:53 am
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Friday glee also finds walking down the street difficult

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: instead of a video, this lovely article on the legendary Paul Pritchard's first new route in 21 years.
rydra_wong: Angelica Lind stretches for a hold during a bouldering competition (climbing -- reach)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2016-01-15 08:58 am
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Friday glee is very determined

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: this lovely short film about the one and only Fran Brown.
rydra_wong: stick figure on an indoor climbing wall -- base image taken from the webcomic xkcd (climbing -- xkcd)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2015-05-06 06:26 pm

A topic that's close to my heart

From UKC, a decent stab at a non-simplistic article about climbing and mental health:

Head Games: Mental Health and Climbing (includes discussion of eating disorders, suicide)
rydra_wong: Lisa Rands' chalky hands on the sloper on the route Gaia (climbing -- hands)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2015-01-09 08:46 am
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Friday glee knows a thing or two about invisibility

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, something a little bit different. Dave Bowes, a member of the GB Paraclimbing team and Iceclimbing team, writes about climbing with invisible/hidden disabilities after a traumatic brain injury:

UKC: Behind the Mask: Climbing and Hidden Disability

In this video, he climbs several V8s and talks about life with hidden disabilities. And here he is picking off another V8 at Craig y Longridge.
rydra_wong: Angelica Lind stretches for a hold during a bouldering competition (climbing -- reach)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2014-07-15 01:43 pm
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Because some people are just that ridiculously hardcore

Fran Brown, World Paraclimbing Champion.

(Also percussionist, circus artist, skydiver and physiotherapist-in-the-making. In her spare time, she plays wheelchair rugby, a.k.a. murderball.)

Watch this:

rydra_wong: Angelica Lind stretches for a hold during a bouldering competition (climbing -- reach)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2012-09-14 06:20 pm
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Hells to the yeah

British Para Climbing Champion Fran Brown has just become World Para Climbing Champion Fran Brown.

Here's the news report from the BMC, with footage of her in the qualifiers.

And here again is the excellent short film about her.

ARCH REPRESENT.

ETA: Here's her winning climb.
rydra_wong: A woman boulderer lunges up towards the camera for a hold. (climbing -- puccio!!!)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2012-08-31 10:54 am
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Friday glee can fly

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: British Para Climbing Champion and total badass Fran Brown.

In her spare time, she's an aerialist, and was one of the flying performers in the Paralympics opening ceremony on Wednesday.
rydra_wong: Lisa Rands' chalky hands on the sloper on the route Gaia (climbing -- hands)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2010-03-29 06:32 pm

What you stand to lose: a handful of Pritchard reviews

"Deep play" is philosopher Jeremy Bentham's term for any gamble or wager in which "the stakes are so high that ... it is irrational for anyone to engage in it at all, since the marginal utility of what you stand to win is grossly outweighed by the disutility of what you stand to lose."

It's also the title of Paul Pritchard's first book, in which he chronicled his growth from a semi-feral child throwing petrol bombs down at the climbers in the local quarry to becoming one of the brightest and boldest British climbers of the '80s and '90s generation: the "dole climbers" who scrounged gear and food while creating ever-more-daring new routes, most famously in the slate quarries near Llanberis and on the sea cliffs of Anglesey.

Pritchard's a sharp, pawky writer, and the book's fragmented and lyrical and jagged, dodging around moments of self-revelation, from his impulsive decision to throw himself down a four-storey stairwell at school to his near-fatal fall (from a route named "Games Climbers Play" -- this story has too many ironies to count) at Gogarth.

Cut for length )
rydra_wong: Lisa Rands' chalky hands on the sloper on the route Gaia (climbing -- hands)
[personal profile] rydra_wong2010-03-22 08:43 pm
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Getting a climber off-road again

Via UKclimbing.com:

Beth Monks is a former member of the British climbing team. She's 19, and in May 2009 she was in a car accident which left her tetraplegic (quadriplegic if you're an American).

Her Alpkit blog reports that she's now thinking of getting into quadriplegic rugby (a.k.a. "murderball"), not to mention trying gliding and sailing: "I also want to try handcycling, skiing and kayaking."

Some of her friends are cycling from one end of the country to the other to raise money for a Boma off-road wheelchair which can handle rough terrain, snow, etc. so she can get back into the outdoors again; you can donate there or sponsor them via their Facebook page.