Climbing

The Instagram post mentioned in the 8a article was also reposted by other athletes.

2 weeks ago Alannah Yip also made an Instagram post about it which was also reposted by other athletes. Link for those that don't have Instagram

IFSC has released a statement yesterday: https://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/news/1004-ifsc-statement-athletes-health-and-the-ifsc-medical-commission

I thought I should post this to help save some people some time and frustration when trying to find some shoes.

My street shoe size is 10 1/2 wide with my left foot being roughly half a size smaller and the middle of my foot is pretty high volume. My single biggest problem is always being able to use heel hooks as there is typically this gap of about a 1/4 to 1/2 ish inch gap at the bottom of the heel. I prefer some knuckling in my toes and size for my smaller foot.

I boulder pretty much exclusively, live in Colorado.

With that out of the way my new current daily driver is the Tenaya Indalo (8.5) the Tenaya Iati (8.5) was a very close second. The indalo is slightly wider overall. Other shoes I have tried that have felt like they would work were the Ocun Ozone HV (10) and Ocun Bullet (10). The Scarpa Instinct VSR (9.5) also felt very good but was sized half a size too small I think as I couldn't bend my foot at all.

I tried multiple different shoes and vendors recently and found most shoes too narrow in the midsole area to downsize enough. This includes Mad Rock, Red Chili, La Sportiva.

I thought it was a great final.

I spent a couple of weeks bouldering in Fontainebleau and in the south of Switzerland. This was my favorite problem from the trip. I'm not a great slab climber so it took me a while to figure this out and I had a lot of fun trying. If you ask me, a rock won't get more beautiful than this.

The Grand Traverse of the Remarkables in New Zealand

Queenstown, New Zealand

0:31 Footwork
3:17 Take bad holds slowly
3:46 Use momentum
4:20 Flexibility - for bringing hips closer to wall, better use of legs
4:40 Use full-crimps

Saw Stasa Gejo’s IG post. It’s a long post. At first she’s just lamenting her poor performance and it’s partially due to schedule. Back to back comps can’t feel great. But later on she also says she felt uncomfortable and how unwelcoming the venue is.

In the comments it seems Natalia Grossman and Oceana Mackenzie (among others) agree, although not sure on which points. I don’t know what to say about the venue issue, but it’s unfortunate that the competitors seem to not get what they need.

I do think it’s strange how packed the schedule is right now. And I’m a somewhat new fan to comp climbing so I don’t know why that is. Is it for Olympics qualy or the world champs? Or just something else? There’s a comment saying “politics always wins” so I’m not sure if there are other issues IFSC is trying to push with these comps.

I've recently picked up climbing as a hobby (3 weeks ago) and I'm struggling to do the majority of the V3s that I attempt. I'm able to do V1s and V2s pretty easily, but there are specific techniques or tricks in V3s that I guess I haven't picked up yet (e.g. crimping, heel hooks, dynos).

Do you folks have any suggestions or routines on how to improve and progress? How was your first experience with climbing?

Edit: Thanks a ton for the advice! It seems I've been spoiled by my progression from v0-v2, so I was expecting v3 to take a similar amount of time. It seems that I'll need to think a lot more about these problems!

I started bouldering late last year and have plateaued at around a V4 level. I feel like my biggest weakness by far is my finger strength, so I’m thinking of starting hangboarding to work on that.

I’m not sure where to start though, I feel like I already tax my fingers when climbing so I don’t want to go overboard and injure myself.

Got lead certified recently, but I pretty much drop a grade when climbing lead - I'm not as confident and I overgrip.

I've done lead falls, I know how to do 'em well, and yet... as someone who's done top rope for many years, it's scary not feeling the tension (however small) of a rope pulling your harness up.