....sry its from The Craft of Bouldering

on LSD and the strength of apes

“In 2009, in the wake of a mauling of a Connecticut woman by a 200lb (91kg) chimp, Alan Walker published a paper that could possibly be translated as Why in the Hell are Apes so Much Damn Stronger than Humans?”

Apes, it turns out, have less grey matter in their spinal cord than humans. Given that this grey matter contains lots of motor neurons, which connect the muscle fibers that regulate muscular locomotion, it follows that humans have more muscle control. Evidence of this increased control can be seen in our ability to perform fine motor skills, such as threading a needle, or for that matter shooting drugs with one. The increased amount of motor neurons means that, in essence, we fire fewer muscle fibres upon request than our hairy ancestors. As one journalist aptly said, using a muscle for a chimp is an all-or-nothing proposition.

Walker cites a study by John Bauman in which young, fit football players were pitted against a male chimp. The strongest male student could pull a max of 210lb (95kg) with one hand, while the chimp pulled an astonishing 847lb (384kg) with one hand, under the pressure of ‘when they felt like it’. This could translate back into cerebral inhibition and a theory—the mind doesn’t just get in the way of blocking our focus (which is needed for athletics) but fails to engage the entirety of muscle fibres. This blockage does serve a purpose, for it protects the muscular system from contracting all at once, which keeps muscle fibers from being damaged. Cerebral inhibition, wide sweeping as it is, is also spoken of in the same breath as LSD (a drug that inhibits the brain’s screening capacities), meditation (the calming of our overactive conscious system) and hypnotism (letting the unconscious speak for itself)."

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on cerebral inhibition

"Though cerebral inhibition is understudied in athletics, we all know what it means to overthink when trying to do something best left to the body. Grunt, don’t analyze, is the name of the game. Nike’s catchphrase ‘Just do it!’ could be right about something.

The analogy to bouldering is obvious—ours is a sport defined by minutely detailed beta, regulated no doubt by higher cerebral capacities. However, it also requires an absolute and reckless contraction of muscular power, which is as much in conflict with ritualized beta as the long jumper’s dilemma. As boulderers, we always need to get the beta right and at the same time explode like a cannon. The bouldering body has forever inherited this contradiction."

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on style

"One could object outright: ‘The boulderer is not in the business of practicing forms. If we ever practice a form or sequence, it is for one problem only, and then we are onto another one. We are not susceptible to style.’ It is a valid objection, but it does not address the spirit of Lee’s philosophy. What Lee is advocating is complete fluidity of the body that attempts to erase all ruts that might have developed during training. What he is saying by default is that it is natural for the body to develop ruts and comfort zones that we inhabit but that such zones are destructive for the body’s ultimate vision for itself. We curtail our ability for expression. This eventually makes its way into our training, then into training methods as a whole. Lee writes:

“When you get down to it, real combat is not fixed and is very much ‘alive’. The fancy mess (a form of paralysis) solidifies and conditions what was once fluid, and when you look at it realistically, it is nothing but a blind devotion to the systematic uselessness of practicing routines or stunts that lead nowhere.”

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on training

"Training styles, essentially patterned movement, makes dead what is alive, paralyzing our ability to adapt through instinctiveness and fluidity. Contemporary, mixed martial arts fighting has, in many ways, brought this philosophy to fruition, since, with the erasure of most traditional (boxing) rules, fighters now face a more fluid and unpredictable environment in the cage, which means they have to be skilled in a diverse range of martial art styles: Judo, Greco-Roman wrestling, boxing, Thai boxing, Aikido, etc.

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on improve

Improvisation involves moments where one thinks in advance of what one is going to do, other moments where actions seem to move faster than they can be registered in full analytical conscious- ness of them, and still other moments where one thinks the idea of what is to come at exactly the same moment that one performs that idea. Still, both the changing of the course of things and the riding of that course through its course are mindful and bodyful. Rather than suppress any functions of mind, improvisation’s bodily mindfulness summons up a kind of hyper-awareness of the relation between immediate action and overall shape, between that which is about to take place or is taking place and that which has and will take place.

Improvisation makes rigorous technical demands on the performer. It assumes an articulateness in the body through which the known and the unknown will find expression. It entails a vigilant porousness towards the unknown, a stance that can only be acquired through intensive practice … Improvisation does not, therefore, entail a silencing of the mind in order for the body to speak. Rather improvisation pivots both mind and body into a new apprehension of realities."

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on bruce lee

Bruce Lee, in one of his last interviews in 1971 on the Pierre Berton Show, speaks of the ‘natural-unnaturalness’ of movement, a phrase which sounds contradictory but isn’t. Lee is speaking of a combination of instinct and control. According to Lee, all martial art’s knowledge is knowledge of bodily force, so what he is espousing is a logic from which any bodily knowledge must come from an interior.

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on being attached

We know never to get too attached to a sequence, that we must remain unfaithful to a single sequence until we are sure making the move a particular way will work when put in combination with other moves. In this manner, they are like mini routes since, after a few hangs, you might do the crux in an inefficient way. On a send go, totally pumped, that inefficiency will kill you every time; most of the time, bouldering is the same, just condensed. Like the creation of any multi-part composition, we must be aware of the entirety of the performance, and we need to manage our energies accordingly. A boulder problem doesn’t just tell us how it wants to be climbed, it does to some extent, but we need to calibrate that sequence with our own fitness. I

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on sobriety

To boulder hard, you must exhibit absolute sobriety and cold-heartedness when it comes to not making foolish decisions. And yet, there comes the point in most boulder problems where one must detach oneself from all desires for control, self-mastery and self-preservation and let all the untapped resources of the body come forward in one instant, without conscious oversight or worry about injury. This is our creative moment.

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on movement

Something unspeakable, something barely approachable, resides inside our sport, inside all athletics for that matter. It is the unaccommodating, uncompromising fact of movement itself—an entity not entirely of the rock, nor of our bodies, but a strange amalgam of the two. Bouldering movement is what happens when a body boulders. We cannot boulder without a rock, and the stone cannot boulder without us. Movement is defined by the alchemy of these two bodies—rock and flesh— and to understand it properly we must view it from various angles.

At its best, bouldering is that subtle skill that all athletics attempts to hone, in one way or another— the beauty of controlling the body during spectacular feats of strength, courage, impossibility and fear. It is an idealism we are chasing when we are bouldering at our finest. Bouldering is an act where our failures highlight the will/body split. That tiny gap—however minuscule and undetectable—reveals to us that, first, we are strangers to our own body and, second, the journey to remedy this alienation (athletics) is a profoundly joyous experience.

I was thinking on the subject and came up with Gozilla in Index and The Line at Lover's Leap.

Which climb do you think is responsible for the most broken/sprained ankles?

So I'm going to be in Sumter, SC for about half a year for work. I looked online and the closest place was in Columbia about an hour away called Capital Climbing Cayce. Aside from that the next ones are like 3 hours away further north or by the coast. I was wondering if anyone from that area knew of anything that may be small time or niche but still quality that's not listed online or google maps.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Starting to talk about planning our first international trip as a couple and would love to go somewhere that we can climb. We live in Colorado so kinda hoping for a more tropical place to get a change of scenery, and somewhere we can do other exciting outdoor activities in addition to climbing.

Have you been anywhere like this? If so, where did you go and what did you do there?

Thanks!

Hi DMV climbers!

I’ll be visiting Rockville, MD this weekend and am hoping to get in some outdoor climbing. I'm planning to boulder at Northwest Branch and then do a top-rope session at Carderock. I’ve read that Carderock doesn’t have bolts and relies on tree anchors.

I’m much more experienced with outdoor bouldering and have very limited experience with outdoor rope climbing, especially when it comes to setting up anchors. I haven’t found much detailed info about the tree anchor setup at Carderock, so I’m wondering:

• As a newbie to anchors, is it relatively straightforward to hike up, set up a tree anchor, and then walk back down to climb?
• Are there plenty of routes with fairly easy anchor conditions? Specifically, are there big, solid trees or boulders at the top for me to build a simple anchor, rather than needing multiple trees or boulders in the system for safety?

And anything else I need to pay attention to? Thanks in advance!

It happened to me to climb in crags where I've found a couple of loose hangers. This mostly happened in limestone crags facing south. (I assume because of thermal expansion)

I'm considering to add a key to my rack to tighten them if I encounter them again. What size of key should I buy? Crags are in south Italy if it matter.

Also is there a wrong way to do it?

While not exactly rock climbing, I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for techniques and strategies for using rope in technical hikes. I recently saw a video of a pair hiking a Yosemite trail with a bit of scrambling. They had a rope tied between them but were not anchored, or rappeling or belaying. I plan on going to Yosemite with a group of friends, half of whom have some climbing experience, a few with advanced hiking / scrambling experience, and a couple just along for the ride. We plan of just hiking, but in case the class 4 makes them nervous, especially on the way down, I would like to have some extra skills to help the situation.

My naive first impression is that connecting two people on a rope just means that both will be injured in a fall instead of just one, so that's why I'm looking for more info on techniques to practice between now and then.

How do you actually learn to catch sketchy falls?

I've been climbing for years but never really belayed somebody that was really pushing their limits. Rarely I've catched proper falls and even more rarely ones that were borderline dangerous.

Today I was climbing and fell on a hard move between the first and second bolt. We end up side by side with my belayer and I hit her calfs fortunately no injuries but when my belayer asked me if she could have done something better I had to admit that I had no idea.

When I belay I pay a lot of attention in positioning myself in the best spot possible. I try to move in and out to give and take slack faster when needed and try to anticipate what the fall and swing will look like to keep my breaking hand close to the place where I want it to be if I think is better to take slack or give a soft catch. I also try to make sure the climber doesn't do stupid things like z clipping or keeping their legs behind the rope.

All this however is mostly based on feeling more than experience and I think there are certain situations that are just risky. I would say that once a climber Is close to clip the second bolt is probably the most dangerous moment where might be impossible to not hit the ground or get a very hard catch.

What can you do to mitigate such circumstances? Obviously it's not something you can practice. I guess the only thing that could help would be analizing compilation of real world falls. Both good and bad but I've mostly found huge whipper from the tope of a route or trad gear flying around. Not much about sport climbing on lower bolts.

Do you have any resource to share or advices?

I just got my first pair of climbing shoes and wanted to try them out in this area called blowing rocks perseve. However I'm not sure if getting sand on my shoes will ruin them especially if they get wet afterwards from falling on the water. Is there any way to climb these areas without ruining the shoes?

"I used to climb with a guy in college who thrashed around on V9s and v10s exclusively, and he had no business on them. He could only V6, and I never saw him do anything above it. I never understood why he apparently liked failing so much, day after day, year after year, and didn’t just climb stuff at his level and taste success now and again. 

I’d also like to be very clear - I was guilty of the same strategy, which, in part, was the reason it caught my attention.

It took me a while to realize he was afraid of knowing his real limit, because, if he found it, he’d have nowhere else to go other than to admit it, and admitting it wasn’t an option since his self-image, of someone who climbed such and such a grade, was so engrained in his being that if you took it away, the house of cards would fall. His fear of finding his limit, of course, was also a function of how others perceived him - aka FOPO, fear of other people’s opinions.

FOPO is one of the most noxious and elusive weeds in the climber’s mental garden. As a lifelong climber and gardener of the mind, I’m going to give you a bit of truth on managing FOPO and tell you that there is a silver bullet…except it’s hard to polish the silver. And it takes a while. It also may not be for everyone."

keeps going here...
https://www.strongmindclimbing.com/news-resources/fear-of-other-peoples-opinions

We came upon a waterfall area where some climbers were. There was an older gentleman who seemed to have gone their first in the day as he climbed down from a side trail. He also signaled for someone to go back down as he was coming down and then they started setting up for a new route. It was the first time I had seen people do the first leg, "leading" is it called?

I asked him about it as he was unloading his gear next to me after he came back (the others started getting ready) and he immediately avoided eye contact and answered in brief sentences. I basically was asking him if he solo climbed earlier or "free solo" whichever the right word. Then I ask him about some terminology and such. To my surprise he then goes on and starts talking to the others next to us basically ignoring me indirectly. It was strange and I just watched them start in which he later sat out. He did keep looking back at me for a bit like he wanted to answer but then he sat back against us idk. The entire trip ppl had been friendly about other activites we encountered. My cousin says climbers can be pretty introverted. Being one myself I think it was a strange encounter as he was talking normally to the others like he had a problem with me or something . Is it because I didn't use the word "leading" climber or such?

Thanks never talked to climbers before so that was a "rejection" of sorts. In those moments I am always confused yet angered.

I've picked up a harness and shoes but when it comes to gris gris, plates, belayers, ascenders and progress capture devices; I'm clueless.

I know I'm interested in top rope climbing and lead climbing but I don't know what devices would be suitable for both. I want the option to be able to climb alone (after some real hands on experience of course so that I don't die) and with people. There are already some cleaned climbing routes locally that have anchors already set.

Can anyone recommend what devices would be suitable for both top rope and lead climbing?