Finally, after two cancellations – one due to not enough attendees and one due to COVID 19 lockdown – I did the BMC Fundamentals of Climbing 3 workshop .
BMC Fundamentals of Climbing 3
On the 7 June I travelled to Kendal to attend a BMC FUNdamentals of Climbing 3 Workshop at Kendal Climbing Wall with Ian Andrew Dunn on the 8 June. The usual start of introducing ourselves was a bit different as on the introduction list there was two points of coaching – one in clients and one in previous coaching experience. On the point on previous coaching experience I said I didn’t have much apart from this and that and on the clients one I said hopefully GB team climbers one day. Unlike the other BMC workshops I attended, the group only consisted of three attendees (excluding Ian) – Adam who I know from Facebook, another person and myself. After the introductions Ian told us he renamed the workshop ‘developing techniques’ and told us how the day would pan out. He then asked us what makes a difficult technique difficult and used the rockover as an example, I said high footholds and flexibility. We then looked at tracking a climber on an indoor sport climb where we observed her centre of gravity, centre of mass and technique. Our next topic was the difference between Base of Support (BoS) – which we covered in BMC Fundamentals of Climbing 2 and Points of Suspension (PoS), to demonstrate this Ian showed us a video of Canadian climber Sean McColl climbing at very hard bridging, smearing and palming problem at CWIF (Climbing Works International Festival). After all the discussion was done the group headed to the Marmot Loft where after a warm up session we climbed easy problems – myself, due to my fall at WestWays earlier in the year – I climbed as high as I wanted to, Ian got us climbing upside down on problems where a small roof was a start. When it came to the roofs I forgot to engage my core so I didn’t get far. After roofs we moved onto the one of the hardest circuits – the murples – where with Ian’s encouragement I tried one with weird sloping holds, here I forgot to read the sequence and missed the foothold on the adjacent wall, so I tried again using bridging and the adjacent hold but at the end I didn’t complete the problem, before we headed for lunch the last problem we looked at was a dynamic double gaston problem where you had run up get your foot on that foothold then commit to that double gaston, I myself had a go but tried it statically and managed the double gaston.
After a 45 minute lunch, where before Ian advised me that a take away pizza was not a lunch for a well honed athlete , the group reconvened in the La Sportiva room. Our first point of discussion was advances in climbing including the use of kneepad for kneebars that Adam Ondra is known for – one thing we discussed here was whether a kneebar rest downgrades a route, to demonstrate this we watched The Foundry Climbing instructor Eder Lomba climb Steve McClure’s Rainman (F9b) – the hardest sport climbing route at Malham and possibly in the country. Ian told us that Eder managed to hold the knee bar above Raindogs (F8a) – a classic power endurance route at Malham – because Eder had been doing squats and other leg work but others like GB climbing team member Jim Pope who is super strong couldn’t hold the kneebar rest for long. The next video Ian showed us was a clip from La Dura Dura video where good friends Adam Ondra and Chris Sharma try to climb what was then the hardest sport route in the world called La Dura Dura (F9b+), here we compared the climbing styles of the two athletes and found out why Ondra shouts when he climbs – he breathes! We then discussed the various forms of dynamic movement – slaps, udges, dynos, paddling – and the use of momentum in dynamic movement. To demonstrate the use of momentum Ian showed us a video of the German Climbing Team training using momentum. We then headed to the training room – where the infamous Neil Gresham Malham Board is – to practice dynamic climbing and using momentum. To warm up, we did jumps, first using no momentum – nobody got far – then we added momentum using our arms, I, myself made it half way across the matt but others made it further. Our next activity was using momentum on campusing holds, myself I was a bit scared to let go of over the holds to give it a go. We next visited the very steep circuit board where each of us practiced udges -a short yet accurate dynamic movement – I, myself couldn’t do, others did but I was told I could pull the holds well. After all this we headed back to the Marmot Loft where we learnt and practiced slaps, I found out that I was quite good at slapping technique. The last exercise that we learnt was the dyno, I didn’t attempt a dyno but I did a great big slap instead to finish our activities Ian and the other two group members practiced momentum coordination dynos. To end the day we headed back to the La Sportiva room for a debriefing on what we learned and what each if would d next.
Note: During our time in the workshop we also discussed the life of climbing equipment and when equipment should be retired and replaced. The reason this topic came up was that I was told that ropes have a ten years lifespan and after that they cannot be used as ropes as around ten years ago I bought two ropes and I didn’t know what to do with them. I took one with me to Kendal so I could give it to Dirtbags Climbing – a recycling organisation based in Kendal, but on the way back from Giggleswick South Ian Dunn told me different. As my rope had never been taken out of its packaging, had never been used was kept under my bed in the dark, I decided to keep it – and the other one offcourse.
Una revisión de las instrucciones de GriGri (2019) de Ian Dunn
After the workshop Ian and myself headed to the training room where Ian taught me how to use a GriGri 2019 to pay out slack for lead climbing. I found his instructions to be clear, concise and very easy to understand. Ian is as good instructor as he is a coach. Even though, I kept getting the hand positions wrong, Ian put persevered and eventually I payed out slack using the GriGri 2019. During this time, Ian said something to me that was to do with the Neil Gresham Malham circuit board that was on the training room, where the hardest circuit is F8c training: ‘three rounds of pink circuit with red footholds is Sabotage, no way’. Sabotage is Neil Gresham’s hardest route at Malham graded F8c+. I thought to myself what is Ian talking about. Through messaging Ian on Facebook messenger, I found out what it is all about. To be continued.
Una revisión de circuit boards en Training Room.
First I would like say, I didn’t use the circuit boards much and definitely not in the proper way so this review will be very short. Since last time I was in the training room, two years ago, there have been changes to both circuit boards. Neil Gresham has done a great job painting the wooden holds, for Ian and myself, painting that holds made it circuits easier to read and use. The other change is that, instead of each circuit bring given a route e.g. Yosemite Wall – a three star classic F7a+ at Malham Cove – each circuit was given a sport grade for example, on the Malham board, one round of pink circuit with red foot holds is F7a+ but if done three times it is F8c, yes F8c – the grade of Cry Freedom and Bat Route! In my opinion out of the circuit boards I have seen and tried to train on (HarroWall, VauxWall East, CroyWall and The Foundry) I think the Neil Gresham Malham board and the other Kendal Wall one are some best if not the best advanced training tools in the UK.
I would like to thank Kendal Climbing Wall for hosting the workshop and having us again. I would like to say a great big thank you to Ian Andrew Dunn for running such a great workshop, helping me on the approach to Giggleswick South the early evening before the workshop and teaching me how to pay out slack using a GriGri . I would like to thank The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) for providing the workshop and for running it with only three attendees. I would like to thank Katherine Schirrmacher and Lattice Training co- founder Tom Randall of Wideboyz fame for designing this fun and educational workshop – I think it has been perfected. I would like to say a special thank toy to Neil ‘Gresh’ Gresham for making the circuit boards more user friendly – great job Gresh!
A little about the author
Savvas holds the Indoor Climbing Assistant award and is Climbing Wall Instructor (CWI) and Foundation Coach (FCA) trained. He has attended the majority of BMC Coach Education workshops and hopes to do Development Coach Training this year and is working on getting all the indoor leads he needs to attend a CWI assessment next summer. He is doing an online NSPCC course on Child Protection in Sport and Physical Activity and will attend a First Aid Course this year. In the near future Savvas hopes to do his Foundation Coach assessment and his Rock Climbing Instructor (RCI) training. In early July 2022, Savvas went back to Burbage North with Steve Clarke and climbed three routes including his first arete and two routes which still haven’t been checked by the UKC moderator – one where was the second.
SavClimbing 