Return to Burbage North with Steve Clarke and Anna followed by a very short session at The Foundry.

On the 6th July, I headed to Sheffield to climb in The Peak District with Steve ‘OffWidth’ Clarke and on the 7th. Before hand we decided on Burbage North as it was hot and it had easy access and escapes.

The first route I toproped and succeeded on was a an arete, yes an arete, called Overhanging Buttress Arete. The route has a technical start where the first foothold is a smear – this wasn’t made easier by the fact I was wearing downturned shoes that I use at walls – but the smear held in place. After a move after across the arete the climbing is easy – but I made the mistake of pulling too much and getting myself into lock off positions.

Steve Clarke leading the route I later toproped.

The next route I tried but I didn’t complete was Burgess Groove (M).

Anna leading Burgess Groove (M).

Two small un-named micro routes – one I did on toprope and the other I did as a second.

After my failure on Burgess Groove I did two small routes that at the time were unnamed and not in UK Climbing log books. One of them, which Steve later Grassy Corner (M), I did as a second after Steve rope soloed it and the one, which Steve named Cleft and Wall (M), I did on a toprope. Both of these routes required some pushing movements which tested my antagonist muscles training. Grassy Corner is a lovely little groove that has nice footholds and tests your bridging ability.

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Some photos of me climbing the two micro routes at Burbage North which then Steve named. Photos taken by Peter O’Donovan

A very short trip to The Foundry Climbing Wall

After a break I headed to the Foundry Climbing Wall which was a short walk from the hotel which I was staying in. After passing my ropework proficiency and warning up I headed to the tip floor bouldering area as there was nobody to lead or with. I am going to say much but I attempted problems of many grades including easy grades and  the hardest grade band. During this time I tried to use dynamic movement on steep problems as we were taught in BMC Fundas 3.

A small review of the La Sportiva TX4 approach shoe.

As I bought these during lockdown, this was the only the second time I wore them on the way to a crag and first time I wore them at a crag. On approach to a climb and escaping the climb I found the shoes to be very supportive and solid. On climbing Mod graded routes – as I did in this trip – the Vibram Mega Grip sole worked really well on the grippy rough gritstone. I found that the shoe was supportive enough even on sideward facing handholds and small-ish footholds.

A quick review of The Foundry Climbing Wall

In early mid September I returned to Sheffield to indoor lead climb with a Mini Mansell – yes that is right, all the way to Sheffield from London just to indoor lead climb – who I met in a FB group called Sheffied Climbers, at The Foundry I lead my first F4+ and lead belayed safely. The Foundry had met all the expectations I had for it. The bouldering areas have a wide variety of problems of all styles and grades but the main feature of that bouldering that is loved by many climbers is The Wave where hardcore climbers can train for routes from F7c to F8c – yes F8c. For roped climbers who don’t have a partner there are many autobelays in both The Fridge and the main roped area – I believe that they go all the way to F7a. For top-rope lovers there are many routes and the grades start from easy F3 all the way to F7a I think. For lead climbers there are many areas – including The Fridge where I did my 1st indoor lead – but the biggest area is the Five Ten Overhang where the highest grade was F8b when I was there last. Training wise, The Foundry has an old school pull up bar and dip bars and the original Jerry Moffatt campus board – I used it before I lead climbed – and near the main bouldering area there are several fingerboards and behind them there is an area with weights, mats and a foam roller.

The Foundry Climbing Wall

A review of The Black Diamond ATC for indoor lead climbing.

When I lead belayed my climbing partner at The Foundry I didn’t use my GriGri 2019 because I didn’t have enough practice on paying out slack with it but what I had used to lead belay was my Black Diamond ATC belay device. I found that light BD ATC could pay our slack smoothly and efficiently and as well as the GriGri 2019. What I liked about using the ATC was there was not much when setting up to lead belay and paying out slack.

A long TripAdvisor review of The Quays Hotel in Sheffield – I have included this because of the training facilities in the hotel.

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186364-d192701-Reviews-Best_Western_Plus_Quays_Hotel-Sheffield_South_Yorkshire_England.html

A long TripAdvisor review of Novotel Sheffield City Centre – I have included this because of that training facilities and the proximity to Sheffied Hallam University.

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186364-d191799-r869260252-Novotel_Sheffield_Centre-Sheffield_South_Yorkshire_England.html

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Photos of Novotel Sheffield City Centre – more can be found on my Facebook page.

Une petite revue de Depot Climbing Nottingham

Last week I met up with Steve again, this time in his home town of Nottingham, to train and climb at Depot Climbing Nottingham and Nottingham Climbing Centre.

In my honest opinion I think it is the best bouldering facility in Nottingham – the Nottingham Climbing Centre has a good bouldering area. It is a large single floor bouldering only wall with a vast amount of problems of different, styles, angles and grades. This wall has the majority of equipment needed to train – I couldn’t see the competition wall or gym area, they may have been out of bounce. I would like to say that like its brother in Sheffield, Depot Climbing Nottingham, has very friendly and very helpful stuff – a member checked to see if they had La Sportiva Skwarmas in size Europe 41.5 in stock.

First Friction Labs products testing – Secret Stuff Liquid Chalk with Gorilla Grip Performance Chalk.

At my last visit to Depot Climbing Sheffied I tested the two Friction Labs products – their excellent Secret Stuff Liquid Chalk and their High Performance Gorilla Grip Chunky Chalk – that I bought from the shop in Depot Nottingham. I tested them out on a competition wall problem that involved huge pinches. The Secret Stuff liquid chalk lasted the whole of the testing part of the session and the Gorilla Grip really held on those huge pinches – I worked the problem as much as I could and each time the chalk gave me the extra edge I needed.

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Yes, that is legendary Ben Moon next to me in the following photos.

A very small review of Friction Labs Gorilla Grip and Secret Stuff Liquid Chalk

Even though, this is the first time I used these two products together, they work really well as a team. On large volume pinches both products work very well. In my opinion one application of Secret Stuff is very long lasting and can work both as a base layer with another chalk and solo. It is very easy to use and after words can be easily washed off after the session is finished. I have never used Gorilla Grip chalk before, the chunkiness of the chalk made it very easy to break and apply to the hands. During my time using it I only had to apply it or it two times. In my opinion, I think Friction Labs Secret Stuff and Gorilla Grip are two of the best climbing chalks around and, yes, I do hink they are good value for money.

Thanks

I would like to thank Steve Clarke for helping on the way to Burbage North and at the crag, I would also like to say a big thank you to him for driving me around Nottingham and his hospitality in Sheffield and The Peak. I would like to thank Ania Kaminska for her help on the way to that crag and at the crag. I would like to thank the very friendly and helpful staff at both Depot Climbing Nottingham and Depot Climbing Sheffield for all their help and the staff at The Foundry Climbing Centre for letting me lead climb at their wall.

A little bit 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 is going to do Development Coach Training this January with Ian Andrew Dunn. At present he is working on getting all the indoor leads. He is doing an online NSPCC course on Child Protection in Sport and Physical Activity and will attend a First Aid Course in the new year. In the near future Savvas hopes to do his Foundation Coach assessment and his Rock Climbing Instructor (RCI) training. Last Summer Savvas was told by Ian Andrew Dunn that a certain Kendal based climber would love for him to do the route Sabotage (8c+) at Malham Cove. This April Savvas is heading to that bouldering paradise of Fontainebleau. Savvas is sponsored by Friction Labs.

 

BMC FUNdamentals of Climbing 3 Workshop at Kendal Wall, una revisión de las instrucciones de GriGri (2019) de Ian Dunn y una revisión de circuit boards en Training Room.

BMC Fundamentals of Climbing 3 – Advanced Technique

Can Neil ‘Gresh’ Gresham comp climb?

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.

F8c Sport climber versus a Team GB competition climber

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.

Ian Dunn instructing me how to use Petzl GriGri (2019) to pay out slack for lead belaying.

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.