Showing someone the ropes part 2
Sep. 7th, 2017 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylFun evening of climbing with A, who, even after two sessions, is starting to show signs of being good. We did the usual round of easy slabs, with me attempting to pass on a few bits of coaching advice as imparted to me by Jedi Master Gav — he always says, when climbing a slab, that it's all on your feet and you should pretend that you've got little T-Rex arms keep that principle in mind!
We then switched to auto-belays, at least partly to give A a break — when you're climbing with someone who can't belay, it's important to set a careful pace so that they don't get completely pumped after just a handful of routes because they're doing all the work and they probably don't have the huge stamina reserves of a regular route climber. But, with the centre not being all that busy, we were able to pick routes on lines next to one another, so we were able go up in tandem and I was able to talk her through the beta on some of the harder stuff.
After an hour and more of intermittent routes and watching other people climb — Gav and Hayley were storming some of the new lead routes — we switched to bouldering and I finally managed to send something I'd failed to do during our last session. The problem was graded 6a, so I'd normally expect to be able to flash it, but instead it took three or four attempts and it was only because I was fresh enough to really crank on the crux move that I was able to nail it.
A sent a couple of things she hadn't managed to do during our last session and, on an easy boulder with a long last move, she came off because she was front-on and even she couldn't lank her way through the move. I then hopped on and, from one the lower foot holds, casually dropped a knee — I'd mentioned the idea of tucking a shoulder to improve reach a couple of times but A, being long of limb, couldn't really see the point — and easily staticked the finish jug, at which point, I think she became convinced of the benefits of body position!
We finished off with stretches and warm-downs in the training room. A did her comedy physio exercises — "When I do them at home, the dogs look at me like I'm crazy..." — and I hopped on the bar and did some leg raises to try and improve my core fitness, although I now seem to have reached the point where it's the dead hang and my back muscles that bear the brunt of the effort!
We then switched to auto-belays, at least partly to give A a break — when you're climbing with someone who can't belay, it's important to set a careful pace so that they don't get completely pumped after just a handful of routes because they're doing all the work and they probably don't have the huge stamina reserves of a regular route climber. But, with the centre not being all that busy, we were able to pick routes on lines next to one another, so we were able go up in tandem and I was able to talk her through the beta on some of the harder stuff.
After an hour and more of intermittent routes and watching other people climb — Gav and Hayley were storming some of the new lead routes — we switched to bouldering and I finally managed to send something I'd failed to do during our last session. The problem was graded 6a, so I'd normally expect to be able to flash it, but instead it took three or four attempts and it was only because I was fresh enough to really crank on the crux move that I was able to nail it.
A sent a couple of things she hadn't managed to do during our last session and, on an easy boulder with a long last move, she came off because she was front-on and even she couldn't lank her way through the move. I then hopped on and, from one the lower foot holds, casually dropped a knee — I'd mentioned the idea of tucking a shoulder to improve reach a couple of times but A, being long of limb, couldn't really see the point — and easily staticked the finish jug, at which point, I think she became convinced of the benefits of body position!
We finished off with stretches and warm-downs in the training room. A did her comedy physio exercises — "When I do them at home, the dogs look at me like I'm crazy..." — and I hopped on the bar and did some leg raises to try and improve my core fitness, although I now seem to have reached the point where it's the dead hang and my back muscles that bear the brunt of the effort!
