Woody - good to go sir ;)

Hey everyone,

Prepare to get psyched - there's too much awesome. Since the holidays started, I said I would want to get a slopeymon, right? But eventually I figured I may as well invest the time making a woody, since that would mean that I could just get a bunch of holds and do some training on it, right?

So that's pretty much exactly what I did, and over the last week or so I've set up my own woody. It wasn't too difficult, in fact it was pretty much more straightforward then I thought, and it was relatively cheap too. The reason why I say relatively cheap was that, had I gotten slopeymon and just installed him, then he would've taken about 150 all up. However, junking all the things together to get the woody cost around 180/190, which wasn't that much more expensive - and I had a lot of fun in the process! So here's how the woody developed.

There's the first photo of the woody after I had finished drilling all holes into the back. I used a 7/16 drill piece so that the T-nuts would fit in, and as you can see there are 18 holes in the training board. I spaced them 8 inches from each other, in that grid pattern (spaced about 8 inches from each other) - and it really doesn't take long to set all of that up. A couple of things to note - there are plenty of websites out there that are going to tell you exactly how to set up the woody, and they're all great - but don't worry about the T-nuts looking slightly unsteady on the back; when you're screwing them in, then they'll tighten right up - I haven't had any trouble with any of the T-nuts (yet), and we've abused the training board fairly well over the last few days.

The overall cost for the woody wasn't too bad; and it's one that'll stay relatively constant, especially if you're going to keep reusing it/make another woody after a while. We've got a mind to transform the specific area into an entire wall, which should be pretty cool and if we do there'll be a lot more info coming on that in the future. 

• T-nuts; 18 T-nuts; Had to get them in packs of 4; So about $20 for 5 packs
• Socket-bolts; have to get them from specialised carpentry stores; we got 10 (5x2inch, 5x3inch) and the Hex-Key for $30.
• Had the sheet of wood at home
• Screws, Power tools, etc. all at home.

Setting it up really isn't that difficult, you just have to make sure that it'll support your weight which we were pretty tentative about sorting out over the first few runs. Just pre-drill the holes into the wood and punch in the screws with the drill. We added the metal plates just to add some extra stability. 

We've used it now for a few weeks and it does great; just make sure you have a crash pad underneath you, and a spotter if you've got any sharp bits of brick sticking out. I'll add a training video later - I'm having some pretty awesome fun with it ;) 

Climming time!!!!

Exams are finally over!! And that means all the hours that were dedicated to uni work and procrastination now are going to be used for climming and procrastination! ^_^

Yesterday was my 1st day back after a 2 month hiatus and ZOMG everything hurts no thanks to Eugene. Today was another intense session with Mr. Len <3 and I think I am well on my way to rediscovering the joy of blisters, chalky clothing and topical lidocaine ^_~

Hopefully, it won't take too long to get back into form with a bigger emphasis on lead climbing now (outdoor gooo!!!!) and getting over our fear of falling.

<3

Birthday Present

I've decided that as an upcoming holiday gift for myself, I'm going to get myself....



A SLOPEYMON :DDDDDDDDDD

http://www.soillholds.com/slopeymon-hard

They look sick and I want to train some more on slopers, so that'll take the training kit that I have at home to the beastmaker 1000 and the slopeymon. Once this finger heals up a little bit then screw it - I'm going straight back to training. As another small piece of news, I can't be bothered waiting any longer so I'm going to get climbing this afternoon :D Awesome to get straight back to it and I'm super excited about the slopeymon :D

... Time off...

Taking time off sucks.

There's no other way to say it - having to wait for your body to recover is pretty bad especially when you think about climbing all the time :\ About a fortnight ago I punched a hold trying to get up; specifically, my fourth index finger knuckle on my left hand made contact with the hold, and that was pretty sore. Since the injury, I did some sloper stuff the following week but annoyingly I've now got some sort of pain in my proximal interphalangeal joint (the first joint after the knuckle) on the same finger -_-" which has made me take all of 48 hours off.

The only thing keeping me same is my fitness program and a newly bought, old-school bike which has turned out to be surprisingly good.... But here's to another couple of days off before I get back into it. I've been training pretty hard and started cracking into 4's in bouldering, which has inspired some confidence into me as well. In the near future I'm hoping to get a camera so that next time we go outdoors we can really get some nice photos/videos to ace together another climbing video, but right now I'm absolutely itching to get out. :(

GeTu river in china :D

Cannot believe how incredible the stuff in china is.... It's only quite recently that this has gone up - but look; China seems to be at the forefront of everything, and this is yet another incredible example.

--update 11/06/2012--

plus another great article on vertical life:
http://www.verticallifemag.com.au/get-to-getu-mayan-smith-gobat-and-the-petzl-roctrip/

Sloper Training

So I decided to start training with slopers since I jarred my finger the other day by punching a hold.... yes... that's a good story....

Anyway, my university has pretty neat-o bouldering walls and I quite enjoy the holds on them - they're pretty difficult problems in general and the yellows seem to be pretty tough - I have a tough time doing any of them (having said that I'm not super great anyway). 

So since it hurt a little bit to crimp, I decided that my project when I'm bouldering at uni would be this sloper puzzle I decided to just junk together myself. The green climb (all slopers) only has four or five moves, but it's too difficult; and the red is out of my reach, so I thought if I combined a few of the moves on these climbs it'd be pretty awesome. Videos to come soon.

Anyway - two photos; the original photo of the bouldering wall, and another one which I drew my route out :D I should've probably added that I'm trying to use only the footholds of that colour but it's outright impossible, and the videos will show that I'm already pretty pumped by the time I got round to it. Also a small note, the wall's inclined by about 10 degrees so it's not the easiest thing in the world.

Loads of fun nonetheless.

Original Photo of the Bouldering Wall

Route added on this one; start L on green, R on the orange next to it. L goes to the yellow, both hands on yellow, push feet up and then attempt to get onto next orange, then the one above.

Yeah baby <3 hahahaha I obviously suck at them, and I hope to get better at this before they modify the wall.

Small achievements

I remember the first few times I went rock climbing, or for that matter the first few times I actually knew what I was doing, and seeing the best climbers in the gym beasting out the highest level climbs. Actually - more specifically I remember seeing them holding onto these tiny little pieces and thinking "how the hell is that even possible?!?"

Well last night, after about a year and a half of climbing, I reckon I've reached the stage where I actually think "shit that's a pretty friendly hold!!!" - which just makes me laugh!!! What seemed to be so horrible before now seems like an essential part of the puzzle, and more often than not, it is!

It's just really pleasing to get to this stage; yet I can't help but feel the same way for a lot of other pieces in general. Slopers confuse the crap out of me (my friend can happily use the 35 degree Slopers on the beast maker and do frenchies on them, yet I have no idea how he does it) - I'm struggling with the 25 degree ones, and there's still a lot of footwork that confuses me. Nonetheless it's good to be where I'm at and climbing is going nowhere but up on my life enthusiastic list :)