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I have been absent, dear readers, not so much because I have not been on the wall this week, but because it is time for me to learn New! Exciting! Core! Competencies! at my job. Specifically, proposal writing. More specifically, for a ridiculous amount of money on a two-week zero-to-submitted deadline. I always did want to learn something about how the grant writing process worked, but this is some serious getting tossed in the deep end.
Which, combined with my lungs finally deciding (courtesy good drugs) to become civilized again, has gotten me back to climbing so that I resemble a human being when I get home. (The resemblance is arguable, and largely based on bilateral symmetry.) So, to summarize the past four sessions or so:
* Grip strength and calluses go away *fast* when I functionally miss a couple of weeks.
* 'Squirrel' still defeats me at the move before the crux. I swear I will get my foot onto that undercling once and finish the rest of the route trivially...
* Lots of new and semi-new v2s to work on. Bits of progress on some of the annoying cramped starts on v2s and v3s; I have finally remembered that I should cheat and start one-legged if the initial feet are bad.
* New 5.8 on the natural face, which is going sideways for me in the middle as soon as it goes to "just use the naturals for this stretch". Working on reading the rock better; there are decent holds and decent positions for holds, but I keep missing the intersections (or gripping improperly, or both) and misreading what is a sufficient protrusion to actually use as a foot chip. This will take practice but should pay serious dividends.
* Red v3 is becoming more reliable and cleaner as I practice it. There's a brown/yellow v3 in the same general area which is pushing me to do better on splayed-out starts like the red is *supposed* to have when you don't break it by being tall. Have not gotten very far on that one though.
* Blue/yellow long traverse is still defeating me in the corner but I'm starting to see how my weight has to hang in order to make it around okay. Given that, I can back-calculate which holds I have to be on (and my proportions are so far off of everyone else that other people's beta is pretty near useless).
* V for Vendetta/Hook Line and Sinker/whatever the hell it's going to be called this time next week is just annoying the hell out of me. Crimpy bullshit is more difficult, yes, but it's painful difficult without being fun difficult. Tempted to just start rainbow climbing up to the crux and work on that move, because I cannot stomach working on the crimps right now.
Which, combined with my lungs finally deciding (courtesy good drugs) to become civilized again, has gotten me back to climbing so that I resemble a human being when I get home. (The resemblance is arguable, and largely based on bilateral symmetry.) So, to summarize the past four sessions or so:
* Grip strength and calluses go away *fast* when I functionally miss a couple of weeks.
* 'Squirrel' still defeats me at the move before the crux. I swear I will get my foot onto that undercling once and finish the rest of the route trivially...
* Lots of new and semi-new v2s to work on. Bits of progress on some of the annoying cramped starts on v2s and v3s; I have finally remembered that I should cheat and start one-legged if the initial feet are bad.
* New 5.8 on the natural face, which is going sideways for me in the middle as soon as it goes to "just use the naturals for this stretch". Working on reading the rock better; there are decent holds and decent positions for holds, but I keep missing the intersections (or gripping improperly, or both) and misreading what is a sufficient protrusion to actually use as a foot chip. This will take practice but should pay serious dividends.
* Red v3 is becoming more reliable and cleaner as I practice it. There's a brown/yellow v3 in the same general area which is pushing me to do better on splayed-out starts like the red is *supposed* to have when you don't break it by being tall. Have not gotten very far on that one though.
* Blue/yellow long traverse is still defeating me in the corner but I'm starting to see how my weight has to hang in order to make it around okay. Given that, I can back-calculate which holds I have to be on (and my proportions are so far off of everyone else that other people's beta is pretty near useless).
* V for Vendetta/Hook Line and Sinker/whatever the hell it's going to be called this time next week is just annoying the hell out of me. Crimpy bullshit is more difficult, yes, but it's painful difficult without being fun difficult. Tempted to just start rainbow climbing up to the crux and work on that move, because I cannot stomach working on the crimps right now.
