Coachage
It seems a long time since I've written on the blog. This has been for several reasons, the main one being that we have moved house at the end of last week and as expected it has taken longer than I thought to get things straight.
Moving house is difficult anyway, with a 4 month old it's virtually impossible...
So I haven't been out climbing, but hopefully things in a couple of weeks will start to calm down and a version of normality can resume, along with some crushing.
Well, that's the plan anyway.
I had the opportunity recently to get some professional coaching from the man Jennings, which I took advantage of.
I wasn't sure what to expect when he turned up with 'legend' written on the front of his tee-shirt, but in the event, it was well worth it.
My target this year is 7a (yeah, ok, for the third year running) and in spite of our bundle of joy I'm hoping I can actually get out enough to get it done.
The coaching consisted of a 2 hour session with a break in the middle followed by feedback at the end and a write up afterwards with action plan on how to acheive the impossible dream.
Nik identified some of the principle weaknesses in my climbing, things I wasn't really aware that needed work - body position, making use of good footwork (!!), strategies for how I can modify the way I climb, but for me the most surprising thing I took away was how my approach really can affect whether I am successful on a redpoint, and how problem selection in itself can help increase the chance of success or not.
I just found coaching to be so much more effective in pinpointing the specifics to how I can improve my climbing better than any book or training manual.
I've recently read an article in Climber that pretty much goes through the same process, and it struck me why more people don't take up this sort of thing. I guess you can get to a point where you're doing the same thing over and over. or reach thta plateau. Hopefully this will help me improve this year, although with thousands of boxes at home ready to be sorted through I doubt this will happen any time soon.. doh!
On a separate note the garage has internal dimensions of 8 foot 6 in height which I calculate gives me approx. 9 feet 10 inches ish of possible climbing area with a 30 degree overhang. Increase the steepness and increase the area, but increase the difficulty.... hmmm food for thought.
At least it's an incentive to sort the bloody boxes out!
Moving house is difficult anyway, with a 4 month old it's virtually impossible...
So I haven't been out climbing, but hopefully things in a couple of weeks will start to calm down and a version of normality can resume, along with some crushing.
Well, that's the plan anyway.
I had the opportunity recently to get some professional coaching from the man Jennings, which I took advantage of.
I wasn't sure what to expect when he turned up with 'legend' written on the front of his tee-shirt, but in the event, it was well worth it.
My target this year is 7a (yeah, ok, for the third year running) and in spite of our bundle of joy I'm hoping I can actually get out enough to get it done.
The coaching consisted of a 2 hour session with a break in the middle followed by feedback at the end and a write up afterwards with action plan on how to acheive the impossible dream.
Nik identified some of the principle weaknesses in my climbing, things I wasn't really aware that needed work - body position, making use of good footwork (!!), strategies for how I can modify the way I climb, but for me the most surprising thing I took away was how my approach really can affect whether I am successful on a redpoint, and how problem selection in itself can help increase the chance of success or not.
I just found coaching to be so much more effective in pinpointing the specifics to how I can improve my climbing better than any book or training manual.
I've recently read an article in Climber that pretty much goes through the same process, and it struck me why more people don't take up this sort of thing. I guess you can get to a point where you're doing the same thing over and over. or reach thta plateau. Hopefully this will help me improve this year, although with thousands of boxes at home ready to be sorted through I doubt this will happen any time soon.. doh!
On a separate note the garage has internal dimensions of 8 foot 6 in height which I calculate gives me approx. 9 feet 10 inches ish of possible climbing area with a 30 degree overhang. Increase the steepness and increase the area, but increase the difficulty.... hmmm food for thought.
At least it's an incentive to sort the bloody boxes out!
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