In order to prepare my candidacy for a spot in the climbing instructor's program next year, I need to participate in at least three official competitions. I thus registered to two bouldering and one lead comps taking place on three consecutive Saturdays. Being lousy at dynos and reachy moves, I never saw myself doing bouldering comps so I just went there to have fun.
Saturday, October 31: I woke up at 4 am and could not go back to sleep. I arrived early for my 6:58 train and whenever I am very early, it is a good omen. In my head, it is the equivalent of being extra focused; unfortunately, I am almost always slightly late for things... The ride went without a glitch, I arrived at the Saint-Étienne gym around 10:20 am. The qualifying round would last from 9 am to 3 pm (6 hours for 42 problems... yummie!) so I only had 4.5 hours left. Warm up was a bit slow with long queuing for each problem. After an hour and about a dozen easy problems, I was ready to give it my all.
I moved to the roof/cave section (around 6B/C). I saw a lot --- and I mean a lot --- of people falling even on the first moves and noone sending it. The crimps and small-ish pinches never scare me so I flashed it without struggling. As soon as I topped out, I noticed a lot of people looking at me. I was told I was the first one to top it.
I flashed about 25 problems within 2 hours. Balancing, crimps, dynos, round pinches... something for every taste. There were only four problems that gave me some trouble.
The first one was tricky: a technical dyno. There was a huge cube hanging from the ceiling. Two pinches (a good one and a tiny one) to be held in compression and a round foot hold behind the angle for a toe hook. You then had to dyno to a decent flat hold. It was all about coordination. It took me 7-8 tries to understand the move and get it right. Really cool one.
The green pinches... that one really hurt. I had never seen these beautiful holds before: they looked like flat Pringles with sharp vertical, parallel ridges everywhere (see the figure below for something similar). Pinching those ridges hurt a lot. At least 7A+. I saw many people trying out and walking away after a move ot two, never to be seen again... All moves were hard but the crux was excitingly tough. After 7-8 attempts and a near success (I could not hold onto the final pinch), I decided to move on; my fingers were on fire. I went back an hour later and after another 7-8 tries, I sent it. I think only two of us in the senior category sent it.
Next to the roof, there was an adjustable overhang. And by adjustable, I mean hanging from ropes. And that's where the problem lied. For the last move, you had to dyno to a weird slop-y crimp but the moment you arrived at the hold, your body would shake the wall and you would let go of the hold. I gave it at least 15 tries but kept falling. That was the only project of the day that I tried and failed. An extra 30 minutes would have been enough.
The last project was the one that took the most attempts: around 30! The mere number of tries speaks volumes about my stamina :-) An easy first move, you got a right shoulder crimp, left heel hook, you got a big, slippery, round pinch with left hand and then you dynoed to the vertical part of a huge volume with right hand. The only (and right) way to stop the momentum was to stick the right foot onto another volume on the right. I could not stick the dyno because: a. I suck at dynos, and b. I could not hold onto that round pinch. After 10 tries, I moved to another boulder. I came back later and looked for another beta. This time, I was able to get the pinch, then match with right hand by inserting my middle finger in the hole and dyno really far, to the top of the volume, 30 cms higher than the vertical part everyone would jump to. After trying this beta a few times, my finger started hurting so I decided to go back to the original beta. After 6-7 tries and only one minute before the end of the comp'... badaboum!!!
Having sent only 32 problems out of 42, I did not think I had any chance to be in the finals. All the others competitors had sent the dynos so they must have sent more problems overall. And then the guy with whom I had been climbing said "the two ultra-hard problems you sent, there must have been very few that did" and informed me that each problem was worth 1000 points divided by the number of repetitors. Wow, that's my favourite kind of math! I still did not think I had a chance and did not even check the results. A bit later, one of the organisers came up to me saying "Are you Cha...ra...lam...pos? We have been waiting for you in isolation". What the hell?!? Apparently, I came second at the qualifiers. That was a very pleasant surprise.
Isolation before the finals... The organisers were considerate enough to screw a few holds for us to keep our fingers warm. That is how you are supposed to organise a competition and respect the competitors. Seven of us, juniors and seniors. I did not know how many in each category.
The finals were rather disappointing. The first problem was too reachy; only the tallest guy sent it. The second one was really hard and we only had 3.5 minutes so noone got past the second move. Unfortunately, I had to leave in order to catch my train before trying the third problem. It looked quite beautiful: a rather easy dyno followed by crimps :-)
To this day, they have not released the results. All in all, I appreciated the way the organisers conceived the event and had a lot of fun. People were very cool, encouraging, communicative, exchanging betas and trying to be pleasant.
Saturday, November 7. Sports climbing on the menu. Six routes for the qualifiers, one for the finals. The pace was quite fast: one route every 15-20 minutes. I was being cautious in the first two routes, trying not to get too cocky. After that, everything went smoothly. I flashed all six routes, as did another three climbers. The hardest route was around 6b+/c but given my lack of experience in overhangs (even minor ones), I thought I would be having some trouble; that was not the case.
We climbed all six routes in flash mode. That is, before the qualifiers, the route setters climbed all twelve routes (male + female) in front of us. I had never seen that. Their beta was obviously not the best for me but given the overall difficulty, I was able to manage.
After sending our last routes, we had to wait for all others to finish, then for the results, isolation ensued... From the moment we finished the qualifiers until we climbed in the finals, three hours had gone by. That was a definite weakness from an organisational point of view.
The final route was a 5% overhang around 7b according to the setter. We were given five minutes to observe. I immediately got a bit worried about the first part. Around the 10th move, we were supposed to get over a huge round volume by dynoeing and using heel hooks. I was climbing next to last. I was very calm but knew I would not top the route. Three moves before the chain, there was a right-to-left traverse where you had to dyno to a big volume. A mistake meant falling down four meters - and very, very possibly - on the huge volume of the first part.
I got through the first moves, reached the volume, tried a heel hook but the move was too reachy. I took almost 20 seconds trying out different static betas but nothing was easy enough. I finally dynoed and found out that the target hold was quite nice. So my left hand was quite high and I needed to get my right heel hook. That move was quite hard as well. Five climbers could not get their right heel hook high enough because their left foot was too low, under the volume. I used a smearing beta to get both my feet high and then got the heel hook. I did the first left-to-right traverse on slippery crimps while struggling a bit because of the overhang. After this part, I felt a bit pumped but kept going. An undercling with the left hand, I crossed to the volume with right hand and then I was supposed to do the dyno. I looked down and thought it was not worth the risk. "Hop hop hop", I screamed to the belayer and let go.
I thought I was not going to be on the podium but as soon as I touched the floor, someone told me I came first. The last climber fell about six moves earlier. I know it was only a local event but winning still felt good. The only aspect that irked me a bit was that we did not get anything for winning. A bag of chalk would suffice. Instead, we were given an award, a wooden thing that was nice and would look great on a mantle or a prize shelf but I am not into stuff like that. The results can be found here.
I moved to the roof/cave section (around 6B/C). I saw a lot --- and I mean a lot --- of people falling even on the first moves and noone sending it. The crimps and small-ish pinches never scare me so I flashed it without struggling. As soon as I topped out, I noticed a lot of people looking at me. I was told I was the first one to top it.
I flashed about 25 problems within 2 hours. Balancing, crimps, dynos, round pinches... something for every taste. There were only four problems that gave me some trouble.
The first one was tricky: a technical dyno. There was a huge cube hanging from the ceiling. Two pinches (a good one and a tiny one) to be held in compression and a round foot hold behind the angle for a toe hook. You then had to dyno to a decent flat hold. It was all about coordination. It took me 7-8 tries to understand the move and get it right. Really cool one.
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| Source: http://www.escapilade.fr/spip.php?article237 |
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| Nasty pinches... |
The last project was the one that took the most attempts: around 30! The mere number of tries speaks volumes about my stamina :-) An easy first move, you got a right shoulder crimp, left heel hook, you got a big, slippery, round pinch with left hand and then you dynoed to the vertical part of a huge volume with right hand. The only (and right) way to stop the momentum was to stick the right foot onto another volume on the right. I could not stick the dyno because: a. I suck at dynos, and b. I could not hold onto that round pinch. After 10 tries, I moved to another boulder. I came back later and looked for another beta. This time, I was able to get the pinch, then match with right hand by inserting my middle finger in the hole and dyno really far, to the top of the volume, 30 cms higher than the vertical part everyone would jump to. After trying this beta a few times, my finger started hurting so I decided to go back to the original beta. After 6-7 tries and only one minute before the end of the comp'... badaboum!!!
Having sent only 32 problems out of 42, I did not think I had any chance to be in the finals. All the others competitors had sent the dynos so they must have sent more problems overall. And then the guy with whom I had been climbing said "the two ultra-hard problems you sent, there must have been very few that did" and informed me that each problem was worth 1000 points divided by the number of repetitors. Wow, that's my favourite kind of math! I still did not think I had a chance and did not even check the results. A bit later, one of the organisers came up to me saying "Are you Cha...ra...lam...pos? We have been waiting for you in isolation". What the hell?!? Apparently, I came second at the qualifiers. That was a very pleasant surprise.
Isolation before the finals... The organisers were considerate enough to screw a few holds for us to keep our fingers warm. That is how you are supposed to organise a competition and respect the competitors. Seven of us, juniors and seniors. I did not know how many in each category.
The finals were rather disappointing. The first problem was too reachy; only the tallest guy sent it. The second one was really hard and we only had 3.5 minutes so noone got past the second move. Unfortunately, I had to leave in order to catch my train before trying the third problem. It looked quite beautiful: a rather easy dyno followed by crimps :-)
To this day, they have not released the results. All in all, I appreciated the way the organisers conceived the event and had a lot of fun. People were very cool, encouraging, communicative, exchanging betas and trying to be pleasant.
Saturday, November 7. Sports climbing on the menu. Six routes for the qualifiers, one for the finals. The pace was quite fast: one route every 15-20 minutes. I was being cautious in the first two routes, trying not to get too cocky. After that, everything went smoothly. I flashed all six routes, as did another three climbers. The hardest route was around 6b+/c but given my lack of experience in overhangs (even minor ones), I thought I would be having some trouble; that was not the case.
We climbed all six routes in flash mode. That is, before the qualifiers, the route setters climbed all twelve routes (male + female) in front of us. I had never seen that. Their beta was obviously not the best for me but given the overall difficulty, I was able to manage.
After sending our last routes, we had to wait for all others to finish, then for the results, isolation ensued... From the moment we finished the qualifiers until we climbed in the finals, three hours had gone by. That was a definite weakness from an organisational point of view.
The final route was a 5% overhang around 7b according to the setter. We were given five minutes to observe. I immediately got a bit worried about the first part. Around the 10th move, we were supposed to get over a huge round volume by dynoeing and using heel hooks. I was climbing next to last. I was very calm but knew I would not top the route. Three moves before the chain, there was a right-to-left traverse where you had to dyno to a big volume. A mistake meant falling down four meters - and very, very possibly - on the huge volume of the first part.
I got through the first moves, reached the volume, tried a heel hook but the move was too reachy. I took almost 20 seconds trying out different static betas but nothing was easy enough. I finally dynoed and found out that the target hold was quite nice. So my left hand was quite high and I needed to get my right heel hook. That move was quite hard as well. Five climbers could not get their right heel hook high enough because their left foot was too low, under the volume. I used a smearing beta to get both my feet high and then got the heel hook. I did the first left-to-right traverse on slippery crimps while struggling a bit because of the overhang. After this part, I felt a bit pumped but kept going. An undercling with the left hand, I crossed to the volume with right hand and then I was supposed to do the dyno. I looked down and thought it was not worth the risk. "Hop hop hop", I screamed to the belayer and let go.
I thought I was not going to be on the podium but as soon as I touched the floor, someone told me I came first. The last climber fell about six moves earlier. I know it was only a local event but winning still felt good. The only aspect that irked me a bit was that we did not get anything for winning. A bag of chalk would suffice. Instead, we were given an award, a wooden thing that was nice and would look great on a mantle or a prize shelf but I am not into stuff like that. The results can be found here.
Saturday, November 14: a five-hour trip to Montauban. This time, many thing went wrong so my results were mediocre at best.
I arrived quite early and thought I would stay and watch the junior category. From the first moment, though, I found the atmosphere very unwelcoming. The climbers, even the audience, looked very arrogant and impolite. I could not even walk through the corridors, people would not budge. I went for a walk to clear my head.
When my category was up, I tried to warm up in the 6A's. You had to wait 10 minutes for the easier stuff. And since I need a long warmup, each problem took me four or five tries therefore round 8 minutes. After an hour, I had only send six or seven problems. We only had two and a half hours for forty routes so not the ideal scenario for me. There were too many people so I kept looking for an empty slot. During the second hour, I sent another ten problems but could not flash most of them. It was only in the last 15 minutes that I sent three hard ones.
The real problem was my strategy. I knew there were too many people but, as always, I tried to rely on the shere volume of problems instead of attacking the ones that gave the most points (I used the same strategy on December 13 but was "lucky" enough that time). I tried the hardest one (noone had sent it) for about 10 minutes, I was all alone so did not have to wait but got frustrated and left. It was worth 1000 points and had I insisted, I would have ranked in the top 5-6. This was very, very dumb on my behalf but this is how we learn, by making dumb mistakes.
The results can be found here. I only sent 20 out of 40 problems and was ranked 17th our of 39. It is not that bad but still...
Saturday, November 21: another Saturday dedicated to lead climbing. Roc 14, an FSGT club, was organising Prise d'Or, an annual event that is gaining notoriety. The concept was quite fun: a board game with three-person teams, each with a piece on the board. We were given tasks (climb on this or that wall, answer questions, ..) in order to earn points and advance on the board. Early on, we got a huge lead until we fell on a "labirynth and went 19 steps back. We were now in 7th place. We pulled ourselves up and started climbing extremely fast. Within 15-20 minutes, we were in the lead again. A minute before the end of the contest, we finished our three routes, three steps forward, we had three steps left to end the game, we got a question, answered it and... the organiser said "it's worth 3 points!!!". The prize for the first team (us): a 20-euro gift certificate!
The event was very pleasant and, although the organizers seemed a little bit lost from time to time, it was definitely worth my time. I admit I did not try any hard routes since difficuty did not matter, only speed. Since I am hoping to test my luck (and hard work) at real competitions next year, I need to learn how to climb strategically.
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| My team bracelet. |
Saturday, November 28: The US Ivry club was organising a super event with lead climbing AND bouldering at the Orme au Chat Gymnasium. I got there in time, saw the gym and the routes/problems and started salivating. 12 boulders, 33 routes and a super 40m-traverse, all in three hours. I found a belayer and started climbing like a maniac. We had two attepts for each route and three for the bouldering problems.
After six or seven routes, we moved to the boulders. I flashed all twelve problems except for one because of a dumb mistake. I coached a few other climbers even though that meant less time for climbing but climbing is a social sport, after all. The problems were really, really cool, even the easier ones.
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| © http://escalade.usivry.org/ |
Back to the routes. I flashed 20 routes in total. Three hours were definitely not enough. Instead of giving us some extra time, the organisers had decided to allocate some twenty minutes for the traverse, for which all climbing had to cease. I think they made the right choice. I missed the traverse by practically nothing. I gave it four tries and each time, I would go a bit further. I fell after sending the last hard move. I had only four moves left (out of 70-80).
The overall quality of the problems and the routes was top notch. One route in particular, a slab, left me with a lasting impression. All moves were extremely haphasard but getting the quickdraws was even harder. I would say at least a 7c. I struggled all the way up but magically, I made it to the top. The moment I touched the final hold, I realised it was impossible to get the rope through the chain; I could not hold that tiny right-hand pinch, even less so since I only had a right-foot hold that did not help with the balance. I did not even give it a second go. Later that evening, I was told that the (female) setter only worked on that route top-rope. Since then, I have visited various gyms and have discovered that many amateur setters opt for this method, without even trying to redpoint afterwards.
The overall quality of the problems and the routes was top notch. One route in particular, a slab, left me with a lasting impression. All moves were extremely haphasard but getting the quickdraws was even harder. I would say at least a 7c. I struggled all the way up but magically, I made it to the top. The moment I touched the final hold, I realised it was impossible to get the rope through the chain; I could not hold that tiny right-hand pinch, even less so since I only had a right-foot hold that did not help with the balance. I did not even give it a second go. Later that evening, I was told that the (female) setter only worked on that route top-rope. Since then, I have visited various gyms and have discovered that many amateur setters opt for this method, without even trying to redpoint afterwards.
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| © http://escalade.usivry.org/ |
I finished first with a wide margin (although no margin is ever wide enough). The results are here. All people on the podium were given a 20-euro gift certificate. I will buy some liquid chalk for me and my climbing partners with that money.
All in all, a great experience. I am going back to the gymnasium this Saturday to send the rest of the routes :-) And I found the entire team so approachable that I accepted their invitation to go back and set some routes and boulders in the near future.
Sunday, December 13. My club, ESC15, was organising a lead climbing contest. I had only climbed there once so I wanted to test everything.
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| ©Julie Elena Pottier |
58 routes in total and five hours to climb. After helping with the preparations (music, computers, registration), I started climbing to signal the beginning of the contest. There were two strategies in my mind: a. to climb frantically and send as many 5's and 6's I could, leaving the hard stuff for the end, or b. to do my warm-up, then do the hard stuff and leave the easy routes for the second half of the contest. Both strategies present risks: climbing for 3-4 straight hours will leave you with no energy for the hard (>=7a) routes, but then again, if you do the hard stuff in the beginning, you risk having a really bad warm-up and not being able to do anything afterwards. Plus, there was going to be a lot of people so I would have to wait in line for the biggest part of the contest. I thus decided to get rid of all the easy routes first.
It took me about four hours to finish almost all the easy (4c-6c) routes. I then tried a 6b, a 6c and a 7a but I was too pumped. I was gutted. I finished my session with three 6b's and thought I had lost. I rushed to calculate the results with my freshly created script (I used Praat to write a really cool script that outputs numerous listings, per sex, climbing gym, etc). Surprisingly, I had won with a slightly considerable margin.
It took me about four hours to finish almost all the easy (4c-6c) routes. I then tried a 6b, a 6c and a 7a but I was too pumped. I was gutted. I finished my session with three 6b's and thought I had lost. I rushed to calculate the results with my freshly created script (I used Praat to write a really cool script that outputs numerous listings, per sex, climbing gym, etc). Surprisingly, I had won with a slightly considerable margin.
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| ©Julie Elena Pottier |
I will soon have the video of a few ascents that a friend shot. I can't wait.
This last win signaled a three-out-of-three spree at the FSGT "circuit" so I am calling it a Grand Slam! My goal is to win every single one of them this year. I think there are another four left until June. Next contest: February 7.
