Dave MacLeod Climbing

9 out of 10 climbers has arrived

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:58:00 +0000

Stock of my book has arrived with us and we are dispatching it now. Hope you enjoy the read and it helps get you to the next level in your climbing!

Some of you commented on my last post asking how long copies take to arrive in the US. We dispatch by Royal Mail (via airmail if it’s outside the UK). Their estimations for delivery times are here. They quote within 3 working days for Europe and within 5 for the US. It’s always an estimation of course. We are dispatching same day right up to Christmas.

9 out of 10 is in the post to us

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:19:00 +0000

Our of stock of my book 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes has been shipped and on the way to us, with any luck the DHL man might be at our door with a pallet soon. Thanks to all of you who pre-ordered already!

(click on the pic for a bigger image of the cover jacket)

After I posted the contents list a couple of days ago, various comments on the post were curious and eager for me to give more details on what a couple of intriguingly titled sections were about. Briefly:

To anonymous commenter - The book is definitely about climbing, but improving at climbing goes fastest and farthest when the climbing fits well with many other parts of life. A lot of improving at sport is about setting up the right circumstances, attitudes and approaches to clear the path in front of you. So I wouldn’t say the book is about life, but it does make several observations about the elements of life that lead to good performance in sport. Some them are extremely subtle or small, but have huge effects. So many books on training, sport science, coaching, sports medicine and other aspects related to sport miss what seemed to me the biggest single thing I learned from 6 years study of sport science - that the athlete is a person, and to improve in sport there is no area of the person’s life that does not influence the performance.

To second anon. - ‘The first thing to understand’ section is about change in any aspect of your routine, be it massive (like your career or base) or miniscule. It describes how climbers and people in general deal with change or the possibility of it, and how this accelerates or stunts their progress.

‘The truth about famous climbers’ section is clears up a massive misunderstanding about top climbers that is extremely easy to make without seeing more than we normally get to.

‘Fingerboard rules’ is a comprehensive run down of good practice, routines and common errors in using fingerboards, who they help and in what circumstances, and how some simple errors kill off the potential benefits.

‘How to get light without pain’ refers to the correct way to lose weight to reach an ideal body composition without the constant hunger, frustration, dejection and ultimately failure that accompanies most attempts to adjust weight downwards.

Haston is a very old (in athletic terms) climber performing at world class level and Oddo is an extremely young climber performing at a similar level. This doesn’t happen nearly so much in other sports. I’ve explained why it’s this way in climbing, and how you can take advantage of this.

Siurana pics

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:14:00 +0000

A local attempting the famous Kalea Borroka 8b+, sector El Pati, Siurana. This large overhang has been my battleground for the past week or so. On Sunday I did a simply gobsmacking new 8b+ called Dogma that breaks left out of Kalea and heads way off into the sky above with cruxes and bat hangs a-plenty. Tomorrow it's battle day with an equally brilliant 8c just to the left.

Sport climber’s breakfast for me, mountain guide’s breakfast for Donald. What about Ewan? My guess is he finished his ages ago.

Harold the bug. Keeping us company on rest days in the wendy house. More pics on Gaz's blog (of Siurana climbing, not Harold, that is).

Crawling along

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Endless sport climbing - hard not to improve!

Sport climbing trips out here in Spain or France have been a staple of my yearly climbing diet for nearly ten years. I come for lots of reasons, to relax the mind (these days), to replenish the body in a less harsh climate, to enjoy the climbs here also. But mainly I come here to train.

Trying to achieve a very high level of rock climbing fitness in Scotland is very like being pinned down in a game of chess - lots of potential options, but all of them blocked. We have a world class climbing facility at Ratho, but those who could really use it the most can’t afford to train there enough. We have a handful of wee sport crags, but not enough to make a platform for the best climbers to step to the next level (this idea is called a pyramid progression).

For a while, cheap flights made it easy enough for those at a medium level to put a patch of fitness in their game a couple of times a year. Maybe this day is already passed. Some more bolts in local crags might work out better environmentally than the carbon footprint of a twice yearly migration of the sport climbing population. On this trip, I’m coming round to thinking that this migration might be losing it’s appeal, both in terms of cost, and effectiveness.

It worked to get me from 8c to 8c+ and even helped me scrape into 9a. My current goal is to get 9a+, both for it’s own sake but also to assimilate this level and apply it in my mountain trad and winter climbing. Training strength in Scotland is no problem. With some good training I’ve got strong enough to do 9a+, but endurance is a stumbling block.

I’m not saying it’s impossible. I intend to personally prove otherwise. Rastko said those who crawl cannot be brought down. So I’ll keep on crawling my way to 9a+ and the resultant E11s and winter projects. Some changes might help break into a walk though. Some ideas:

Scotland’s rock climbers would really benefit from another sport crag or two that really works for training - steep sustained and often in condition. There are crags. It could be time to go and open them. Even just one sector like El Pati in Siurana could be enough to kickstart some exciting things in both sport and trad. I know that I couldn’t have done Echo Wall without the bolts on Steall Crag in Glen Nevis where I put down the foundation of fitness on Cubby’s old ‘controversial’ project.

A lot of the other things are potentially terrain where our sport’s governing body - the MCofS - could help with. If there was a special membership package that included free entry to any climbing wall in Scotland, I’d certainly be buying that as a christmas gift for a teenage son or daughter who’d recently discovered climbing. Parents would be gifting access to the world of climbing safety and environmental advice and training etc plus unlimited access to their new pastime/obsession.

As a 16 year old I managed to get my three sessions a week in the Kelvin Hall because every third visit I’d pluck up the courage not to buy a ticket and keep an eagle eye for the attendant all through the session. It’s rarely so easy for the young and keen to increase their training volume with this method these days.

Out here in Spain, we keep finding ourselves saying ‘it’s hard not to get good at climbing here’. In Scotland it’s a lot harder, so we better make it as easy as possible.

9 out of 10 climbers is here (soon)

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:14:00 +0000

Our stock of my book 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes is printed and currently being shipped to us. So in a week or so (our highland address always seems to bring out the worst in delivery companies) we’ll be sending copies out. We’ve just put it up for pre-order in the shop now. I know some of you are after a copy in time for Christmas and so it should be in plenty of time. We are dispatching around 11.30am every day until Christmas, worldwide.

I’m very happy to see it out and I’m pleased with it as a representation of much of what I’ve learned in 16 years of study in climbing improvement. It’s always been a big satisfaction in my climbing life to take what I’ve learned from sport science and half my life observing, experimenting, and measuring every last thing that makes climbers climb better. I’m expecting that the ideas in it will polarise a few readers. It does attack some of the fashions in the sport of climbing, and the wider world of sport and improvement that are working in the wrong direction for improvement. Engrained habits die hard and folk don’t let go of them easily. So I’m quite direct. Expect some further discussion of the details of the book over on my climbing coach blog as the reactions come in.

Some more info on what’s contained in it is on it’s page in the shop and you can get an order in here now if you are keen to read it. For now though, here is the list of contents so you can get a feel for the information thats in it.

9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes: navigation through the maze of advice for the self-coached climber

Contents:

9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes

Barking up the wrong tree

Part 1 - Creatures of habit

Stuck on the basics

The first thing to understand

The first thing to change

Fail, and prepare to succeed

If only I knew now what I knew then

Too embarrassed to climb?

Is this grade a success or mediocre?

The first generation was the freest

Starting from scratch

The truth about famous climbers

Know your enemy - your tastes

Don’t get stuck

Creatures of habit

Part 2 - The big four: movement technique, finger strength, endurance, body mass

The biggest lesson from sport science

You cannot break the laws

How to learn technique

Record, replay, review

No one does drills, right?

The structure of climbing technique

The need for momentum

Types of momentum

The issue of height

Don’t just push with your feet!

Counterintuitive aspects of climbing technique

Precision really matters

Trying to make the hold bigger

Don’t overrate strength

Bouldering is number one

But I don’t like bouldering!

How to boulder to show off, or get strong

Board heads

A good bouldering session

Fingerboard rules

To crimp or not to crimp

Making sense of Haston and Oddo

Making sense of Ondra and Sharma shapes

How light do I need to be?

How to get light without pain?

Steps for losing and maintaining a lower weight for climbing

Who needs to pump iron to climb hard?

To the wiry

To the beefcake

To the tall

To the lucky little ones

When you really can blame your tools

Campus boards hurt almost everyone

Climbing is not a cardiovascular sport

Where is climbing endurance?

Endurance activities

Understanding fatigue symptoms

Endurance rules

Part 3 - Fear of falling: the real problem, probably…

The only way

Falling technique

Practice indoors

Practice on sport climbs

Building falls into your daily climbing diet

Practice on trad

When you just can’t fall off

Part 4 - The other big four: attitude, lifestyle, circumstances, tactics

I’m young, spoon-feed me!

Why mid-teens drop off the radar

“I can’t do that” he said, mistakenly

Too old to improve?

To find time, make your time work harder for you

Do you really want to be an athlete?

Tactics often trump training

What the warmup does

Tuning in and out

Managing the ‘psyche’ level

Do you really want it to be easy?

Be thick skinned at all times

Does flexibility really matter?

Part 5 - What’s next coach? Planning your improvement

Think curves, not lines

So jump off that plateau, if you can bear it

Regimes - how much can you handle?

Over-resting or under-recovering?

A kid’s regime

A student’s regime

A family/career hustler

The wannabe pro

The confused and disillusioned

Same old routine, same old results

Cracking bad habits is tough

Rules of the training day

Rules of the training season

Annual rest and recuperation time

Summing up

A tentative start to the winter

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:22:00 +0000

Ahhhh! Hot refreshed elbows after hot & cold treatment. Feels good.

Right now I'm in Spain, at Siurana. The purpose of the trip, apart from enjoying some outdoor climbing after the Lochaber perma-rain of autumn, is to recharge batteries and get ready for winter. As usual for late autumn, I'm strong from three months of solid bouldering, but my endurance is poor, and joints are complaining from the punishment.

Long routes are the answer for both, with a little more dedicated recovery time than I'd normally manage at home due to work. Rest days between attacking the hardest routes of Siurana are restful in one sense, but busy nonetheless. I've just spent four hours on rehab activities for my elbows. They are complaining after I overdid it with training during November. After one of these sessions the tendons feel great, going from a creaking mess to a steely strip of hot working collagen. I've posted more on this subject on my training blog here.

Yesterday was a little brutal on the body. First I narrowly avoided a long fall that may have involved contact with the ground. I went for a big link on a project I'm trying, and after skipping a bolt (they are spaced anyway!) my foot slipped just at the last move of the runout. I was holding an undercut with one hand, and a small intermediate edge with the other, but managed to stay on from that instantaneous hit of nervous tension you get from a slip at a bad moment in climbing. That might have been it over, except Michael thought I was off, exploded into a backwards run and fell over onto his back facing downslope. A comedy moment followed of me dangling desperately against a tight rope trying to replace my foot on a smear while Michael righted himself beetle style and resumed paying out rope. All was fine except I struggled on for a few more bolts until arms melted.

Later I dragged a wasted body up for a work session on a massive new 8b+ called Dogma. With two bat hangs and overhanging about 15 metres in it's 45 metre length it should be the kind of full body workout I'm needing just now. The short days of December mean I'll have to wait until tomorrow for more action on this.

BTW - More news on my book during next week.

My book is off to the printers!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:31:00 +0000

Phew! At long last, I finally uploaded the files of my finished book to our printer’s server this afternoon. For the last month I’ve done absolutely nothing except work on it 12 hours per day and then train. So both body and mind are feeling a little raw right now. Thankfully, some climbing outdoors is coming next week. Anyway, the lowdown is I might have stock of the book available by the second week in December if the printer runs on time. I’ll keep you posted of course, but I’ll put it up in the shop for pre-order as soon as we hear our stock is on the way.

It started out as an idea for a fairly small book centred around a theme in my head that formed throughout my study of sport science, my own attempts to get good at climbing and coaching others. That theme was that people get lost in details and settled in comfort. In doing so they lose the perspective needed to see much bigger areas to improve their level with less effort. This idea was certainly the biggest single piece of learning in my head after my education in sport science. So my book communicates that as clearly and directly as I can, with thorough explanation of all the ways this plays out and interferes with climbers’ progression.

But along the way I could see I would be able to add a lot of the detailed answers to the questions that climbers keep asking coaches and each other about how to improve. So there is a lot of detail too - information, instructions and help with just about all of what climbers need to know to improve or break out of a plateau in improvement.

My approach has been to directly point out the mistakes that climbers make in each of these areas. I can see that there are quite a few books out there now that list all the possible exercises and activities that climbers could conceivably use to help themselves. But there is precious little to help them choose between all of this, and I hope my offering will be very useful here.

In fact, the subtitle of the book is ‘navigation through the maze of advice for the self-coached climber’.

More on this shortly. In the meantime, it’s a day off for me...

New stuff in the shop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:27:00 +0000

Some news from our webshop:

Echo Wall has been out a year now, so we’ve dropped it to half price. We’ll be selling the rest of our stock of the DVD at £10.

Mountain Equipment hats - Loads of you emailed over the past year to ask where you could get the ME hats that are never off my head when climbing. So after a bit of persuasion with ME, we’ve got some in red, black, yellow and various blues at £15.

Arriving hopefully any day is our stock of the new Welsh Connections DVD. I’m looking forward to seeing this myself, especially Mr Robins on Liquid Ambar but also all the rest of the trad and bouldering madness from the best of the Welsh scene (Dawes, Davies, McHaffie etc..). We are taking pre-orders for it now at £15.

The other week we changed our postage charges to free for orders over £30. A bit later on we twigged it would be kind of handy if the various things we sell for £14.95 or thereabouts were actually a nice £15 for obvious reasons. So for example, now £30 gets you Welsh Connections and an ME hat or T-shirt and free postage to anywhere on earth. More sensible.

My own board report

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:52:00 +0000

Many of you have emailed or commented asking me to talk a bit more about my board and the structure of my sessions. The details are a bit intense for some readers here, so I’ve posted a fuller version of this post on my training blog for those interested. The short version is that I have been using it most evenings after work and I’ve made really good strength gains in the past 5 months or so. I’ve also been almost constant on the edge of getting injured - climbing in there is pretty damn intense. I’m used to training for several hours at a climbing wall, so I’m conditioned to keep going. But 1 hour on my board equals about 2 in a climbing wall and 4 outdoors. I just completed a couple of projects on it I’d been trying for about 4 months which are in the wee youtube above.

It’s really kept me going since I’ve been writing the book. Btw progress with that is going great guns with 12 hours a day working on it. Right now it’s mid way through being edited. I’ll keep you posted how it goes...

Creag dubh on the Cobbler in '78

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Paul Cunningham points me at another new youtube of John Cunningham and Creag Dubh club friends rock climbing in pretty wintery conditions on the Cobbler in 1978. What really struck me watching this was how dramatically rock climbing in Scotland was about to move on in terms of attitude, tactics and standard shortly after this. Just one year after this on the same cliff Dave Cuthbertson was making a massive step forward in standard with Wild Country at hard E6 6b (sparsely protected F7b or 7b+). This video really shows an end of an era of an approach to climbing, and the start of a completely different one.

Payback

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:04:00 +0000

Last night, seemingly out of the blue, I felt stronger in training than I ever have. The reason, in hindsight is obvious. I’d just been doing one/two sessions 5 days a week for about three weeks, and my body was shredded. An enforced couple of days off due to appointments around Scotland last weekend barely even seemed enough to feel normal again. It sounds like nothing, but three weeks is a long time to feel no improvement, or negative progress, when you are giving it full pelt every single night until your upper body can’t face another move in the wee small hours.

We are totally hardwired not to think of the long term in this respect. It takes a bit of faith that it’s working. If I’d got too frustrated (which I nearly did) and taken some rest to ‘cash in’ too early, I would have sabotaged the kickstart for the body.

Last night, two boulder problems went down that I’d been trying for four months. They felt easy. Like nothing. Last week I spent a whole hour (a long time on a board V-hard with 60 second rests between tries) just trying to do each move.

I nearly saw of the hardest project I’ve set so far, got to the last move of seven and swung my legs about wildly in confusion, eyes practically drilling a hole in the board searching for the crucial foot hold. Except I’d taken it off the board and forgotten. Idiot. The next ten attempts to move No. 5 were fair punishment.

Progression is here

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:46:00 +0000

Just a note to say the Progression DVD stock arrived with us this morning and is in the webshop now. Sharma’s first ascent of Jumbo Love 9b in the states, Adam Ondra making 9a+s look like nothing, the young americans destroying the hard grit classics, Patxi Usobiaga showing you what training really means. Tommy Caldwell trying to take big wall climbing to a new level of difficulty (again) and all the rest of the jaw dropping bouldering we expect from a Big Up film. You can get it here

I’ll be finishing writing early today for my appointment with the DVD player before training this evening. The board better be ready. I’m expecting this film to get me very psyched!

Learning to write big things

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:31:00 +0000

Right now I am writing a book. So far it’s been a fascinating learning curve for a novice book writer. I have written one book, which I give away for free (here), but I cheated and wrote that on the bus from Fort William to Arrochar and didn’t put any pressure on myself to see it as a book until it was finished. I’ve also written about a third of an ebook about weight optimisation (sounds better than control) for climbers on my phone. I might try and finish it on my phone just for the novelty!

But this time round I’m putting a bit of pressure on myself, not just to finish it, but finish it quickly. I’m about a week away if I was locked away in a room without distractions. But unfortunately my computer serves me up distractions constantly. At least the Scottish autumn doesn’t serve too many good weather distractions. And one hour on my board equals four on the crag.

In school I felt sick at the thought of 2000 word essays. Project climbing taught me how to ride the wave of those random days when inspiration and energy coincide and make a jump of progress. It also taught me that even the bad days when everything felt ten times harder than it should resulted in valuable progress, but you only realise it in hindsight. So I’m lucky that my background has given me a lot of advantages for getting it done.

Both my blogs got me past that awful feeling of sitting down to write and staring at a blank page for two hours. The medium tends to teach you how to just say what you need to say. My emerging book is turning out like that, which I like. It’s also arranged a bit like my blog - point by point and easier to digest than a massive chapter. Easier to write too, so it should be with you soon.

Thanks to everyone who’s asked about it - I’ll talk about it plenty as soon as I’m done writing. For now I can tell you it’s called ‘9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes’. It’s a book about improving at climbing, but it does what all the others don’t. The books out there at the moment lay out all the possible ways and exercises to improve in front of you. They are the map. But nearly everyone gets lost and strays off the path. So my book is the compass - it shows you how to navigate through the sea of possible improvement activities and how to decide which ones you need to focus on, and which are the big priorities to keep in front of the smaller ones.

Talking of training for climbing books - The best thats out there right now is still The Self Coached Climber. I reviewed it ages ago on my other blog. But I realised it was crazy I wasn’t selling it myself, especially because you’d get my free book How to climb hard trad with it which is obviously compliments it quite nicely. So I am now, here.

Nevis soloing in winter with Cunningham

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:52:00 +0000

Nice video of John Cunningham soloing on the Ben in the mid 1970's. Thanks to Paul Cunningham for sharing that. I'd seen this before at the Ice Men gathering I hosted a few years ago at the Fort William Mountain festival with Yvon Chouinard (who shot the film), Jimmy Marshall and Hamish McInnes. It was nice to see it again and watching it made me think how little has changed today in highland climbing. Maybe not on the Ben which is a tad busier on weekends, but highland climbing is still a relaxed, exploratory, wild and sometimes lonely affair, 40 odd years later. Here's to that. I'm more likely to end the day with tea than a dram though, and then get training!

Back to back sessions

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:26:00 +0000

Excalibur

Kev gets too strong for the board and starts pulling T-nuts right through the board

Long day of writing and training today, feeling weak but enjoying Donald's excellent problem setting on the dry tooling board at Al's place, after bouldering on my own board. It's been a few years since I spent a decent amount of time climbing with tools in my hands and after the last session or two I'm really locked into the idea of turning some sustained tool training into a very hard route on Ben Nevis this season. Still probably too hard to succeed, but the last couple of days are certainly on the right path.

I learned a completely new move from Kev for swinging feet across a roof without losing body tension. Fantastic, but after trying the problem about 20 times repeatedly flipping upside down gave me such a stomach ache I ended up having to stop three times on the way home to moan and groan to myself in pain. Sign of a good training session I suppose.

Christina moves dynamically for the next hook

Down to business

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:42:00 +0000

Tool training on my board last night. Seconds later I wiped out flat on my back and spent the rest of the session rolling around trying to get some wind back in my lungs. Need more mattage!

I’m gradually getting used to my home board with nightly sessions after work. It’s the best thing since sliced bread. My cadre of project problems is getting big and vaired enough now to get the strength gains coming although I must admit I find endurance circuits harder than training on real routes (but still the way to go - just need decent music and a nice circuit).

I’m trying to mix in my training for the winter season and making a little progress with fitness and technique with tools, although I feel that I’ve only just got started here. Doing both is feeling hard on the body, which is demanding an extra hour of sleep per night. So that’s one less hour working on my book, but such is life.

The weather man is saying November is going to be warm so it looks like I’ve got time to generate some decent gains in time for the arrival of white frosty stuff plastering Scottish mountains. Brilliant to have my winter project as a clear focus for the season, and a good scene of Lochaber strong-men to share training with. Some are suffering for their art a little too much at times - check out big Al’s skull damage here.

Wasted arms, big smile. Time for a cup of tea.

Back to the wall

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:45:00 +0000

I used up the last of my mini-peak on my Sky Pilot project and all the rest was making me lose fitness, with no sign of success imminent just yet. So it was a great relief to get back to training every day. When I say great relief, I just mean I hate hate hate losing fitness, and love gaining it, simple as that. I still haven't even scratched the surface of using my board to it’s full extent, and quite perversely looking forward to the dark winter months of full scale daily training on it.

Starting to train with axes again for winter gave my elbow a bit of a fright, which was worrying. But this was followed by a bit of a kickstart and it seems stronger than ever.

Tomorrow: 4 hours training, 12 hours book writing, many cups of tea, few meals, large bags under eyes.

Thusrday: I’m speaking in Dundee, see you there.

Monkey See Monkey Do DVD out now in the shop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:41:00 +0000

This year’s DVD release from Hot Aches is just out and available from my shop right here. The Singlehanded section just went down a storm at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival on Sunday, scooping a couple of prizes.

The DVD has four films on it:

‘Singlehanded’ with Kev Shields soloing E6 and M10+ drytooling with the prosthetic ice axe that replaces his missing left hand. If you’ve ever done E6 or even worse M10+ you’ll be like me and watch with uncomfortable trepidation as Kev demonstrates it (just) with one hand less than most of us.

There’s also welsh slate weirdness with master Johnny Dawes, Matt Segal and Hazel Findlay, Big Wall 8b+ in Madagascar with James McHaffie and E8 in Squamish (yes - Squamish!) with Sonnie Trotter. The full lowdown on the lineup is here. The Madagascar big walling looks quite sublime - would love to go there someday. Kev’s film is my favourite though I guess because it deals head on with the dangerous addiction of soloing harder and harder rock climbs - a life enriching, but potentially life destroying pastime. Always a great paradox for bold climbers to grapple with. I’m always interested to hear the thoughts of those who are prepared to share them on this subject.

Other news from our shop is that we’ve put Cubby’s logbook (always a Christmas favourite) on sale from it’s RRP of £15 down to £5.

Enjoy.

Autumn ups and downs

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:26:00 +0000

Glen Nevis today in full golden glory

I’ve had better weeks. Started off Sunday all set to go on a quick raid to Hoy only to come down with a miserable cold and have to cancel at the last moment. What a bummer. That kind of took the wind out of my sails I must admit. I spent the week working on my book and feeling sorry for myself. Today I felt good for climbing again and snatched a lovely afternoon at Sky Pilot. Still feeling reasonable on the project even after 4 fitness draining days off, but need to turn around a backward performance trajectory double quick.

Good progress on the book though which has got me pretty keen to really get my sleeves up with this project.

Maybe see you at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival on Sunday night at my lecture?

The Old Man of Storr

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:06:00 +0000

Standing on the summit of the Old Man of Storr, Skye. Photo by Cubby Images. Click it for a bigger image

A few weeks ago myself and Blair climbed the Old Man of Storr on Skye. I was waiting to get a picture of it from Cubby who came along for some shots to post it up. I found not a single trustworthy runner on the entire thing and more or less every hold was quite freely detachable. So I wouldn't recommend it for the faint hearted. We climbed it by Mick Fowler’s route on the north side, which seems to be the easiest method.

I stood on the top for about ten minutes so that Cubby could take a picture with each of his numerous cameras and lenses. It was pretty damn hard to stand up in a gusty gale and seriously added to the feeling of exposure perched on top of this Skye rocket.

One of those things you just have to climb, for some at least…

Blair enjoying the rotten, collapsing weetabix basalt. At least there were not many runners to take out.

New postage rates and products in our shop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

We’ve just changed our worldwide postage rates in the shop - Orders over £30 now have free shipping to anywhere in the world. Under £30 is £1.50.

Payments are still via PayPal which accepts most major cards and payment methods.

And we’ve just added:

Ben Nevis - the new edition of it’s history, I’ve just reviewed it here.

The Players DVD - Americas finest big name climbers of the moment in a host of different locations and beautifully filmed routes and problems.

Espresso Lessons - The new book from Arno Ilgner (who wrote The Rock Warriors Way) with quick, accessible and practical tips for climbers to improve their mental skills and confidence in climbing.

Coming shortly will be the new Hot Aches film Monkey See Monkey Do, the new Progression DVD from Big UP, and the Mountain Equipment hats that you’ve all been asking me to get hold of for the past year!

Ben Nevis - History brought to life

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:32:00 +0000

About 14 years ago, I got a book out of the library that chronicled the history of climbing on Ben Nevis. It was an epic story of the challenges, hardships, adventures and joyous moments of seemingly every famous climber on the planet. I found it absolutely riveting. Never yet having been to Ben Nevis, it illuminated why this mountain was so important in world mountaineering, despite lacking the scale of the greater ranges. It was abundantly clear from Ken Crocket’s labour of love on the book that this was a special place.

But that was just from reading it. I also pored over the photography. Fascinated by the old black and white stills of the earliest climbers, the great snows of pre-warming winters (and summers) and the countless facets, gullies and elegant buttresses of rock on the north face.

The adventure for me had already begun. Just from those photos I began for the very first time to compare photos of the cliffs to the recorded routes and question why this line or that didn’t seem to have been climbed. The specific areas that caught my eye for this reason were the upper grooves and lower barrier of The Comb, and the great dark mass of Echo Wall. They simmered in my mind until I climbed them many years later.

So sitting in my bedroom at home reading Ken’s original edition, did, in part, awake an interest in new routing and in Ben Nevis that shaped the next part of my life. And so yesterday, the new edition dropped through my letterbox.

23 years after the first edition, Ken, with Simon Richardson have laboured to update, expand and enrich the chronicle and bring it up to date, starting with the earliest map makers of highland Scotland in 1585 and ending with my ascent of Echo Wall last July. The new edition benefits hugely from the exponentially expanding archive of photography and colour printing with many more photographs both from the distant past from valuable Scottish archives like Am Baile. But also professional climbing photographers like Cubby and Ian Parnell and the many who’ve made their own high quality images findable through the connectedness of digital media.

So there are photographs on nearly every page - the many parts of the mountain are brought to life. As are the climbers, with fascinating portrait shots of the many famous names I’d only read about and never been able to put a face to - Con Higgins, Murray Hamilton, Kenny Spence, Pete Whillance, Arthur Paul, Alan Rouse, Mick Geddes, Ian Fulton to name just a few. There are also many early colour photos I’d never come across of the likes of Robin Smith, Marshall and Haston that have been secured for the new edition.

Other new additions were a series of forewords which were inspiring from Jimmy Marshall (written in 2008) and a great summary from Ian Parnell as to why the Ben is among the best mountains for climbing in the world. I could easily sit at home and spend hours and hours poring through this book, so many interesting stories and photos. Even the earlier parts of the history that were covered in Ken’s original edition have been extensively revised and updated and I really felt like I’d read a new chapter on the little talked about but unbelievable Brian Kellett and his enigmatic life and death soloing new routes on the north face.

For anyone with any interest in The Ben, either as a general interest in the stories of climbers, or from first hand connection with the mountain, as far as I’m concerned it’s the most essential book to own since extreme rock. It’s also a lovely book as an entity in itself, presented to the highest standard as you might expect from the SMC writing about our most important Scottish mountain.

As soon as I could I ordered a load of copies for my own webshop to help distribute this work to a new generation of climbers who I’m certain will be inspired by it. You can get it here. I even decided to make a bit of a promotion with a special priced bundle with my own appreciative work on Ben Nevis; Echo Wall.

The race to get kids interested

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:26:00 +0000

First steps in climbing and a new life, Craigmore 1993. Note improvised self belay top rope technique. Photo by my mum (who drove me there - in one sense!)

Was just building the fire this morning and listening to Kelly Holmes (olympic gold winning runner) promoting a new system of encouraging competition through sport among kids at school. Seems quite a polarising issue, some feeling that competition is good for kids confidence and motivation, others feeling it was destructive to these aspects.

The defense of the latter view was that competition can be good for kids but it’s very dependent on how it’s presented. I agree with this, and I think they should be making this message the centre of their promotion rather than the simpler message that competition is good per se. When this idea reaches through schools, it’s delivery won’t always be optimal, so the messages that will make it work need to be super clear. And applied badly, I could see it seriously backfiring.

The atmosphere of competition at my school, especially in sport, left me demotivated, unhappy and ready to drop out of the system at 16. Discovering climbing transformed this for me over the course of a couple of years - the sport teaching me how to enjoy competition, how to handle failure and learning, and eventually becoming able to apply this in other fields.

The key to why climbing succeeded was that the nature of climbing mountains and rocks dictates a focus on personal improvement and effort rather than some public measure. The mountain doesn’t care whether you get to it’s top or not, so failure is not embarrassing and bragging to the mountain is kind of pointless. Also, it’s in the character of the places climbing takes you to (impressive landscapes I mean) to encourage humility even during the fiercest competition and effort.

The above transformation is clearly exactly what Kelly’s new ‘schools olympics’ promotion is aiming at. My contribution of ideas would be:

1. Take kids climbing. It would be a shame to stick to the bona-fide mainstream sports - it’s a fickle business trying to find that spark of a sport you connect with. The wider the net of sports tried, the more kids will find the one for them. Also, the fact that it’s a little outside the mainstream is a great leveller - everyone will be starting from square one. It’s a great motivator to see the kid that was always best at football, fighting and bullying can’t get off the ground on the climb you just flashed. Being light, skinny and thoughtful rather than big, brash and overconfident tends to do well in climbing.

2. Educate parents as much as kids - that making reward and praise linked too closely to public success is dangerous ground. Valuing effort, preparation, patience and critical thinking and leading by example rather than actively pushing will always work far better in the longer term.

3. Train teachers and politicians to better understand and pass on the true value and meaning of competition in sport. In many cases they are too focused on cold hard results, with the important bit - the learning and human performance - relegated to an afterthought.

The point of climbing in the UK

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:01:00 +0000

Interesting recent comments from Stevie Haston, back on form (and very inspiring) in his climbing, and also in his habit of taking a shot at just about anyone on the radar in the sport. He does it in good spirit though! This time he was defending himself against his own detractors of his recent excellent climbing performances of 9a and a new E7. What triggered this post was Stevie shrugging off our poor weather and citing it as a reason not to come and try a route like Echo Wall.

It’s an age old feeling among some climbers. English climbers I’ve met say they won't come to Scotland “because it’s wet and midgy all year” and international climbers mostly just about consider the grit because it’s roadside and there’s only 10 metres of it to climb before the next shower.

I totally understand this feeling. About one quarter of the year, I have it myself. I live in pretty much the wettest place in the UK, and sometimes I just think ‘what is the point of having to wait and wait for the climbs to be dry? Why not just go somewhere where they always are’. So, a couple of times a year, I do. Most likely to Spain to sport climb in the Catalunyan winter sun. It’s great - a lot of metres of rock get climbed I two weeks, and my sport climbing standard goes up very sharply.

Sure, the climbs in on limestone are hard. You have to be fit. But then, getting fit here is not hard. You just turn up, uncoil your rope, give 100% on the rock (the rate limiting step) and you can’t fail to get better at climbing. The reason that a climb like Echo Wall is so much more of a challenge than the most difficult sport route I’ve done (either Ring of Steall or A’ Muerte) is that not being able to just go and do battle with it when you like is the tough part. The patience for it’s awkwardness is the rate limiting step.

It’s nice that climbing is accommodating enough to satisfy those who would say “life’s too short to wait for good conditions, I’m off sport climbing” and those who would feel that the fact that they did have to wait patiently and choose the right moment to strike was a large part of the enjoyment.

Does it make sense if I say that sport climbing trips are pure pleasure, but not that fulfilling? The idea of my next sport trip gets me psyched, but not excited. The idea of my next trip to Orkney fills me with unease but gets me very excited.

When I wake up in the morning on a sport trip, I pretty much know what’s going to happen. If I’m feeling strong, I’ll onsight some good routes and get a tiny bit further on the redpoints. I’ll enjoy every minute of it. It’s predictably enjoyable. When I wake up for a hard trad day in Scotland I think “what is going to happen today?” If I do the route, I’ll love it. If I fall, I’ll probably love that too after the event. If I just get caught in an atlantic storm and spend the day marvelling the forces of nature, I’ll love that too. It’s unpredictably enjoyable.

Some people need one or the other. Others, a mix of both, including me.

First snows

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:04:00 +0000

I just woke up and pulled back the curtain to see that yesterdays storms have left the first dusting of snow of the new season on the tops of the hills. Always exciting moment and a call to get ready for the mixed climbing season.

I spent most of last winter worrying myself out of trying the route I really wanted to try and messing about on other things I wasn’t so focused on. When I finally did try it, I actually did get off the ground and got to the crux. It’s easy to realise in hindsight that life is too short for worrying you’ll get nowhere.

So this season I’ll get right on it. I’ll still probably fail, but on this route, if I can fail even a couple of moves higher, that will be awesome.