Been there, done that…got the T-shirt!
Hello everyone! It’s been a long time since I last blogged, mainly due to exams and Christmas getting in the way! I haven’t been climbing too much over the last few months as my finger injury is still giving me problems, but I’ve been finding the time to relax and do other things like eating, sleeping and route setting!
After a busy Christmas and new year split between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Melrose, it was back to Glasgow to spend time with my family and climb a bit at TCA. I managed to get through to the new wall a fair few times during first semester and really enjoyed having a fantastic new facility to explore, so I was keen to spend some more time there whilst in my home city.
I had been offered the chance to do some route setting at TCA - which I was both excited and nervous about seeing as I had never really done it before! I had never used a drill or climbed up ladders much either, and given my clumsy disposition I was very anxious about being safe and sound and was eager to avoid falling off from a great height! However, I was helped through the route setting and safety procedures by Alan Cassidy, and gradually got more into the swing of things and was able to concentrate on the flow of the problems rather than worrying about not being safe!
Lots of people say it’s easy to set good routes and problems if you have been climbing for a while, as you will have acquired a large repertoire of varied movements and climbing styles, yet the hardest part for me was trying to make the problems accessible to people of all shapes, sizes and abilities.In a commercial climbing wall, the quality of the problems is extremely important, and I wanted to make sure that they would not only be “climbable” but also enjoyable and thought-provoking I.e. a bit funky!
My first session of setting involved stripping old problems and setting new oranges around v3/v4. I felt as though I was speeding up a bit with each problem I set, but equally I was trying hard not to compromise on the quality! I ended up with 3 decent problems which were forerun by Rob Sutton and Alan Cassidy - all in all a successful day of learning!
The next time I came in everything seemed to flow a lot easier and I got more into the rhythm of setting everything up and working out a sequence that flowed. I tried my best to think about keeping moves relatively small for shorter climbers, although at times I think I may have accidentally neglected to think about the taller people! I suppose it could be seen as payback for when I was a tiny little kid and I struggled with big reaches - I know how hard it is when you are limited in reach and you are faced with ridiculously large moves! At the MCofS GB Team training session on Friday 6th January it was great to see all the kids testing out my problems and hearing what they had to say - the girls enjoyed my crimpy yellow, the boys loved the slopey one and there were mixed views on the heinous mantle up the corner! I was satisfied with the range of different styles across these problems and I now feel more confident in my new skills
Training-wise I have been climbing circuits on big, finger-friendly holds and doing some core training and pull up workouts. I am really looking forward to an end of semester trip to Spain depending on how our exam timetable turns out. I am also keen to climb well in the upcoming TCA and Ratho boulder competitions and the BUCS championships and CWIF in Sheffield, depending of course on the state of my injury at these points.
Off to do some work now then Ratho tomorrow!