Thursday, October 27, 2011

Gravitational pull

Have been vaguely following gravity wall's development despite myself and having now frequented a lesser version of a dedicated bouldering centre over here I'd actually be pretty excited about it. It's impressive how a bit of space and multiple angled/volumed walls can change the indoor climbing thing back closer to the playground spirit that climbing should always involve. I currently have to make a determined effort to climb on the 45' steep training wall as otherwise I'm just distracted by all the bright colours and weird shapes of the sparsely-holded other sections (though the steep wall also doesn't have very many woodies, which i have an unlikely fondness for.) And they seem to rejig a section of the wall practically every week which means there's always something new to go at. Time wise they open here early enough that people go before work and stay open until half ten every night. And i assume gravity will have equivalent hard training facilities alongside all the fun sections like the works.

I'm curious to see where all this leaves the cooperatives which need a minimum membership before the price just gets exorbitant. Will there be cooperative loyalty? should there be? Who will be the tipping point? Also what happens if gravity doesn't find the broader market its looking for? 120 ( who knows) boulderers is not a market.

Mightily looking forward to getting outdoors when i get home, might even get Sparkle out climbing, all the dads.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

have settled into a rough routine of day on day off in the arch. unlike back in the coop, sessions tend to be at least 2 hours and my body complains if i go multiple days on. realised today i haven't got up anything harder than V4 which makes me think i am a lot weaker than i was. Then again i never used any grades in the coop and equally i suspect i always punched above my indoor weight when i was outdoors, or under-punched indoors or whatever. I'm getting used to using the volumes on the wall here, the range of possibilities in approaching a problem are both intriguing and mildly frustrating. I initially was leaving them out of problems thinking they weren't "in".

I had forgotten that the coop naturally contained a sample of people who were into bouldering, and interested in the coop on some level as a means to an outdoors end. The arch is a sort of UCD of bouldering, with a lot of people climbing at lower grades (V1/2) and just there for the climbing gym element. This isn't an elitist observation more that in my billy-no-mates state I'm often quietly looking to other people's efforts on problems to help figure my way up them and i have found myself in weird ability gap with few people making repeated attempts on the problems i'm trying.

Also people keep referring to problems as routes. I'm not sure if this is cultural or just people who have never been into routes proper so don't distinguish, but it jars with me in a grammar nazi kind of way.

There are many more girls climbing here, which seems to increase the number of lads with no tops on, shivering stoically.