Current thoughts on coaching and teaching my system for declumsification through frictioneering
Leading on actual rock, unclimbed ideally, was always far and away the best thing to me. Just the solving of moves, however interesting, always gave second best, for me, to setting off up into uncharted terrain, a rack of protection at my side, someone relatively trustworthy on the end of the ropes.
Sport climbing was fun up to a red point. The nitty gritty fell out of it for me a bit though when after the moves were done again and you had to struggle to clip a chain rather than top out, sit down, relax and enjoy the view. I always found it a touch underwhelming however profound the relief, or chuffed with what I’d pulled off.
Like Gran, the universe probably knows best for it’s children. If we can chose exactly what we want, we end up with the past. what good does that do us in comparison? Happening at it’s best can outdo any choice at it’s best.
Not everything that is popular is ideal. Trawling youtube will show you that. In the category of hyper popular cliché, Clare de Lune by Debussy remains more unsullied by popularity than any equivalent I can think of. When someone’s really there with the moon and the piano, the lid chromatic, Claude’s inspiration remains resilient on the page whatever toss it’s selling. Even a stone wall in a street can house a little adventure but maybe not, if we change it from how it stands unintended as a venue, chipping it to suit ourselves.
I am always frictioneering, on safari. If a problem or two catches fire, we all end up with a whole new area, if written up in the new routes book, to mess about on. What wild game will we come across over the next ridge, on a red box full of books or along an unexplored culvert? Bas cuvier?
…one shocking day, amazingly, (as is most often the case) mostly the rain holds off. Stan and I set off dissuaded today from exploring the dank quarries in and exposed cliffs on the hills… to make a film.
A metre high commemorative sandstone block greets us first. I have done a # jump on it to a tensioned combo of horizontal sloper and ramp. I remember it well enough to relive it in it’s dry state. Later a low wall of slim slate blockettes will offer countless # drop and # hang options to try but also a traverse fit to be called a boulder problem. In between there are a whole set of - in running shoes - difficult to read grinds on benches under different states of repair and wetness. Nearby them in a playground there’s an opportunity to traverse excellent smears on the sides of ankle high granite stepping stones. They demand I # ’ollie’ into the greasy holds to magic up enough grip for a moment to segue on to others; impossible without pretending my hands go heavy at the right moment.
There is a slabby area down by the ponds - the ’Hall of Mirrors’ perhaps - just right for practicing ‘smear or disappear’ as the 70’s climbers used to call outright friction climbing in Yosemite on the glacier apron. The area has a dangerous # leap over a steel bench into a skatey corner who’s faces slant at a different angle. It’s also got an extended steepening friction slab made from rough concrete flags which are interspersed with edges in breaks. Across a stream there is a # transition onto a smear beneath a tree, good enough I hope to swap on and leap again to the top of a natty block.
Last I mustn’t leave out a grand problem by the car park; a step into a # statue: left hand/right foot only layback on the edge of a building with a 45 degree bevel. It is also a # hot rock. These special problems or a way of taking more care are done when you imagine everything but the holds to be as hot as lava. Thinking of that repelling surface gives me an extra perspective helping me to recognize when I’m finally imagining the target shape properly).
Nimrod on, I hope Elgar is proud.
That was a frictioneering safari. A lot of those problems though only a few feet high are quite dangerous! If you try this stuff it’s obviously you who took the risk. I hope you are inspired too though. Take a mat into the park or toprope off a tree.
Now I want to switch to talk about frictioneering’s natural precursor, declumsification. The classroom version with specific tasks to point out principles. Just recently for some ‘zeitgeisty’ reason, certainly without signficant advertising up until now, I’ve started to land more clients, whom most have also returned for more.
My hope is that at a certain point people can tell the difference between a common a garden legend, someone skilled at social media and recognize with discernment a coach who cares about what he does, who’s fully confident in delivering the good stuff.
My clients are a varied bunch from one who went on to become a world champion boulderer who doesn’t remember the two sessions we did to a whole university club who I’d forgotten had made me their honorary president. One directs a stock exchange. Another my age, plateaued, wants to take his main pleasure and finally do it as well as he can.
The most unusual challenge to my method has been my reacquaintance with Nik Royale who has cerebral palsy. He wants me to help him win a paraclimbing competition, in doing so win a platform fit to flag up wheelchair access issues. My approach in person - I detect - has reached a certain maturity so I can now adapt this same skeleton of principles and tune it for each of these.
Declumsification through frictioneering is a two stage process for developing fine coordination; a school to practice and embody a domino run of precision principles followed by real world games to test if they are all falling in together. Both involve the same icons and colour coded maps of grip and gravity to describe them.
To help as many as possible offer online mentoring; by live feed and structured plans will be available at frictioneering.co.uk.
A game to explore coordination is also in the air; technique in a tin on sale at all good climbing gyms. After you’ve got the hang of declumsification’s specific single move drills labelled games can guide you further. If we can learn to move very fast, map quicker, develop our coordination to become robust under stress
Where a single move shows us we understand and have embodied principle - what’s required to marshall grip against gravity efficiently, frictioneering games encourage us to deal with that stuff in it’s wild complexity wherever, however it springs from nature. Natural forms are seldom ‘set’ with flattering continuous movement already embedded like is set to make the olympics more interesting.
A fresh mistake is a tremendously good sign. It means success may be close, a bigger mess up possible in the future and so an even bigger success and so on until your heart stops. It’s good fun being encouraged to beast yourself by needless but compelling challenges bursting out from one’s immediate environment.
Coaching eyes absent, a simple dice and list of variations can chose a certain game to modify how we explore. Throw a superb juggler an extra ball beyond their number and they’ll soon look rubbish again. Give your competitor an option to point out one’s mistakes to their gain and you might learn from that, particularly if their pointing out comes with the bonus of an extra go. You can’t be on form unless you know the target form is good. So…improve your in-formation. Without bearing gravity in mind, in terms of angle and pull, our per-formance will lack.
If a particular game suits you better each game has a level to offer you a reward. It can also kick you where it hurts. Yardsticks with precise scores and yes or no results, or mentally imagined gauges to reflect on allow anyone to measure their progress while playing alone.
Cards can win an advantage or throw a spanner in the works. Flip a card to see what mood the alcoholic playwright gremlin is in! Does help or hindrance lie in store for you today?
It’s good news though whatever. Knowing what, how and when to move can be learnt by most anyone. Observation, Imagination and Listening to our body are three ways to help us improve. The letters in bold spell out OIL. People work on the machine of the body. Both systems are ways to help it work without going wrong. With motivation, commitment, and attention to the right details, moving beautifully - by a path of least action - can become almost automatic, at least as simple as a set of traffic lights.
Stop - Wait …. Go
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