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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

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Grades, Egos, and Public Exhibiton

Take!

16-Mar-2008
12:12:09 PM

ADHD has always stopped me from trying a route more than 3 times before seeing something else more interesting. I think of my real climbing ability (and that of friends) in terms of onsight/flash or even 2nd shot grade.

An exception to he ADHD thing is a great day with mates at a bouldering locale. We can set up camp at a problem, eat/drink/chat and generally bash our heads against the problem all afternoon. This can be fun and rewarding for all.
However, once again, I think of my real bouldering ability in terms of onsite/flash/2nd shots.

Then again, bouldering's popularity did seem to explode with the coming of the Ritalin generation - go figure.


wallwombat

16-Mar-2008
1:17:26 PM

I tend to agree with Take! . I don't mind sieging the crap out of boulder problems and having repeated goes but doing the same with routes ends up boring me silly. I don't really boulder much anymore but I still don't mind working problems when I do.

One Day hero

17-Mar-2008
5:26:26 PM

I find that the energy I'm willing to expend trying a route is proportional to how cool the route is. A three day siege on taipan wall doesn't seem like a chore at all, whereas three goes on something at south central feels like a day which could've been better spent.

I've always been a bit suspicious of people who can spend months working short little dogshit coloured routes in skank caves, but each to his own. It's a bit like a guy who goes out with really ugly girls.....either there's something he knows which you don't or he just needs his eyes checked!

mockmockmock

17-Mar-2008
7:11:00 PM

Numbers:

I've often been told I can spend every weekend working on climbing a particular 26 clean.. That doesn't mean I can climb 26. It just means I can climb THAT 26. I might still only onsight 21.

Ralph

Ronny

18-Mar-2008
8:59:50 AM

On 17/03/2008 mockmockmock wrote:
>Numbers:
>
>I've often been told I can spend every weekend working on climbing a particular
>26 clean.. That doesn't mean I can climb 26. It just means I can climb
>THAT 26. I might still only onsight 21.
>
>Ralph

Yeah but that doesn't mean you can climb 21. It just means that you can climb THAT 21. You might still only climb 18 blind-folded. But that doesn't mean you can climb 18. It just means you can climb THAT 18 blind-folded. You might still only climb 12 one-handed...

(oh, sorry. I forgot this is Chockstone favorite topic #4 "why sport climbing is bad", not Chockstone favorite topic #6 "why onsight is the only 'real' way to tick a climb")

Seriously though... sure there are wankers who like dogging routes for the perceived kudos, but red-pointing a climb after a protracted sessions is a perfectly valid approach, and one which a lot of people get a lot out of. I spent about 5 months regularly trying the same route last year. It was supposedly 2 grades easier than my hardest red-point, and the people I was climbing with most days would warm up on it. There certainly wasn't any kudos to be had. But finally sending it in September was awesome. Really awesome.

Of course there are plenty of d*cks around yelling and screaming and loudly proclaiming that they know they would have sent it easily if they hadn't campused so hard last night because its way easier than the mega-hard route they sent last weekend... but there are also plenty of people who just like red-pointing.

There are 25 messages in this topic.