[John Cooke]

Have been practising this recently or at least trying to, playing around on The Tiny Slab at Burbizzle Nozzle. Paying particular attention to squeaking my shoes, keeping my heels low, staying relaxed and trusting the friction, etc...

It was quite a disturbing and demoralising experience  ???

The most notable thing that it felt very random as to whether a smear would stick. For example on something I found tricky, the same smear in what felt like the same position, could slip immediately 5 times, then stick perfectly 5 times....whoop I've got the feel? No....then slip immediately 5 times... Hard to let it sink into my brain when it behaves differently.

The things that did have some consistency: Tightening my shoes helped noticably. And if the smear didn't feel right (even if it looked identical to the previous times it was used), it was more likely to go.

Ho hum, more practise again and again...

Buy yourself some decent shoes Fiend, i'm guessing you were wearing either those five ten Newton things or your mad rock phoenix's  ??? Just look at the types of shoes uber slab meisters wear, you won't see a single pair of punter boots with laces right the way down to the toes.

[Krank]

What shoes would you recommend for slab climbing then?

[Dave Flanagan]

Johnny Dawes might actually have a valid scientific point with his meta-physics electro-wire tube thing.  With the stability. 

A lot of standard smearing advice tells you to get as much surface area in contact with the rock as possible - "to maximise the friction".  If you have a constant normal force uniformly distributed over a surface area of constant coefficient of friction, supported by a constant friction force then it doesn't matter how much planar surface area you;'ve got - the friction is the same.  Unless there's somehting funny going on with vectors, or supporting a torque through friction, or uneven friction or surface shape and no doubt a whole host of other real life disclaimers. 

Supple materials like rubber don't follow the normal laws of friction. ie. for rubber friction is proportional to the (apparent) contact area.

[Paz]

Do you know what law they do follow then?  A nonlinear one? 
That's just the leading order approximation anyway, and the stability benefit of more area still holds, though I probably over sold it. 

With the shoes thing - when you're about to trust a really small foot hold you don't want to feel your feet moving within the boot. That's why I get really small shoes anyway.  Blatantly you're talking 5.10 pinks or velcro's as the classic slab boot.

[Ballsofcottonwool]

you needs boots that fit really well, i swear by my 5.10 dragons the old velcro ones. either that or superglue a sheet of rubber straight onto your skin.

[Fiend]

Buy yourself some decent shoes Fiend, i'm guessing you were wearing either those five ten Newton things or your mad rock phoenix's  ??? Just look at the types of shoes uber slab meisters wear, you won't see a single pair of punter boots with laces right the way down to the toes.

HAH! Admittedly was wearing resoled Sapphires....still, you seen what those old boys climbed in clogs and plimsols.

I wear Newtons for smeary routes - perfect fit and worn down so the top is pretty soft.

The thing is, I could either wear Newtons / Sapphires in a size 6 that fit perfectly and feel good, or I could get Stazis in a size 7 that would be like wearing pointy galoshes as there is no way in hell they fit as I can't get my toes to the end - I have tried!! Maybe I will try again, but I doubt my feet will have changed that much.

[Johnny Brown]

I agree, well-worn Newtons make for a great smearing boot. Its also worth noting for smearing you don't want them too tight; today James and I were both consciously loosening the velcro on our boots, mainly to allow you to bend the toe easily when high stepping, and also allows a deeper heel drop. Obviously tight and stiff for edging though...

[Fiend]

For example, take something as pure as, say, Angel's Share.

How prophetic 

I have kept practising. Not on the Eagle Tor slab obviously, but on the easy slab beneath Burbage West, the easy slab left of the 3 Pockets at Roaches (surely the easiest V3 in the universe - big holds everywhere!), and on the Lone Boulder (which I think is my favourite single boulder). I don't know how much I've been improving but I've been enjoying it! And liking the feel of grit slopers and smearing. I also did Satin the other day, which I'd never really considered trying before - it was pretty easy as there's actually good holds on it! But well scary though 

[Fiend]

And again... Went to Stanage, soloed Sleepwalker (had to drop off the start once as my shoe had picked up some grit) and Daydreamer (flashed). One thing I used on both of these was inspired by Adam Brown on the Angel's Share video - starting with a hand palming the slab with the fingers facing horizontally inwards, which is easier turned into a mantel....something new I've learnt despite many years climbing!

I also tried Shock Horror Slab and couldn't even come close despite dozens of attempts in good conditions - can I have some vague beta hints please?? Currently have LH on shitty pebble at full stretch (a bit right of the blunt rib), RH on skin-shredding ripple/tiny pebble 2' to the right. Step left foot onto the good break under the overlap, rock up and bear down like a mofo on the RH, reach LH up to rubbish sloper or obvious pebble above and fall over backwards. Or one time when I tried to reach for a slightly larger rubbish sloper to the right, and my RH pinged and took a chunk out of my thumbnail... Utterly desperate, I tried other combinations of pebbles, the rib, etc etc, but this is the only one I could actually get off the ground with  ???

[dave]

i can't remember owt about shock horror other than it ain't easy, and the day i first did that and daydreamer it was blowing a gale and was shitting it at the top. i think i even cut loost on the middle section of shock horror.

dunno if it helps but at the start of shock horros theres a hold over right (nearly at the edge of the rock) which can be useful and a lot of people miss.

[Fiend]

Was blowing a hoolie today. Had some near-logging action on the top of Daydreamer <where is the wobbly looking smiley?>

The hold out right on Shock Horror, yeah I saw one, a shallow pocket thing. I just thought since the guide was clear about no boulder, that one was supposed to start very direct. That hold could have helped...

[Bonjoy]

The guides always say go direct and I know at least on person who has, but IMO opinion the fully direct start without holds out right is harder than the start of Shirleys, I doubt the FA will have done it this way and given it Eng 6b!

[Fiend]

Ta for that.

What we really need is a new Stanage guide to sort out such obscurities 

[Johnny Brown]

IMO opinion the fully direct start without holds out right is harder than the start of Shirleys

I wouldn't go that far, it is tough though. Bancroft once said to me he thought E1 6b was the biggest sandbag in the guide, not sure I'd agree though.

[AndiT]

Friction is greatest at it's limit. So when your foot pops this means that you've just overstepped the mark. It's a bit like learning to do a handstand, you need to go over a few times before you can get that balance point, so in sliping off you could actually be helping yourself as long as you don't get demoralised.

Slabs at the back of Ramshaw are a good practice spot as you can 'wander' all over them at different grades and practice different things. When you feel good, pop up to Force Nine and put your practice into action.

[GCW]

When I wanted to improve my slab skills I just did lots of slabs in my crappest boots (Fires at the time).  I think it improves your technique a fair bit trying to squeeze every drop of friction from low friction rubber.  Precision in the feet. 
Then when you put your good boots on.....

[andy popp]

The talk of Shock Horror reminds me of the classic photo of JA on Shirley's, itself a reminder than on most grit slabs you also have to push and pull. There's very little pure padding in Britain and you still have to 'bear down' to a certain extent. On grit this means learning how to hold pebbles properly.

[Johnny Brown]

Yeah, brilliant photo! Have you learnt the inverted forefinger pebble mantel yet Fiend?
The other thing that might help is a copy of Fawcett on Rock if, god forbid, you haven't already seen it.

[(woz)]

The other thing that might help is a copy of Fawcett on Rock if

Especially if Satin is the slab you want the skills for - "don't tread in the snow"! Great book.

[Fiend]

The other thing that might help is a copy of Fawcett on Rock if, god forbid, you haven't already seen it.

Haha  Don't worry I have a copy, have read it 2 or 3 times in the past, and yes it's been my bible for the last week....The Numbers  . Seriously, that's the sort of stuff I'd see before and think "Hmmm....really!", Satin always looked nails in that....although he does use a pretty duff sequence, doesn't seem to use the lower left foothold nor the right hand pebble at all 

Yeah, brilliant photo! Have you learnt the inverted forefinger pebble mantel yet Fiend?

Hmmm yeah that photo is brilliant. I look at that and think "How is he attached to the rock?". In a way that I'd look at, say, Action Direct, and not question attachment. I'm working up to the inverted forefinger pebble mantle 

[Johnny Brown]

Satin always looked nails in that....although he does use a pretty duff sequence,

Well if you can already climb better than Ron what's the thread for??

[Houdini]

Nothing to add other than getting better at slab climbing using poor boots and poor rubber strikes me as gash advice, not looking at your feet after placement is great advice; slabs are about feeling, not looking.   (My first boots positively held me back for a month when I first started.) 

Slab climbing is still where it's at.

[GCW]

Don't think I made myself clear there.  Sorry.
What I was getting at was being accurate and precise with your feet.  I wasn't suggesting you should rush out and buy shite boots!!  Just that I had crap boots and learnt to use my feet well because of it.
As I said before, practice practice.  Learn to use the rock properly.

Is Onyx all it's cracked up to be?  Need new boots and may have to branch out from my perpetual Anasazi usage....

[Houdini]

Point understood.  I think onyx will be on all 5.10 soon.  Is that right?  Worm vouches for onyx.

[butters]

The Anasazis, Galileos and the Verdes all use the new Onyx rubber - will leave it to others to comment on whether it is better or not though as I am not good enough to judge IMO. 

bluebrad