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YCS Finals - EICA: Ratho
23 June 2012, 11:37 pm

Hey Guys!

Busy day at Ratho (330 competitors!!!)

What a day it's been. I've been at EICA: Ratho all day manning the Evolv boot demo stand whilst simultaneously coaching my kids taking part in the finals of the YCS. It's been pretty hectic and I can't quite put into words just how tired I am, it's a miracle I still have energy to write blogs and post pictures (although I just did down 8 Oreos with a glass of milk, that might have given me something extra :P ).

David Miedzybrodski getting ready to demo!

So, today is the day that 330 kids around the country have been looking forward to since the regional rounds finished. For Scotland that was earlier in the year (back in February) so for them it has been a longer wait. All the kids that I coach regularly have been training really hard for this day and I can say without a doubt that the rewards have more than certainly been reaped from their hard work.

Leo fighting the final route!

I got to the wall with Nat early in the morning to set up the stall for the boot demo. Most of the kids had arrived even by then for registration and warm up. I quickly got set up and then began my hunt for as many of my padawans as possible. Everyone seemed fired up and raring to go, there were a few signs of nervous excitement but nothing that posed too much of a worry. Everyone just seemed really happy to be at the final and to be competing with friends in such a fun and motivating environment. The atmosphere of Ratho was exhilarating to say the least, when you bring together so many psyched young climbers the aura of the place really blossoms.

Sam happy after a good performance

The kids that I coach regularly who were competing today included boys and girls in most of the Youth categories. To save writing a post of epic proportions of every detail from today I will put the end results below followed by a few key moments from the day:

E (2003-2004)

• Leo Harland-Sendra (Boys - 2nd)
• Ben Milne (Boys - 8th)
• Emma Davidson (Girls - 5th)

D (2001-2002)

• Matthew Fall (Boys - 13th)
• Thomas Ryan (Boys - 20th)
• Ben Findlay (Boys - 32nd)

C (1999-2000)

• Sam Harland-Sendra (Boys - 4th)
• Max Milne (Boys - 11th)
• Rory Cargill (Boys - 15th)
• Ewan Davidson (Boys - 21st)
• Rebecca Kinghorn (Girls - 1st)
• Rosie Mackley (Girls - 23rd)

A (1995-1996)

• Scott Keirr (Boys - 1st)
• Jack Gomersall (Boys - 16th)

 

In Youth E, young Leo was attending his first ever YCS final. I coach Leo and his brother Sam at Ratho most weeks and I can say without a doubt that the pair of them certainly have it in their genes. Their dad is french (which I reckon is where their awesome technique comes from) and they have a brilliant head for comps (apart from when Sam goes in a huff :P ). Leo did fantastically well placing 2nd and considering this is his first ever YCS Final, it's some achievement! It was really inspiring watching Leo flash all the boulder problems and do so well in all the routes. His style is very similar to that of top european competition climbers i.e. fast, strong, efficient. He doesn't waste any time and was probably the fastest of all the competitors on the field.

Spot The Difference :D

Scott happy with his victory! Sam in Youth C beat his previous result from last year (24th) by coming 4th! He wasn't just 4th, he was 1 point of 3rd place podium finish which is an excellent improvement from last year. The most impressive part of this was his comeback after fluffing up his second qualifier route, something which he was more than capable of flashing but made some little errors that cost him the top that would have placed him strongly in 3rd position.



I think though that although Scotland South won the team position against Scotland North, it was Scotland North that devastated the competition with three winners which I think might be a record for them?!?!?

Leo happy with his first ever YCS Final performance (2nd place!)

Scott Keirr (YA), Rebecca Kinghorn (YB) and Rebekah Drummond (YA) all came away with 1st place podium finishes. Scott has been focussing solely on his bouldering which I gave him a training program to follow for. His next big comp is the BBC's which he is hoping to crush and show the British Bouldering Team Managers what he is made of. Rebecca Kinghorn in usual style creeped her way to the top in a slow but strong style. Her ability to lock on tiny edges amazes me! And finally Rebekah Drummond has proven that hard work and training pays off as well as an insatiable hunger for success. Winning the YCS was a big goal for Rebekah this year and since she started training, she has been making massive steps to becoming the top female climber in Scotland - lets see where she takes it from here :)

Rebekah chuffed with her victory in Youth A Girls - What's next for the young climbing prodigy?

In the end, there were no tears, maybe a few disappointed faces but everyone improved from previous results which is all we can ask for, that and to have fun :D I'm now as psyched as ever to see were all these amazing youth climbers are going to take their climbing in the next year - only time will tell...

 

ROBZ OUT

TOP RESULTS +

SCOTTISH RESULTS

 

GIRLS E

• Emily
  
  Verry
• Emma Futcher
• Robin Casey
• Caitlin Storie (16th)
• Katie Moore (20th)
• Rachel Eadie (26th)
• Stephanie Millar (28th)

BOYS E

• William Wakefield
• Leo Harland-Sendra
• Sam Lavender
• Ben Freireich (7th)
• Ben Mine (8th)
• Louis Langlands (10th)
• Evan Rasmussen (12th)
• Miles Davis (22nd)

GIRLS D

• Sienna Wong
• Rhiannon Freireich
• Lydia Wright
• Keri Maclennan (4th)
• Emma Davidson (5th)
• Holly Davis (22nd)
• Roxana Elgar (26th)
• Emma Halliwell (30th)
• 

BOYS D

• Flynn Thomas
• Rory Whyte
• Elliot Verry
• Rhys Langlands (5th)
• Matthew Fall (13th)
• Thomas Ryan (20th)
• Evan Davis (31st)
• Ben Findlay (32nd)

GIRLS C

• Rebecca Kinghorn
• Grace Fidler
• Isabella Hough
• Kirsten Taylor (4th)
• Keira Farmer (8th)
• Amy Ryan (11th)
• Claudia Charlwood (13th)
• Rosie Mackley (23rd)

BOYS C

• George Morris
• Aiden Dunne
• Cameron Mcloughlin
• Sam Harland-Sendra (4th)
• Max Milne (11th)
• Robert Davidson (14th)
• Rory Cargill (15th)
• Ewan Davidson (21st)
• Dougie Fraser (33rd)

GIRLS B

• Micky Banert-Lucas
• Ellissa Bryant
• Chloe Ross (joint 3rd)
• Kate Seaborne (joint 3rd)
• Emily Eadie (9th)
• Eilidh Vass Payne (9th)
• Megan Saunders (14th)
• Jodie Brown (22nd)

BOYS B

• Peter Dawson
• Jamie Rankin
• Luke O'Dwyer
• Ivan Bialy (21st)
• Jamie Peden (28th)
• Calum Hall (30th)

GIRLS A

• Rebekah Drummond
• Ellie Rymer
• Christie Macleod
• Sophie Fitchett (12th)
• Kaitlyn Garratley (22nd)

BOYS A

• Scott Keir
• Orrin Coley
• Dean Taylor
• Malcolm Bradley (12th)
• Jack Gomersall (16th)
• Fraser Mcilwraith (19th)
• Matthew Harvie (25th)
• Alexander Bosie (29th)

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Cork Youth Climbing Club Coaching
24 June 2012, 7:57 pm

Hey Guys

Today was another fun day at the big EICA. After all the excitement from yesterday I was unsure of how many of the kids would be there for a second day... turns out a lot! Nat and I were coaching a big group of Irish kids who had come through for their first taste of Ratho and the YCS Finals. None of these kids had competed before and most had only been climbing for a year but they were all mega psyched and keen to rip up the walls of Ratho.

CORK YOUTH CLIMBING CLUB

The format for the day was to cover good warm up tactics for competition, get a bit of practice on-sighting on the long Ratho walls, have another go on some of the routes and boulders from the comp, and finally listen to me lecturing on the mental zone (a presentation I ran for the Elite Team earlier on in the year).

The kids in the group today included 5 young beasts from Cork, David, Luke, Cormac, Hannah and Yasmine. It was good seeing the level these kids have achieved with relatively little experience climbing and with such small facilities in the south of Ireland. I think this speaks volumes for the support they get from their parents and coaches who work with them regularly i.e. Damien O'Sulliven and Neal McQuaid.



David was older than the rest of the Cork crew and was climbing at a really high standard. In Youth A David placed 11th overall, pretty awesome considering he hasn't been climbing that long. I watched that day as he continued to impress looking very close at on-sighting several 7c's and 7b+'s as well as giving the super final (8a) that was never used a good blast at the end of the day!

Cormak, Hannah, Luke and Yasmine all had a fantastic day too. We started of with some on-sight practice on a cheeky 6b that they all got very high up on before falling with the exception of Yas who attempted a fun 5+ and did really well.

Later in the afternoon, I ran a presentation/lecture on the mental zone, a topic quite close to my heart. Sport psychology is something i have great interest in and its been fun implementing all that I have learned to the coaching of young climbers. The Irish kids grasped the concepts I was discussing well and I think it will make a big difference to the way they view competitions, climbing and performance on a day to day basis.

Altogether this has been a good weekend and meeting the Cork crew was excellent. I am hoping that we can build a good relationship between the Cork Team and our Scottish crew for future training events and competitions :D

ROBZ OUT

 

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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STOATS PORRIDGE BARS!!!
4 July 2012, 8:05 pm

GO OATY!

Hey Guys

Big news for Natalie and I! We have both acquired a fun and exciting new sponsor to further support our climbing careers. This new sponsor of ours is an Edinburgh based company that many of you may have heard off due to their massively popular snacks, the Stoats Porridge Bars!

Me and Natalie first became fans of these oaty bars whilst training at EICA: Ratho. We are always on the lookout for tasty healthy snacks to eat during our training sessions that provide optimum energy release throughout the whole day as well as keeping us light and not too full. The Stoats Porridge Bars quickly became our food of choice and have been fueling our training sessions ever since.

The story of Stoats is of two young lads that hitting music festivals with their mates and burdened with the constant lack of a healthy snack that they could take with them that would keep them going strong all day long. This was when the first idea of Stoats arrived, initially as them selling Porridge out of their mobile porridge bar, it grew and grew with new ideas for products and eventually they struck gold with their immense idea of a porridge bar!

These days there is yet more to the company than just porridge and bars! They sell all sorts of goodies including oat based breakfast cereal, oatcakes and cute little mini porridge bars.

Oaty Beta!

As with many cereals, the health benefits of oats are widely talked about, with new research being published on a regular basis. It is now known that oats can help stabilise blood sugar levels with their low GI, slow release energy – this makes them particularly good for those at risk of type 2 diabetes. They are also a rich source of beta glucan – a type of fibre that is known to lower cholesterol and can reduce the risk factors associated with coronary heart disease.



Nat and I are really excited to be involved with such a unique product and innovative company and are really looking forward to bringing tasty oaty goodness to the climbing community.

ROBZ OUT

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Yorkshire is "Supercool"
23 July 2012, 12:06 am

Hey Guys!

The last 3 days has been fun from start to finish. Nat and I have been away on a short trip to the UK sport climbing mecca of Yorkshire. As much as we love hopping on planes and jet setting off to sun baked crags in central Europe, we still find ourselves coming back to the land of puddings, rippers and grumpy farmers. To be frank, you can't go that wrong when you've got a 30minute drive radius from three of the biggest and best limestone crags in the country (Kilnsey, Malham and Gordale).

I have spent only a few days in Kilnsey and that was a number of years ago now. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to visit this time but I'm looking forward to future trips. Malham is where I have spent most of my time in Yorkshire and I can't quite get enough of it. Everytime I go there I find new routes that entice me, keeping that flame for Malham burning. Until this trip I had never actually climbed at Gordale crag, but if you read on you'll hear that I am glad I didn't leave it any longer.

Day 1 - Malham on the Upper Tier

Three of us (myself, Nat and Will Carroll) drove down on the Friday afternoon to make it there by the evening. It was a leisurely journey with a few hours spent in Penrith dining at a very nice Italian restaurant Will had recommended. The following day we were meeting up with pro photographer and film maker Jen Randall as she was wanting to film Nat for an upcoming climbing movie. As well as Jen, we were also meeting up with some old friends Chris and Catherine Speakman who are lucky enough to live in the village of Settle only 10minutes drive from Malham!!!

Nat climbing "L'obsession" (7c+) - Photo by Will Caroll

As we were there for only a short while we decided to do quicker ticks on easier routes (that and everything else was wet). We headed up to the Upper tier and attempted our first routes of the trip, "Herbie" (7c+) for myself and Nat, and "Obsession" (7b+) for Will. I had a good onsight burn on "Herbie" falling off high into the final crux whilst Nat's on her flash attempt was similar, falling only a couple of moves lower down. We both busted it out on our second attempt without much trouble, both climbing it in very different styles:

Nat - Slow, precise and completely statico!!!

Robbie - Fast, fluid and definitely not static :P

It's crazy watching Nat climb the same moves as me but in her own unique style. When I climb dynamically, she is generally very controlled. A good example of this was half-way through the crux on "Herbie" - you take a positive, fat pinch with your right hand and pull through to an even better pinch with your left. For me this was a big move and one that I preferred to do quickly... Nat just latched that pinch with vice-like grip and continued to lock slowly from straight arm to a completely full lock before she slowly release her left hand and eased it up to reach the next pinch with as much control and precision as a robotic arm in one of those Xsara Picasso adverts (I think she's from outer space - that or an android from the future).

Jen + Nat filming - Photo by Will Caroll

Will had already started battling with "Obsession" (7b+) alongside Chris who had joined us for the day. Nat and I moved onto our next climb for the day, a spicy little number recommended by a fellow climber at the crag, "L'Obsession" (7c+). I was keen to try my hand at onsighting this as I had made quite a good attempt on "Herbie". Unfortunately I didn't quite make it, I fell off on the last move of the crux (but only just). After climbing through and to the top I feel that if I had made the move I would actually have done the climb from there, but hey ho, thats just how the ball rolls in this old game we call onsight climbing.

It was Nat's turn now, I gave her as much beta as I could and she went for the flash attempt - this I think was the best climbing I saw all weekend! Nat cruised the crux making it look about 6a and then pathed up to the last clip at which point she got confused, I forgot what holds she was to use and she kind of gave up. She had an amazing burn on the flash, it's the best climbing I have seen her do at Malham and everyone was super impressed. Feeling as though I better do something quick before she burns me off again, I mustered up some psyche and quickly despatched "L'obsession" on my second try (it felt a lot easier after watching Nat climb it so well). Nat had a second go burn on it but unfortunately messed up then end more due to lack of skin than anything else in my opinion.

It was time to call it a day, so we headed back to camp and rested well before tomorrows climbing...

Day 2 - Malham Filming

Today was not my day, this was mostly dedicated to Nat and her film crew :P Jen Randall and Dom Bush filmed Nat climbing "L'obsession" (on the send) early on then got some good footage of her attempting "Toadall Recall" (8a). I attempted to retro-flash this route placing the draws as my first route of the day. I first tried this climb about 3 years ago, only once and had forgotten everything about it mostly so I was very happy when I made it through all the hard climbing and fell stupidly from the final crimpy face section staring at the chains. It wasn't so bad as I did it second go and it felt quite steady for the grade.

Will high on "Obsession" (7b+)

Nat tried it after I set up the ropes for filming. I bigged her up for the flash as I thought it would suit her. In general I think it did suit her style, but sometimes its difficult to tell if certain moves that I find "not too bad" won't be too shouldery or powerful for her. There is a big difference between girls and guys generally and although Nat could be stronger than me on some route types, powerful and shouldery moves are always going to be easier for me thanks to my height and genetically superior upper body strength (because I'm a guy). There was one move (the crux) up high that Nat basically couldn't reach without an insanely awkward and very contorted hand sequence - the move for me was a basic right hand press to reach a good crimp, hardly even worth calling the crux once I figured out the best foot beta.

Will was making fantastic progress on "Obsession" and had successfully made one of the coolest moves I've ever seen apart of his routine sequence (see pic). On the last attempt of the day, after he literally said to me whilst tying his climbing shoes "I'll just take the draws down when I reach the top", he made the send! It was a good climb and I can quite happily say that I think it was the best I've seen Will climb in all the years I've known him - GOOD JOB!

Will's crazy move!

Day 3 - Gordale... GOARN!!!!!!!!

GORDALE IS A VERY WOODY WORD ISN'T IT!?!?!?!

As I said before, I have never actually climbed here before yet I have heard so much about it! I have suffered years of friends telling me epic tales of climbing in the mega crag of Gordale. Fights 30+ metres up on "Supercool" (8a+) and other such giant routes that call Gordale home.

Me high on "Supercool" (8a+) - Photo by Will Caroll

Today I was keen to give this mega monolithic route a good go. I had a funny idea that I could give "Supercool" a good onsight burn, then hopefully do it second go, then try "Huecool" (8b) and hopefully do that second go too :P That would be a good day! Things never go quite as planned and if they had then I think I would probably be a little upset as I wouldn't have a totally awesome 8b to go back and try.

My onsight attempt on "Supercool" was really good! I made it fairly high into the route making it through the first crux and failing tickling the good hold on the second :( I felt it was not so bad as a second go would surely be on after working the moves a bit more. Realistically, I should have done this second go... I did all the cruxes and I was high up in the final few metres when I tickled a crimp a little lower than I had expected to get it which caused my nail to ping of the hold causing a sudden lapse of balance and sent me flying off the route. A wee bit angry with my stupid error, I got my "stuff" together and despatched 3rd try :D

I then quickly equipped "Huecool" (8b) knowing well that we hadn't much time left before we would head back home. "Huecool" was definitely a step up from "Supercool". I thought it odd though that the rock was very snappy, I figured this being a classic 8b with relatively a lot of traffic that the rock might have been a bit stronger... I quickly found out that this wasn't the case. I didn't get a good chance at working the crux properly but it felt pretty standard for an 8b crux (if a little bit tenuous) and I can't wait to get back there to finish it off!

Nat had a really good day at Gordale starting off with a mega flash burn on "Supercool" followed by an equally impressive second go attempt that saw her reaching the very final crux move (which she will need to figure out new beta for because it is obviously too spanned for her using my beta). After that she finished the day off onsighting the very awesome looking 7b+ "Revival" which she positively breezed up not accounting for the 100mph winds that day :P

Photo by Will Carrol

Will also had a good day making a great attempt at "Revival" falling on the final crux section. Other friends of ours at the crag today Chris and James spent their time working the beastly looking 7b "Last Dog". By the end of the day Chris got to add this to his ever increasing tick list of 7b redpoints.

Conclusion

Not a bad wee trip to Yorkshire. Our tick lists were healthy, we had lots of fun and we got some mighty fine pictures and films taken. Thanks to Will Caroll, Jen Randall, Dom Bush and Catherine Speakman for taking some amazing photos and film during the trip :D

And Special thanks to Catherine for standing on the edge of Gordale to get the shots - thats what I call going beyond the call of duty!

Photo by Catherine Speakman

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Gorge du Loup (Part 1)
5 August 2012, 10:58 am

So we've been in France now for almost a week but haven't actually done much climbing as of yet :/ Me and Nat drove to France with Alex Barrows in his awesome orange van with the aim of first heading to La Balme, a popular locals crag 5 hours from Nice and from there we would then head to Gorge du Loup, an even better locals crag with some steep and  hard lines to get stuck into.

Alex high on a 7c at La Balme

On first arriving at La Balme we found it to be insanely hot and humid. We had one days climbing there in which all three of us where pretty tired from the drive south and therefore not up to any hard climbing. This was further made harder with the fact that conditions where terrible, it could only be worse if the crag was sodden wet, but in reality, it was my hands that were continually dripping with sweat!

At La Balme, I came close on our first days climbing to doing a long 8a+ (I onsighted the original 7c+ first section) but it was just too hot and I was too tired. Alex did a 7c on the left hand side after much complaining of how hard it felt and Nat followed him with only one attempt at it. Not the best start, so we opted for a drive to Gorge du Loup earlier than expected to escape these hot temps.

We are now climbing at Gorge du Loup (Deverse Sector). We have only had two days climbing there so far but from what I have seen I am mega impressed. It's super steep, very gymnastic and bloody hard! I'm hoping it's because I'm still tired from traveling, I must admit that on todays rest day I have never felt so exhausted after two days climbing in my life... On the first day I did an 8a there called "Cascade" which in reality wasn't that hard, the holds were big, there were loads of kneebar rests but for some reason I just couldn't recover? I have been training had for this trip, harder than ever before and indoors I feel stronger than ever as well, but the initial transfer to outdoors has felt pretty abysmal. At the end of day 1 I tried and 8a+ called "Quossai" which I had marked down for an onsight attempt but upon trying it, each move felt like a V10 boulder and I thought it was impossible for me to climb...

Nat on the same 7c at La Balme

On Day 2, things perked up a lot! I tried "Quossai" and after having only had a brief play on the route the day before, I fell off this time in the final section more due to my stupidity than anything else. I decided to rest myself from trying this until after a rest day and instead to try the 8b/+ variation out left called "Soul Sacrifice". I did all the moves quickly and linked sections together on my first try but it felt very hard for a supposed 8b. I spoke to a local and he said that a few holds have broken from the bottom and middle section which have now bumped the grade up a bit. Before it was considered an 8b/+ so now it probably is 8b+.

Nat has been on fire, she did an 8a second try on her first day and got high up on the retro-flash of another 8a called "Sika" (named for an obvious feature of the roue). I am going to have a flash attempt after a rest day and hopefully she will do it as well.

We have been climbing and chilling alongside friends of ours from England, Slovenia and Germany who we've met up with here. Ed and Sam Hamer drove out here with fellow Sheffield based climber Ethan Walker. From Slovenia, Gasper Pintar and Izidor Zupan. And from Germany, my old pal from Siurana, king of jokes and a 9a beast, Daniel Jung.

It's good to be out here climbing with friends and pushing it hard on the rocks. Nat and I have been still felt really tired physically and mentally after our travelling experiences but thanks to a good supply of Stoats bars, oatcakes and Porridge we have been keeping ourselves strong!

Psyched for more climbing tomorrow!

ROBZ OUT

Nat hiding in a cave from Alex, he can't find her...

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Gorges du Loup (Part 2)
9 August 2012, 4:39 pm

So we have just had days 3 and 4 of climbing in the mega steep, mega drilled limestone sports crag of Gorges du Loup (Gorges of the Wolf). After days 1 and 2 of climbing here I thought perhaps it was just me, tired after a long drive south and experiencing a bit of travelers exhaustion. Now having climbed after a rest day, I am more convinced that the style here has more to do with the difficulties I am experiencing.

 

Climbing at Deverse sector in Gorges du Loup is a lot like climbing on a hard competition style route indoors. They are relentlessly difficult with long sustained sections and no real rests (unless your Alex Barrows and love knee bars). A lot of the climbing holds here are drilled finger pockets alongside tufa pinches and everything is from 15 degrees to 85 degrees overhanging. Resting is intense on these routes as you are always upside down in a knee bar whilst struggling with core body tension. Pain and blood rushing to the head are common themes of rests at Deverse. It's a constant struggle for survival on these routes and there are no techy tricks that can get you by the hard moves... it basically comes down to just pulling hard when your pumped. The subtleties in this crag are still there but they are of a different style to what I have accustomed myself in crags like Ceuse, Siurana and Malham - in these places you can find little foot placements that might aid you a lot with resting through a crux sequence or just allowing you to compose yourself. In Deverse subtleties are only there to help you pull your way to the next hold, a mistake or hesitation on these routes costs you everything because you now need to pull doubly hard to make the next move!

I feel that the training I put into this trip perhaps was misguided slightly. I was expecting this same style of climbing but not the length, so most of my training that was centred around anaerobic endurance was done a lot on shorter circuits with no rests and intensive moves. The circuits might last anywhere from 1-4 minutes depending on my focus, but these routes at Deverse are longer than that and the rests that you need drain you as well. It would have been much better if I had focussed more on longer circuits and more boulder (strength/power) training.

Anyway, the last two days have been better... I did a popular 8a+ called "Quossai" which I haven't seen anybody "walk up" (which is always nice to see). I attempted to flash another 8a that Nat did called "Sika" but had an abysmal attempt failing shy of the chains. I was by no means close though as the crux is at the end. I went to the top of the extension, an 8b which was really good but with one intersting exception... every hold bar one was drilled. It was probably the most basic route I have ever climbed, but I don't think just any 8b climber could do it - it would require a level of power endurance beyond the norm. There are no jugs, no hard moves and certainly no rests!

The good news is I almost did a Gorges du Loup 8b/+ called "Soul Sacrifice" which is definitely an apt name for it. I feel like to do this route one has to sacrifice their soul to the god of power endurance which I would be more than happy to do if it gave me the ability to climb these routes :P I fell off just below the chains but totally powered out - looking forward to attempts after a rest day :D

The final route of day 4 was "Hot Chilli X" (8c) which I have entered myself into alongside Izidor Zupan (Slovenian friend). Izidor is looking super strong on it and hopefully should do it before he goes home in a few days. Gasper Pintar, another slovenian friend did it a few days ago in an awesome display of pure fight, grit and determination. I was also really inspired watching the beast, Ed Hamer casually flash the bottom part of this route linking in with the 8a "Deverse Satanique" which he had climbed before. The link is given 8b+ and although you can't technically call it a flash, IT WAS!!! Ed belayed me on my first look at "Hot Chilli X", at the same time talking me through the moves. I can definitely see how this route is flashable for someone as strong as Ed, the holds are all positive, it's just the footholds that are non-existent. It is pure resistance climbing, no really hard moves, just lots of them and wait for it... NO REST!!!

I'm looking forward to finishing of "Soul Sacrifice" (8b/+) after another rest day and then hopefully putting my last remaining efforts into "Hot Chilli X".

ROBZ OUT



Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Gorges du Loup (Part 3)
19 August 2012, 8:46 am

It's amazing how quickly time flies when having fun...

That is as the saying goes but it's not entirely been true this trip. Time has flown by for me but I haven't been enjoying myself as much as I should have been. It's a common theme when pushing your own personal boundaries, when you're not going well, having fun seems to be a lot harder. What a stupid way to be though right? Why should having fun correlate directly with performing your best at the activity you are doing? It shouldn't realistically, I tell this to all the kids I coach every time they are competing or going for it outdoors... It's one thing giving the advice but it's another taking it...

When you put "All you eggs in one basket" it makes life a lot harder to enjoy when things don't go as planned. I had planned this trip to improve on Siurana (earlier this year) with potentially another 8c and hopefully another 8b+ or two. I was also hoping to step my onsight grade up a bit which has been somewhat lacking in attempts over the last year - but instead, I've probably had the most unsuccessful climbing trip since my first trip to Ceuse (which ended in basically no actual ascents harder than my warm ups)! So yes... initially I was very upset with my performance. Nat tried to help me but I am quite a difficult person to console when down in the dumps. But you can't spend the whole time sulking can you? Well I managed to, but life goes on :)

A week ago I did the classic 8a/+ of the crag "Deverse Satanique" and after a rest day, did the left hand variation of it as well called "Deverse SatanX" which goes at 8b. Young Buster Martin climbed this earlier in the year so I was really keen to check it out and see what it was all about. The climbing on the lower section shared with the 8a/+ was sustained and pumpy but with no hard moves - if there wasn't a rest before the split for the 8b then for sure it would make the last section feel a lot harder but thankfully there was a nice little "mushroom" shaped hold that provided the perfect shake before hitting the final head wall, a vertical wall on positive but small crimps and pockets. As most of you will know now from Facebook, Nat made "SatanX" her first 8b as well shortly after I did it in very quick succession. She is definitely capable of climbing a lot harder! Lets put it this way, if she spent as much time figuring out the perfect beta as some of the climbers at the crag, then she would climb 8c as quickly as she did 8b :P

Since climbing those awesome routes, I have tried a number of routes from 8b-8c and basically got spanked on every one. I fell off clipping the chains four times on one of them, and was making it to the end of another 8b falling just looking at the chains! I have never felt so totally out of my depth in a climbing area as I have here. For most of the trip my mind has been clouded by high expectations and a feeling that I really should be doing better than this, but it can't always go our way can it? If it did then we would never learn anything and therefore never progress...

The city lights below our beautiful camping spot...

We have two more days before we go home now - I am in the process of preparing my next training plan for after Kalymnos in October which should hopefully get me fit and strong for next spring. I am not going to make the same mistakes as this time for sure. I'll post my new plan as soon as I have finished with it for everyone to see and comment :D

ROBZ OUT

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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QuickDraw Club @ Hepburn
27 August 2012, 9:22 pm

On a beautiful sunny day, where better go than on a bouldering trip to Northumberland!



Yesterday, Neill Busby and myself went with the Edinburgh based kids climbing club, the QuickDraw Club, bouldering at the popular Northumbrian crag of Hepburn. I've been here twice before, once on a cool crisp winters day and again on stiflingly hot summers day. Sunday however was neither hot nor cold, it was pleasant enough and perfect conditions for a fun day of climbing on Northumberland sandstone.

Rory Whyte warming up on the classic cracks of Hepburn

The group of kids attending ranged in ability levels from top competition climbers eager for some hard sends to recreational youth climbers keen for a fun and sociable day out climbing with friends and family.

Jodie Brown warming up...

That is indeed what the QuickDraw club does so well, bringing the youth climbing scene in Edinburgh together so that both kids and parents can have fun climbing irrespective of grades and goals. QuickDraw meets are fun days out for everyone!

Kirsten on the F6C - She just latched the crimp and matched (The Crux)

Buz had been to Hepburn before as I had, last time with another group of kids, so he had already a good circuit of problems planned. The aim was to start off with some easier problems (good for warming up on) on a shorter boulder in the central area. The selection here was exceptional for the standard of kids we had, with a good range of blocs from F3 to F6C, everyone had something to go at. We all warmed up on two classic crack problems at about F3/4 - it got everyone moving well on rock again as crack aren't the most obvious of features to breeze up (unless your Tom Randall). After warming up a bit on those, Buz and I chose a couple of problems a bit harder for the kids to go at. I started off with a tricky F6A which I thought was more like F6C and another bloc to the right given F6C that I thought could be F6A, however the guide was 100% clear which ones were which, it even gave descriptions, so something was off there. A bunch of the kids flashed the apparent F6C whilst only one or two did the F6A :P

Adam Brown working his way up the flake!

After climbing at the main area we headed down for lunch, a QuickDraw Barbecue!!! These guys really know how to run a climbing trip! In between sessions at the crag just pop down for a sausage roll and some chicken soup :P YUM! Forgot to mention of course the fruit loaf :P

Like Father...

Like Son...

Next up Buz and I split the group, he took the older girls and boys whilst I took the younger kids. They headed up and around towards the upper section of Hepburn whilst my group headed towards the "Northern Soul" boulder, not before checking out a few blocs that I hadn't been to before but saw in the guide. Unfortunately thanks to the wet weather this year, all the greenery seems to have grown quite a bit, masking the "path" and making finding this elusive sector slightly trickier. We eventually found it and did a few class slab problems - the most exciting bit was when young Adam Brown was close to topping, when suddenly he slid down the face of the boulder straight into his dads arms :P He did it next go though!

Evan creeping his way up the slopers to the finishing jugs... just in sight! Don't worry, Grandad is spotting!

The "Northern Soul" boulder was too hard for the kids, however "Titanic Arete" boulder had a fun (and slightly green) F5+ for everyone, and back at the "Northern Soul" boulder was a smaller one in front that offered a few class blocs from F4-F6A. The trickiest bit about those are the top-outs (SLOPERS!!!) and for kids that boulder would be a high ball for sure :P I think we may have the future Kevin Jorgeson's of Scotland!

Declan slapping on "The Keel"

To finish off, we headed back along the crag to just beyond where we started. Everyone tried their hand at a number of problems, one in particular that was spitting everyone off left right and centre was "The Keel"! Not sure on the grade but it was an awesome feature that takes some compression ability (something the kids weren't used to) as well as mantling skills on slopers (again, something none of us are that used to).

We all packed up after that and headed back to the cars. Everyone was tired after the days climbing not to mention seeing a few raw tips. Everyone had a good day out in the end and I think I can speak for all when I say that "I can't wait until the next one" :P

Another good day out climbing, thats what sunny days are for :D

ROBZ OUT

Matthew in control on "The Keel"... but not for long :P

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Connor Moore - Rock Prodigy
12 September 2012, 3:06 pm

"As a Coach, my inspiration often comes from those I work with. Coaching kids in particular is incredibly fulfilling, especially with those that live and breathe climbing."   One boy I coach who has in my opinion, an affinity with climbing, is Connor Moore. He has just turned 11 years old and I have never met anybody who loves climbing as much as him. To say, being "obsessed" with climbing describes Connor, is a bit of an understatement... I'd say he defines the term "obsessed"! Anyone who remarks to his piano teacher that the difficult part of his piano recital is the crux obviously has climbing on the brain.

Connor and Katie Moore at SYCC's Connor has been training really hard this year. His goal was to make finals at the YCS earlier in the year but unfortunately, his regional category (Youth D) is one of the strongest I have ever seen with nearly every boy in the top 5 capable of making finals! Connor just missed out this year but thankfully it didn't hold him back, instead it only made him more determined.

Since then, he has been climbing in Spain (Siurana), demoed for YCS Finals and even beat me at speed climbing :P In Siurana earlier this year he showed his true abilities on rock by climbing 7a+ on one of the boldest, most daunting sectors of Siurana, El Cargol. To have achieved this at his age is amazing and goes to show what hard work and determination can do for you.

Connor battling it out in Siurana Connor has just redpointed his first 7b at Ratho as well (YCS Girls Youth C Final Route). This was a big project for him and he has finally completed it which was amazing to see :D Not only that, but on the same day he onsighted his first 6c on lead, another big accomplishment for him! This all happened two days before the Scottish Youth Climbing Championships, his last big competition goal for 2012. He had obviously peaked just in time for the competition and I was hoping he would do well. Here is an account from Connor himself:

 Connor Moore looking determined on his 7b project   08:45  First I came in and had a quick look at all the routes, then I got warmed up realising that they were not doing a group warm up! (THAT WAS ANNOYING!) I warmed up doing 1,2,3,4,5, then did some stretches and finished my warm up with 4* v1, then 2*v2.

  09:15 I route mapped my routes (black estimate 6c+ and a white 6a on the gore text wall).  The black looked really reachy over the gore text sign and at the final crux.  There were four cruxes overall.  Each crux used slopers and rockovers so I thought I would do ok.  The last move looked hard.  I knew I would have to do a half rockover and then jump dynamically to a reasonable jug.  The white looked all positive and pretty easy.

Connor making the very balance, subtle and delicate press move into the horrible sloper hold on his first 7b... This move requires brilliant balance, co-ordination, skill and commitment!  09:30 The starting order for my group was put up at the top of the arena steps.  There were ten boys in my group so that meant four places for the final.  I found that I was to climb first.  I tried to take this positively but found it hard.  I asked Scott what route I would be doing first.  Unfortunately he said it would be the black as my first route.

  09:45 Nat demoed the black and made it look very easy.  I wasn't sure if I could make all the reaches.  I knew I would have to be dynamic in places.  I did one last warmup and got my harness and 5:10s on.  I was then ready and psyched for the route.  I started the route fast and in no time at all I was four holds from the top.  I chalked up for the last crux.  I knew this was going to be hard.  I had my left hand on a sloper and my right foot on a small positive foot hold.  I started rocking over half way, bumped up and went for the move.  I found that I easily reached the hold but didn't manage to stick it.  I think I had actually gone just beyond the hold.  I came off on the third last hold.  I was slightly annoyed and realised that everyone else in my category had a good chance to get it.  Euan Farmer was up next and think he just slapped the same hold.  Then it was Matthew who got to the same point again.  Then time flew and Rory Whyte was up.  He took his time below but in true Rory style managed to stick the crux and top out.  So it was Rory in first followed by me, Euan and Matthew joint in second.

  11:00 ish Everyone topped the white apart from one boy.  So it was me, Rory, Euan and Matthew through to the final.

Connor on Qualifier 1, the white 6a+/b   12:00 ish I wasn't too fussed about the speed competition, but thought it would be good to keep warm.  I did a practise speed climb and then my two qualifiers pretty much one after the other.  My route was only to the half way mark and I was allowed to use the extra jugs.  My qualifying times were 9:06 and 9:00 seconds which put me into the speed final as second fastest.

  15:30 I was in isolation in the booulder room.  After 5 minutes in the boulder room we all came out to map the final route.  My final route was a purple (7a+ but didn't know it at the time) to the left of the justice wall and a route that the youth c boys had in qualifiers.  I was pleased because I had watched David and Sam top this earlier.  We then went to isolation.  I went over my route map and tried to match up the holds on the route to holds in the boulder room and to match moves on the route to practise moves in the boulder room.  I was now raring to go.  I was nervous, but knew that the purple was my kind of route and felt quite confident in my head.

  Connor in the Bouldering room trying out my new UpSkill Knee pads! 16:00 I came out of isolation not knowing how Euan and Matthew had done before me.  I started the purple fast then got to the horrible pockets and hesitated.  I then worked on to come to one of the last cruxes where I had a horrible slopery crimp and had to go to a crimp being dynamic.  I made the move and continued to the top with some fairly technical moves.  I was really pleased but wans't sure where I had come.  Rory was up next and started slower and came off about half way up.  Unfortuneately he hurt his finger.  My Dad thought it would be close between Matthew and me as we were the only two to top the route.  Buzz told me the route was 7a+.  I was really pleased.

 Connor setting up for a hard lock into a side-pull from which he can get a quick rest and then into the crux! 16:45 I was up against Thomas Ryan in the semi finals of the speed.  I heard that Thomas beat me by 0.02 seconds and think our times were about 8 seconds.  Euan Farmer won the speed and I came third after winning the runners up race against Matthew.

  18:00 I was second on the podium for routes and third for speed.  Katie came third in her routes and fifth in speed (which was also against the older youth D girls).  David also came second in the routes.  

Conz out

Youth D Podium (Euan Farmer 3rd, Connor Moore 2nd, Matthew Fall 1st)  

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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QuickDraw Club @ Benny Beg
24 September 2012, 12:32 pm

Yesterday was yet another fantastic day out climbing with the QuickDraw Club kids. Last time (PHOTOS HERE) I was with them we headed to a Northumbrian crag called Hepburn for a spot of bouldering, however, this time we headed north of Edinburgh to the popular sport venue of Benny Beg.



The Quartz/Dolerite crag situated near Crieff is a brilliant venue for a day out climbing quality, low-grade sport routes. You could literally come here and climb about 30+ routes in a day if you really wanted to. Apparently it is also rarely wet and even if it was to start raining, the fact that the car park is about 30 seconds walk from the base of the cliff means access and retreat are easy to plan :P Not to mention there is a cafe right next door and if your feeling particularly arty, there is even a "Make Your Own Ceramics" workshop next door! You just can't beat building your own teacup after a day at the crag :P

I drove up to Benny Beg alongside Sam Harland-Sendra, David Miedzybrodksi and Sam's Dad Fabrice. We where amongst the first to arrive but it wasn't long before the others showed up. Sam, David and I spent the time waiting watching young Euan Farmer's superb skills with a Diablo!

When everybody arrived, I met up with Neill Busby and Lisandor Defays (the two other coaches) to discuss which groups each of us would be taking and who would be doing what for the day. Buz took the younger kids who hadn't done any leading, Lisandro had the middle kids who had done a bit of leading before and I took the older kids who where competent leaders but needed some more experience doing the re-threading at the top. Although we were focussing on some ropewrok skills during the session, a lot of the day was mainly just having fun and climbing!

LisandroBusby

QuickDraw days are great for all the kids no matter what age, ability or discipline they focus on. The day brings everybody together whether it's someone who is just trying out climbing for the first time or an experienced competition climber. The greatest thing about these trips is the social atmosphere and relaxed attitude everybody adopts for the day. Some of these kids are pretty focussed on their training, but today it's just for fun and to hang with friends.

During the day I worked mostly with the older kids:



Keira Farmer

 

Sam Harland-Sendra

Scott Gowens and David Johnston

 

David Miedzybrodski

 

Jodie Brown

 

Kirsten Gray

 

So this was my team for the day even though Kirsten was very un-fashionably late! :P Everybody got a lot of climbs done on lead and plenty of practice re-threading at the top.

David, Kirtsen and David re-threading at the top

Although there was nothing particularly challenging for this group of kids, they learned some useful rope skills that will come in handy for future climbing trips.

In the other groups, Busby and Lisandro where getting the younger kids to test their skills at leading, most of which had never done before! Declan Currie managed to get his first ever lead outdoors 6a onsight and Stephanie Miller did her first ever lead... FULLSTOP. Thats mega to do your first lead ever on an outdoor route!

Adam Brown sending a Benny Beg Classic!

 Declan Curre staring at the chains on the 6a lead (I think?)

 

 Another good day with QuickDraw Club! Thanks Guys, looking forward to the next one :D

 

ROBZ OUT

P.S. FOR MORE PHOTO, VISIT MY MEDIA SECTION LINKED HERE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Footwork, Footwork, Footwork...
20 September 2012, 11:59 pm

"Footwork is the foundation for an efficient climbing style, it's not something to be taken ligthly and forgotten after you've reached a certain level..." You will often hear climbers/coaches going on and on about the importance of good footwork, but to be frank, I don't think many of them actually know why it's important and what good footwork actually looks like...

 Heel-Toe on a lip - I'll need to position my foot perfectly to rock up onto the lip Good footwork doesn't mean that your feet never pop off, nor does it mean you will have imaculate climbing shoes with no holes for the rest of your life, and it definitely does NOT mean you don't make a sound when you climb :P

When you first start climbing, your footwork is the first thing you learn to improve. The instructor will say:

"Try not to make a sound when you place your feet" "Take a few seconds to place each foot before you let it touch the hold" Although these are great to think about when you are a beginner, there comes a time when it simply becomes inefficient to climb like this and realistically, your ability isn't governed by how quiet you can be. You certainly don't see Adam Ondra moving slowly up the wall taking extra care on every foot placement. That's because it is inefficient and he has learned foot techniques that are far beyond what we learn as beginner climbers.



Fast Foot (Not Food!) The placing of your foot is imperative to the efficiency of your technique. A precicely placed foot will mean maximum range of movement throughout your leg from the pivoting ability of your foot which in turn gives your whole body more range of movement. As a beginner you learn to place your feet accurately, so as you progress as a climber, you now need to learn how to accurately place your feet quicker so you save more energy.

"Speed is a fundamental skill necessary for top performances!"

If you can learn to accurately place feet quickly and precisely, then you could increase efficiency of your climbing multiple times! The best way to learn this is simply to practice during your warm up moving quicker whilst have to place your feet on smaller footholds. You can also include practice on this whilst trying hard routes and boulders but by focussing on moving quicker for maximum efficiency.



On the Pull... As a beginner we learn how to place our feet then push, but rarely do we think that they can do any more than this... Why then are performance climbing shoes downturned by nature? This is to allow them to act like Talons, to hook and grab at a foothold to allow us to pull in on them as well as push for better grip and manoeverability.

Pulling down on the toes takes weight of your arms and can provide force for powerful moves  

If you can learn to pull with your feet, you can shift your centre of gravity inwards and even take massive amounts of weight off your arms! Pulling with your toes can allow you to move in several different ways:

 

• On a severe overhang you can bring your body closer to the wall for maximising reach to the next handhold.
• Whilst turning a lip, pulling with your feet will allow you to shift your centre of gravity over your toe and thus allow you to more easily make the move.
• Whilst moving side-ways to a hold, pulling with a toe can aid in the rock-over by pulling you towards the handhold you are aiming for.
• On any wall, whilst moving upwards, pulling in on the toe can aid in making a deadpoint by giving you a split second longer to make the move.
• During a dynamic move, pulling in on the toe can allow you to increase your maximum dynamic force before converting your pulling force (through the feet) to a pushing force for the dyno.

 On "Mescalito" (7c+) at Malham I am using my left toe to pull my body weight in for the rock over

 

"A foot is for life, not just for Christmas..."

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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British Lead Climbing Championships 2012 (Youth)
8 October 2012, 10:50 pm

What can I say... this last weekend has been spectacular with some amazing performances by some truly incredible athletes. I can't begin to explain just how amazed I am at how the level of British climbing has leaped forward in the last few years both at Youth and Senior level.

Unfortunately, both days I forgot my camera (D'oh) but no worries, Facebook is a great place to pilfer photos from. Saturday was an Epic day, with excitment and adrenaline seen from practically every corner of EICA. I had friends and coached kids in every category of the competition and was very happy to see everyone enjoying themselves, no tears from what I saw (something that I have seen less and less of in recent years) and in general, a great vibe from those competing, spectating and volunteering.

The kids that I coach competing where:

 

• William Bosi
• Angus Davidson
• David Miedzybrodski
• Rebecca Kinghorn
• Rory Cargil
• Scott Keir
• Jack Gomersall
• Scott Donaldson
• Amy Ryan

 

All of them did fantastically well and achieved some outstanding results.

Youth C Boys David Miedzybrodski was competing in his first year of Youth C in his first ever BLCC. This was only ment to be an experience for him, so that he knows what to expect for the next year.

David is one of the most impressive kids I coach. His discipline to training and focus for learning is rivaled by few and yet he is only 12 years old. Although this is great for a developing climber, experience and competition practice is necessary for success in these events. As William Bosi told me:

"It's not the strongest climber who wins the competition, it's he/she who make the least mistakes!" David started of shakily with a difficult move low down on his first qualifier, a reachy dynamic throw for a positive granite style pinch. Unfortunately, David was a little short on this move and needed to move a lot more dynamically to make the move. This is an area he needs to work on and because he didn't commit, he fell. This was distressing for David, but a good lesson learned!Alex Puccio in the Senior Womans Category - The same route as the Youth C Boys first qualifier. Photo from BMC Facebook

The second qualifier was a lot better! He made it all the way to the final move but upon reaching a similarly dynamic move as on the last climb, he got stuck in his tracks. He froze and couldn't do much apart from hang on. Eventually he lost power and fell.

David was disapointed with his competition day but I know it did him good. You can't  go throughout life without failing, otherwise you would never succeed. David will come back with avengance next year!

Rory Cargil was also competing in the Youth C boys category and in my opinion had a very good competition even if he thinks it wasn't, but hey, when you expect to win it's sometimes difficult to swallow when you don't.

Rory was first up on the first qualifier and got very high up before falling due to numb fingers (it was very cold). It was all god though because he had done enough to make 2nd place on the first route with only one guy getting higher (and only just). On the second route he topped with ease and was straight into the final in 2nd place!

The final was a tough route and it's definitely a harder job going into final in 2nd place with everything to lose! Easier if you scrape into the final and just have to climb all out - but thats part of the deal with competitions...

Rory Cargil on his final route - Photo from BMC Facebook

The competition was won by Jack Graham with a phenomenal attack on the final route which got him much higher than everybody else. I must say though that a big shout out has to go to Aiden Dunne for what I thought was an immensly impressive performance for someone so small. Like Rory and David, Aiden is in his first year at Youth C and has an amazing career in climbing to look forward to I am positive.

 

Youth C Girls Rebecca Kinghorn was competing in the Youth C Girls category. She was YCS Champion in this category earlier in the year and missed out on Scottish Champion to fellow competitor and all-round beast Emma Powell.

Rebecca had a fantastic day competing. Qualifier one she topped alongside everyonelse in the category. You could argue that maybe this route was a bit easy for the competition, but as long as the next route splits the field it doesn't really matter. Having an easy first qualifier puts the pressure on for the second qualifier, so it is good experience for these kids regardless.

The second qualifier was a lot harder! A green route moving up the middle groove of the old competition wall. It was set by Lisandro Defays and he told me it was probably around 7a+/b in terms of the grade. It looked pretty techy all the way on big round slopers and pinches, but as the wall steepened towards the end, the climbing intensified and became a lot more dynamic between crimps. The last move was a hard lock (or jump depending on height) from two very small edges to a big toilet seat jug! Rebecca fell of on this move, only a little bit higher than Hannah Slaney who was ranked second at then end of Qualifiers.

Rebecca qualifying in 1st place on her second route - Photo from BMC Facebook

Rebecca went into Finals in 1st position and was looking very much in a league of her own when it came to the final route. She cruised up the entire climb with very little seeming to stop her continual progression. A slight hesitation as she was heading into the final head wall before the roof seemed to put everyone watching on edge (but at this point she had already won), then she just sorted it out and continued to climb :P She made it all the way into the roof and unfortunately messed a clip up which if she had made she wouldn't have been forced to let go.

Rebecca Kinghorn about to let go, she should have clipped earlier - Photo from BMC Facebook

Rebecca won in her last year of Youth C and next year she will be going to international competitions competing for Great Britain!

Youth B Boys The toughest category in my opinion with at least 8 boys capable of making a podium. Angus Davidson was coming back for a hat trick having already been British Champion twice before in the last two years. It was going to be hard this year as William Bosi has made some fantatsic progress and has already achieved 4th in the World, 6th in Europe and is Scottish Champion this year!

Other competitors such as Jim Pope, Pete Dawson, Alex Waterhous and Billy Ridal all had high hopes for grabbing the title as well. Not forgetting our Irish brothers Dom Burns and Jamie Rankin too who were eager to show us all up with their impressive climbing skills.

Billy Ridal climbing exceptionally well in the final - Photo from BMC Facebook

Angus and William both impressed everyone with how far they have come this last year. After the first qualifier, William and Angus where in 1st and 2nd already (angus equal with Dom). The second qualifier looked a lot harder but amazingly got topped compared with no tops for the first qualifier. William, Angus, Dom, Alex and Billy all topped that second qualifier graded at 7b+ and set by the master of crimps and vert climbing, Neil Mcgeachy.

The final was incredible with the top 6 from the qualifiers all competing:

• William Bosi
• Angus Davidson
• Peter Dawson
• Dominic Burns
• Alex Waterhouse
• Billy Ridal

The final route was an incredible climb going up the middle of the new comp wall. Graded at around 8a+ and set by Yann Genoux, it looked perfect for both the finalists and the spectators with some wild moves on crazy overhangng terrain. In the end, it was a battle between the two top positions from qualifiers, William and Angus. Both of them made it into the final roof, a lot further than the previous high point which was Pete Dawson who fell just going for the hold before the roof. Angus was in the roof making it look pretty steady when his foot popped before making the move that would have retained his title. William made another legendary performance and snatched it from him with the margin of only 1+ point (a hold and a slap).

William Bosi is the new British Champion!

             

                             William Bosi                                  Angus Davidson

  Youth B Girls The Youth B girls is yet another competetive category with the top position being fought between two girls who are both world class, Molly Thompson-Smith and Tara Hayes. In the end, Tara was triumphant over Molly in a spectacular performance on their final route.

Molly beasting it - Photo from BMC Facebook

Also in the category was Eilidh Vas Payne and Jodie Brown, both locals at EICA who climbed well and who I hope are using the comp for motivation and experience for next years competitions :D

Youth A Boys The Youth A boys is a big category with a lot of guys with a lot of competition experience. Amongst them was Scott Keirr, Jack Gomersall and Scott Donaldson from Aberdeen, all of which I coach through GCRS and Scott who is also doing coaching experience work with me.

Scott is a tough guy to beat as he is also the YCS Youth A Boys Champion for 2012 and is one of the best boulderers in the UK.

Buster Martin on the Final - Photo from BMC Facebook

The competition in the end though was won by the British Team kids mostly with podiums 1st, 2nd and 3rd achieved by Byrne Connor, Luke Dawson and Buster Martin respectively. Byrne was was also Scottish Champion a few weeks ago nabbing the title from Scott who placed 2nd.

Jack Gomersall and Scott Donaldson also did well in the event with 13th and 17th place respectively. Also, not forgetting Edinburgh local Fraser Macilwraith who placed 12th, not bad for a boulderer :P If he had crimped any harder on his first quali on which he looked utterly confused, the holds would have ripped of the wall :P

 

Youth A Girls The Youth A Girls is yet another fight for the top 3 positions between a number of very talented and ambitious climbers. Rachel Carr, Eleanor Hopkins, Rebekka Drummond, Sarah Pashley, Ellie Rymer, Christie Macelod, Naomi Tilley and Sophi Fitchett. All of them have achieved a lot in the years they have been climbing and in some respects all of them have the ability to do very well in this competition.

Rachel Carr taking a whipper! - Photo from BMC Facebook

During the day though it was definitelty a battle for podium places between Eleanor, Rachel, Rebekka and Sarah. In the end it was Rachel who came out on top fresh after a victory at the Scottish Open. Sarah was a close 2nd followd by Eleanor and then Rebekka.

Great effort everyone!

 

Junior Boys Junior Boys is a group that has continued to show world class status time and time again and so was always going to be a difficult decider. Jonathan Stocking and Luke Tilley where the two top contendors both at World Elite in the Junior category. Following on from them is local wad Calum Forsyth who has over the last few years made some amazing competition performances. Jonathan Field (formerly Local) was also a strong contendor for podium and his experience in competition is invaluable and certainly not to be taken lightly. There is also Tom Bonnert from Sheffield and newcomer Will Smith not forgetting screamer.

In the end, with two tops Luke and Jonny where gunning for 1st and 2nd place with Jonny Field and Calum on their heels in 3rd and 4th place before finals. The final route was the same as for the Youth A and B Boys. Jonny took the Championship though with a spectacularly strong performance. Luke was 2nd, Calum was 3rd and Jonny Field 4th.

Luke Tilley competing in the Senior Category of the BLCC - Photo from BMC Facebook

Interesting to note that if Youth B had been combined with Juniors and Youth A on the same route, William Bosi would have been second overall beating everyone but Jonny Stocking with only one slap to a hold difference separating them!

 

Junior Girls The Junior Girls is always a bit disapointing in terms of numbers attending unfortunately, though this doesn't rule out their awesome talent. This year we were lucky to have Swiss beast Amanda Rohner taking part also which definitely adds a bit more competition to the British Girls. Amanda is a friend of Natalie's from her years competing internationally and I had met her a number of times before at comps and whilst abroad climbing on rock.

It was a tough event and the girls gave all they had on every route. Charlotte Garden was the favourite to win on the GB side but nobody was quite sure whether Amanda could snatch it from her to bring it home to Switzerland.

Come the final, Charlotte was leading in 1st place with Amanda on her heels in second, then Jenny Wood and Jess Mcaskey in 3rd and 4th. Without a doubt though, when the finals were held, Amanda looked stronger on the steep relentless comp wall and simply crushed! Charlotte did fantastic on the route but was a few holds lower with Jenny only a + point lower again!

 Amanda Rohner on the Qualifier during Junior Girls - Photo from BMC Facebook

  Conclusion And that concludes the Youth BLCC's. Definitely an exciting day and one that I hope can be repeated and improved upon during next years event. I am going to review the Senior event next but would like to add more personal experience from that as I was competing in it, so stay tuned for more very soon!

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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British Lead Climbing Championships 2012 (Senior)
10 October 2012, 10:42 pm

Last weekend I competed in the 2012 British Climbing Championships (BLCC's) at EICA: Ratho in Edinburgh. I had not competed in a lead climbing competition since the previous years BLCC and have not regularly competed throughout the year in a few years.

It was a bit of a last minute decision to compete as I was supposed to be missing the event to go to Kalymnos for coaching work but unfortunately due to unforseen circumstances I had to cancel the trip :( So there I was at home with nothing to do! I was previously down for setting the BLCC's but had to cancel that as well because of Kalymnos so in a last minute ditch attempt to get some work I phoned Rob Adie (BMC Competitions Co-ordinator) to see if I could get put back on for setting. Unfortunately (although now I would say fortunately) he had already replaced me with a fantastic route setter from London, Yann genoux, who I had the pleasure of meeting in the week prior to the event.

The only option left was to compete myself or drift lazily into the crowd and avoid it entirely. Of course, as I am always up for a challenge I opted for the former and made sure I was up extra early on the day of the event so I could register myself.

Turns out if you register late, as a punishment they put you at the front of the startlist! So I was due to go straight up and climb the first route very early on before everyonelse. I tell you I wasn't looking forward to this... fortunately another guy registered late and took with it my first place in the startlist so I was second. Unfortunately I wouldn't have wished it happened to this particular guy as it was Eoin Acton of Ireland and at only 15 years old was the youngest and smallest in the Senior Mens category.Eoin Acton on the Mens Q1

The first route was an Orange line of mini-jugs and crimps going through the double roofs of the Old Competition Wall up until a pockety finale! It was set by Yann Genoux and looked to be a fun route. As everyone route read the climb together, Jonny White spotted a cheeky "clock" sequence at the top which he was more than happy to share with me, once again showing the very unique style of person that climbing attracts - only in climbing would you get competitors trying to help each other :P

After a good warm up, Eoin and myself stepped into the arena and sat down in front of the route. We both tied in and Eoin stepped forward to climb. Before he started he looked nervous so I told him just to relax, enjoy the climbing and that he had nothing to prove seeing as he had competed in the Youth A the day before, so this is just a bonus... He didn't seem to relax anyway :P But regardless he did fantastic being the first climber on and managed to make it high into the final stretch qualifying in 14th!

It was my turn now, as I stepped up to the climb I remember a tingly warm sensation in my fingertips. I had warmed up well and had made sure to keep my shoes and fingers warm in my down jacket whilst sitting down - I was perfectly prepped for the route and nothing could go wrong. As I climbed the first half of the route I remember thinking:

"Wow! This is easy for a first qualifier!" I was climbing quite quickly between each section and managing to get rests in all the right places. As I pulled over the second roof I remember a wierd sequence that Eoin had done but being a lot taller I stuck to my own memorised sequence and calmy made it through. The last stint looked tricky from the ground but when I reached it everything was pretty straight-forward.

Ed Hamer cruising the Mens Q1

The clock sequence was upon me, I had thought that this would be the tricky bit... On the contrary, I could rest at this point! The last move was there, I could see the final hold, I locked off the positive 2 finger pocket, stretched higher... higher... higher... and at the last minute popped for the final jug... HELD!!!

PHWOAAAARRRRR!!! Deep breathes, pressure is off :P I was really happy to top the first route but at the same time a little worried... If I could top it surely everybody else would. All the strong climbers in the category where sure to make it easily... But it didn't happen... A lot of climbers fell off the last move with only 6 out of 18 (1/3) making a top!

From a route setters view point, I do think that the climb should have been made more difficult from the end of the second roof instead of having such a hard last move. 6 climbers all fell off going to the last hold which really isn't the best splitter for a competition. It would be difficult for any climbers who didn't top the first route to make finals now seeing as only 6 would be going into the finals and 6 topped the first route leaving all those who fell off the last move in 7th place.

Anyway, moving on! The second qualifier was a techy fluro yellow route on the left hand side of the old competition wall. To be honest, this didn't scare me that much but I was wary of the roof towards the end of the route as this is always my most hated part of climbing that particular wall! Luckily I was further down the startlist now so got to view others on the route first. From the spectators view, it looked as though climbers where breezing mostly the first half and failing either going into a large volume before the roof or around the lip. I knew from watching that if I could make the final volume (second last hold) over the lip, then I would be roughly top 4 in the comp.Me in the upper regions of the Mens Q2

Dave Barrans made an impressive flash (with a cheeky knee bar), Ed Hamer did the same but timed out as he clipped the chain (he made it look about 5+) and Luke Tilley did very well and managed to grapple with the final volume but fell before the chains.

As I climbed the final route I heard everybody below shouting for me. It gave me confidence to keep pressing on but I managed to get a lot of rest all the way up the climb. When I reached the roof I made a silly mistake with my feet which cost me a lot of energy - I pulled through the roof and decided that I would use my height to my advantage by leaving my feet low and move my hands as high as I could which I knew would put me onto the final volume and in 4th place. As I grabbed the small crimp over the lip I could feel my body extended and in a state of unreliability so jumped to touch the volume!

At the end of the qualifiers I was joint 4th place and qualified for the finals alongside:

• Dave Barrans
• Ed Hamer
• Luke Tilley
• Robbie Phillips
• Chris Webb Parsons (Joint 4th)
• Jonny White

It was an exciting experience to make finals in 4th place but at the same time I felt bad for others who hadn't made it who I actually feel are better climbers than me. Guys like Jonathan Stocking and Alan Cassidy had just missed out on finals by literally holding one hold - I could easily have been in the same situation as them.

Isolation in the bouldering room was interesting from the perspective of both a coach and competitor. I know what isolation is like in the youth competitions but I had never experienced as a Senior. It's not too different, but there is a lot less mucking about and the competitors defintiely seem to have more of a routine than youth climbers. I was the only climber in the final not in a team i.e. GB Team, Aussie Team or USA Team. Everyone had their team kit on whereas I was sporting my blue Evolv Tee with Edelrid Troosers and a big bag of Stoats just in case I get peckish :P

We all ran out to view the route after around 30mins in Isolation. Mens final was a fantatsic looking Blue line going straight up one of the steepest sections of the New Competition Wall. It looked hard but do-able, I wasn't too worried about it but felt that to focus on the top would be a mistake. I was expecting to make it 3/4 height at most as it looked hard entering the roof. I read it a bit with Jonny White and discussed a few sections with Luke Tilley and Ed Hamer. Everyone seemed to be on similar tracks regarding the sequence, but when the climbing started, it would turn out to be very different.

Jonny White was first on followed by me. I was taken through with him to wait behind the wall in the second stage of Isolation. This stage of isolation is a tough mental experience as you can hear the roar of the crowd and the commentator behind the wall. You have a rough idea of when the climber starts thanks to the this but you also know judging on how long the climber has been out for just how good or badly they have done. I did notice that Jonny was out only a very short time so expected that the climb must have some really hard climbing low down.

When I walked out to climb, I stayed focussed on what I was doing and avoided looking at the spectators. The route from isolation to the climbing wall felt like a dark tunnel in which you can hear only faintly the crowd outside the tunnel, but at the end all you can see is the starting hand holds of your climb.

As I started the climb, the movements flowed from one to the next. It was incredible to feel so at ease on the final route. There was no actual moment on the whole route when I felt uncomfortable or like I was going to fall. There was one move when my feet cut at the 3/4 mark but I was still very much energised and hadn't felt the fatigue of pump as yet.

What can I say - I like a crowd :P

Heading into the roof the intensity stepped up again, I found that I could reach through what might have been a harder move for a smaller climber and gained a slight rest in the centre of the roof. The coming moves looked hard but I was adrenalised and ready for anything! I powered on and made a few quick decisions that may have been slightly in haste... I fell off the 4th last move of the route before the chains, the closest I've come to topping a final route in a competition.



When I was lowered I looked to the routesetters, Geek, Yann, Lisandro and Gaz, all of whom were nodding with thumbs up in aproval of what was obviously a very high point on the route. Jonny White met me on the walk out of the main area with the words,

"You DESTROYED me on that one!" Jonny had fallen off at about half-way, so at the moment I was in 1st place! Angus, William, Connor and David all ran up to to congratulate me on a good climb - it was great having them here to encourage me as I do for them at their competitions.

Chris Webb was up next, looking very static and controlled all the way up to the final roof section but seemed to have some difficulty with making a dynamic move where my feet had cut - he was off!

Luke Tilley fought hard through the same section and only just made that difficult move, then seemed to recover a bit before the roof. He got lost in the roof sequence and pumped out a few moves short of my high point.

Luke making the tricky dynamic move - It was a nail biting moment this!

Ed Hamer was up next and in true Hamer style crushed his way up the climb with those meathooks he calls fingers. He didn't get any of the cheeky heel hooks I got but still he pressed on with relentless power endurance and equalled me but with a more static style. I think he held the hold as opposed to touching it like me but can't quite figure out the way the point system has worked out. I got 36+ and he got 38, but we fell off the same move from the same handholds... maybe I am missing something here?

Ed on the deciding move...

Regardless of what the score in the final is, Ed would still win regardless so I was going to be 2nd at most and 3rd more likely as Dave Barrans was up next.

Dave looked strongest so far with a very bouldersque style. He was impressive to watch and being last years British Champion I was expecting him to blow my performance away with a top - but he made the same mistake as Luke in the roof and fell on the same move!

Dave Barrans displaying awesome feats of strength and power in the roof!

Suddenly I realised I had placed 2nd in Britain in the Senior Mens Category! This was something that I never thought would be possible for me at my current ability, especially seeing as the level of some of these beasts is so high. Getting through the qualifiers was miracle enough but to finish in 2nd was like a dream.

That night I couldn't sleep thinking if only I had held that damn hold and made a move I would be champ, but I was so happy to just make it as far as I did. Nat will agree with me on this, I can be pretty hard on myself at times. I still think I fluked it and that I will never be able to make it that far again... but hey, it's all good fun :D I would tell the kids I coach the same thing - I do need to take some of my own advice and focus not on how I might have fluked the comp this time...

But how I can fluke it again next time as well!

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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TCA Redpoint Competition (R1)
20 October 2012, 11:15 pm

I love climbing at TCA Glasgow! It's always loads of fun when you have endless amounts of boulder problems to go at. For me, as I climb and set mainly at EICA, I go through problems fairly rapidly, so having the TCA less than an hour away is really beneficial if I want to step up my bouldering level.

This year, TCA are hosting 4 bouldering competitions across the winter months. I am going to use these as personal goals to focus my strength and power training over the winter. I did well in the last two events held earlier this year and late last year - placing 1st in the Onsight and 2nd in the Redpoint event.

Today I took part in the first of the four events. This one being a Redpoint event allows for the climber to have as many goes on the problems during the qualifying round as they want with the number of goes not affecting the overall score, only the height you achieve when starting from the bottom.

I was climbing well in the qualifying round despite noticing that my skin was peeling off in copious amounts. I think this was from doing a lot less climbing than I'm used to recently, so skin built up into callice on the pads and began to peel off in waxy flakes!

EURGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! The qualifiers were set by Paul Twomey and Joe Day. The problems were really well set, with interesting funky sequences and a good selection of hard problems to split the field. I find that I always do well in the qualifiers thanks to the length of some of the harder blocs. If the hardest problems where shorter then no doubt some of the stronger boulderers would cruise them and I'd be scuppered, but I always come through strong when the hard problems are long enduro fests :D In fact, I don't think I have lost a qualifying round yet?

This round I won the qualifiers based on three blocs in my opinion:

  TCA Board Red Bloc This beast of a problem was around 13 moves long in total and where most where just getting tired and falling off, I could keep going. 13 moves doesn't sound like very long, but it was powerful, upside down and very beta intensive! My style basically...

I managed to make it all the way to the last move, sticking the second last hold only just but failing when my feet cut sending me hurtling into the crowd behind me :P Almost killed several kids!

 

Endurance Board Traverse There was a tricky bloc to the right of the circuit boards. On this one I managed to make quite a high flash attempt just skimming 48, which we all took as 46 due to ourdynamic slap and sudden dismount. I was lucky on returning about half-way through the comp to almost get a top just missing the last hold three times! At that point I decided to call it a day on this problem... Funnily enough I ended up returning later on and making the last move but not from the start!!!

 

Cobra Rood Red I knew I would get high points on this for the pure fact that it was around 20 moves long! I never actually got past my 2nd attempt high point which was on the crux moves about 15 moves into the problem. I made this high point but other competitors I saw where only making a few moves lower than mine.

 

These three problem secured me a strong 1st place lead in the quali's, but I did feel that perhaps my eagerness to place high in the quali's might set me up badly for the finals. The finals was a tussle between me, Eddie Barbour of Ireland and local boy Chris Everett.

To be totally honest, Eddie wiped the floor with us! He topped all 3 problems in awesome style and I'm actually pretty upset with the whole experience :P How can I lose to an Irishman! I'm competing at ILCC's (Irish Lead Climbing Championships) next month so I can't let him beat me again. After the comp we discussed what might have gone wrong with some of our performances and why Eddie did so well. I think Eddie is just going stronger than me at the moment to be fair, although a few things to take note of for future comps that I felt held me back was:

• On the first Bloc (No.3), I made the silly mistake of doubting my own sequence when it failed first time round. If I hadn't I probably would have topped that one on my 2nd go...
• In the 2nd Bloc (No.1), I made a very bad route reading error of not noticing a really good heel hook that would have given me the ability to make two moves further and potentially given me another top!
• The third problem (No.2) by then was totally smeggin' greasy. The sloper at the start was hideosuly greasy. Couple with the fact that my body temp was probably above 40 degrees and I was bucketing sweat didn't help. Realistically, that problem was only do-able if you where: a) strong enough that sweat wasn't an issue b) lacked sweat glands or c) had it as your first problem and therefore not already piping hot!

Basically, what I have discovered from this competition is that I need to sort out my Boulder route reading skillz before the next comp, I need to up my power enduro a bit for the finals, I need to make sure I am recurited to max strength and power and  finally... I need to drug Eddie before the next comp just enough so it looks like he's just weaker than me and not too much that he's having to bail... because that would just feel like a hollow victory now wouldn't it  :P

Also, big well done to the Edinburgh juniors Fraser Mcalwraith, Eilidh Vas Payne, Claudia Charlwood, Kirsten Gray, Keira Farmer and Jodie Brown for a great display of awesome climbing the whole day!

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Burning Volumes
4 November 2012, 10:04 pm

A sad day for all of Ratho... the day Buzby burned the volumes in a moment of madness and what I believe is potentially the pyromaniac inside our faithful chief setter. Ewan Davidson cranking it at the comp

With the exception of a few tears from a few Ratho boulderers (and myself), the EICA Winter Bouldering Competition and Bonfire went exceedingly well. The day before the competition it was myself, Buz, Geek and Lisandro setting in the bouldering room. Although I never felt that my setting head was screwed on quite as tight as usual, I somehow managed to turn out a few good problems that caught the attention of those competing the following day.

I set a funky White V6 right up the 45 board manoevering through the huge triangular volume from right to left. In my mind I wanted to set something that wasn't immediately obvious what to do and which would catch those out who wring handed or moved out of sequence. Watching climbers on the day, it did the right job with those who took the wrong sequence being either spat off early or forced into much more energy sapping moves which affected them on the final move (mantling the lip and undecutting the pinch to reach the final jug).

I also set a Fluro Yellow problem graded at around V7. This stopped most in their tracks but was techy enough and not simply brute force that meant those that took the time to work it out and plan their strategy actually managed to get high rather than just getting stuck on one move. Angus Davidson came close to a flash but had to settle for a 2nd go whilst Alan Cassidy flashed it whilst crimping the broken corner of the volume that everyonelse was pinching (it just looked painful!).

Alan Cassidy (TCA Coach) making awkward work of my Yellow V7 Volume weirdness!

What was great to see on the day was a good selection of Youth Teams from around the Scotland South region showing up to compete. We had our local youth team competing obviously, all of them doing well. From Glasgow the TCA Squad came through as well as a bunch of the Sterling climbers.Connor getting high on the Pink V-Board Bloc It is impressive to see how far Youth Climbing in Scotland has come since I started climbing, not only in the standards but also in the volume of kids taking part in the sport and enjoying the competetive element to it. I hope this continues in years to come as it is really a fantastic thing to see.Rory Whyte competing for TCA at EICA Although competitions can be stressful, they can also be great fun and provide valuable lessons to all those taking part. I know that Competitions have taught me a lot over the years and I know from watching the kids growing up in the comp scene now that they are too.

After the competition, we all headed outside into the darkness of night where the Ratho garden was lit up in flames by our Bonfire and fireworks. As I said before, the fuel for the bonfire was the much loved and missed volumes :( Gilles better get building some more soon :P Although it was cold, the bonfire and fireworks made up for it not to mention the tasty (though slightly raw) hamburgers cooked by Lisandro and Christian.

Thanks Guys for the food poisoning - only joking!

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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MCofS: Youth Open Bouldering Prep Day
10 November 2012, 10:49 pm

The last two days have been so much fun and yet so tiring! Who would have thought that 14 hours route setting followed by 6 hours sleep and a full days coaching would be tiring :P

Saturday was the MCofS Prep Event for the Youth Bouldering Open being held in Liverpool in December. I am going down myself acting as Team Coach and will be involved in the selection of the new GB Team on the Saturday for the Lead event and am going to offer my support to those going for the Bouldering as well.

The MCofS Prep Events that I organise like this are invaluable sources of competetive exerience for all competitors as well as being a fun day climbing with friends and no doubt a hard days training! For this event, I had planned a Qualifier and final style format following the Official IFSC Rules so that the kids would benefit from learning the most up to date tactics for when they compete on the day.

The day before the event, Iain Sneddon (Route Setter and Coach at EICA) and myself made the journey to Glasgow TCA to set all the problems for the Saturday. Iain and myself have been looking forward to this day for sometime as we've been eager to set at TCA since the place first opened late last year. We even had to go through TCA's "Complex and Stifingly Hard" Route Setter Examination/Induction before being allowed to set.

Our plan for the setting day was to set all the Qualifiers as taped problems using holds already on the wall and set our own purpose built problems on the TCA Competition Wall. We set the finals problems first owing to the fact that we knew thatit would take all our energy and undivided attention to set the best quality finals using as much volume madness as possible. Check out below pictures of our finals problems.



 The Red Bloc above was a problem I designed to challenge the younger kids confidence in making dynamic or explosive moves. The first move is literally a dyno from two edges to two jugs on the volume. Because it is low to the ground it's a fairly safe dyno but in the competetion environment kids don't tend to want to risk jumping for holds unless they have to (on this you have to unless your long!). The last move is also a risky move requiring a short pop for the final jug.



This Yellow V7 above was a fantastic problem set by Iain. It's always a bit of a chance when you set something harder than you canusually climb. Iain is a V6 climber, so setting a V7 is going to be more of a challenge for him, especially for a competition. These events are not only good prep for the kids, but also for us as route setters because it gives us an opportunity to hone our skills and test our ideas on kids outside of the real competition. The yellow did it's job well acting as a final separator for the large part of the older boys group. It's almost basic look is actually a subtle trick, the sequence is a lot more complex and hidden than meets the eye.



This Orange above was also set by Iain. We decided to use this problem as an example of a selected starting handholds position to show the kids what this is all about. Notice the Grip tape along the side of the blue volume... a very nice touch that provides an added bit of support when moving around it for both hands and feet!



I set this Green in about 5 minutes flat. Who says art can't be rushed. It might not be one of my masterpieces but the sequence puzzled most of the kids, especially the final pocket which unbeknown to all but the savvy has a nice little undercut inside :P



This blue I was particularly proud of. It had a good few tops in the finals by kids across the age brackets, however, what was the main theme behind success on this bloc was "body position". The strongest guys struggled like mad on this whist the younger more supple and wiry kiddie's cruised it like a warm up... Can you spot the two no handers?



Kalymnos comes to TCA! The first Bloc I set. Although it isn't that hard for adults, kids with tiny hands struggle like mad on this. It's all about laybacking up the tufa pipes and using the right bobbles and bumps. You can't pull your way up this one!



This one caught out everybody, not one flash in the whole competition! It's only V6 and actually quite an easy one at that - probably not harder than F6C realistically but could get F6C+ if push comes to shove. The volume technique is a tough cookie to break but once your in, you never look back! The older boys had to do this without the bonus screw on hold on the upper volume which probably bumped it to V6.



This white bloc was probably the most basic out of all the problems set. It's good to have a variety in styles and although I am not a fan of basic left right left right climbing, sometimes it's good to see who is simply the strongest. Interestingly enough, Rebecca Kinghorn displayed amazing feats of strength on this, but when it came to the final moves she showed her ability to think quick by catching the 4th last hold wrong handed with her left and pressing to reach the one out left with her right. This set her up perfectly for a clean Flash!



The hardest bloc in the comp! I did this after setting it in my Evolv Bolts. This is not really a problem about footwork, it's all about compression, burl and timing. The crux which nobody made in the comp is a throw for the Red triangle volume with the right, the only catch being if you don't immediately come in with your left to catch the hold underneath you spin uncontrollably backwards doing a 180 (or 360 depening on the force of the jump and the length of time you latch the hold for). Only Angus and Scott managed to make it to this point but neither of them spotted the left hand release and catch... A tricky technque to spot indeed!

 

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Winter Bouldering 2013 - Season Begins
5 December 2012, 10:15 pm

OK, so maybe the season begun a while back, but I've not posted on any of my bouldering this winter at all so I thought I would begin now :D To be honest, I don't tend to like posting about my bouldering as it is so utterly dissapointing compared with my route climbing. However, this year I have decided to take a big step forward in my bouldering in an effort not only to better my route climbing for 2013, but also to improve myself as a Boulderer.

There is no doubt about it, I am a route climber at heart. But since around 2 years ago when I started incorporating a lot more bouldering into my training for routes, I have been increasingly learning to enjoy bouldering at a far greater level than ever before. Last winter was the first time I spent more than a session on a problem outdoors. This was on my first V10 (F7C+) "Northern Territory" at Kyloe Out which was almost done in a session, but in the end took an extra session to seal the deal. The process off redpointing a hard outdoor boulder problem was new to me and I can say that I did thoroughly enjoy the experience (not as much as routes still though).

That window of outdoor bouldering last winter gained me my first V10 as well as a number of V9's (F7C) and V8's (F7B+) all within a session. Not only did my outdoor bouldering improve, but my indoor bouldering also got a lot better. I won a round of the TCA Glasgow Winter League and found new enjoyment in my bouldering sessions at the wall. This then gave me the strength, power and confidence to climb my first 8c in the spring of 2012. All this from a winters bouldering!

Unfortunately after that Winter I let it slide with my focussed bouldering attention and instead of keeping up the momentum of boulder training, I went back to training again on other aspects of my performance that I feel perhaps are less necessary but which I had neglected over the Winter. This was a big mistake and I paid massively for it! Now I am back in the bouldering zone and hoping to take this to a new personal level from 2012 into 2013 and hopefully ever upwards. It's no doubt in my mind now that if I want to achieve my goals in sport climbing I also have to be bouldering at a high level, but to manage this I also needed to learn to enjoy bouldering for what it is, as it's own discipline and not simply as a tool to train for routes.

So far this winter I have taken my first baby steps into bettering my bouldering with a few personal bests:

 

• "In Bloom" (V10 or F7C+) - 2nd Session - Dumbarton
• "Nice and Sleazy" (V10 or F7C+) - 1st Session - Dumbarton
• "Sabotage" (V11 or F8A) - 2nd Session - Dumbarton
• "The Shield" (V8+ or F7B+) - 2nd Session - Dumbarton
• "Hap Slappy" (V8+ or F7B+) - 1st Session - Dumbarton

 

So this is the main tick list above F7B+. It stems from around 3 or 4 sessions at Dumbarton Rock so far. The big ticks were "Sabotage" and "In Bloom" both of which felt pretty hard for me initially, though when I did them it seemed that there almost shouldn't have been any issue! A nice thing to feel when you supposedly complete your hardest boulders ever as it definitely encourages the thought that climbing something harder is possible.

My new bouldering goals for 2012/2013 then is to consolidate climbing at the F8A mark which I do believe is something I will achieve. I would certainly like to fulfil climbing F8A in a session, again something which I am confident is possible given the correct choice of problem and approaching with the right tactics. "Sabotage" felt like it would go in a session as did "In Bloom" and "Nice and Sleazier" was done in about an hour of working sections with around a dozen attempts in 30 minutes to get it sent :P I am motivated to visit as many different areas as possible in order to develop my bouldering skills in a wide range of rock types and styles, not only in the local areas. So I will be getting down to the County quite a bit with hopefully more visits to Dumby to see some of the other F8A's there sent. "King Kong" (F8A), "Sabotaged" (F8A) and "Spam Dagger" (F8A) on the list :D

And of course, with 2013 on the horizons, if I can up the bouldering level, where will it take my sport climbing? A Costa Blanca trip in Easter might not be a bad thing :)

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Winter Bouldering 2013 - Round 2
14 December 2012, 2:46 pm

Hey Guys

Well since last weeks blog post a number of things have happened.

• I got out to Dumbarton a couple of more times...
• I travelled down to Liverpool for Team selection of both the Lead and Bouldering Junior Team
• I apparently have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome...

  Bouldering On the bouldering front things have been going from really good to totally awesome! Last week I climbed my first F8A "Sabotage" at Dumbarton Rock. Although this is my first F8A, it's probably only my first from a lack of trying. "Sabotage" is the first F8A I have actually tried and coupled with the fact that the number of outdoor bouldering sessions I have been on in my life before this winter you could probably count on both my hands, there is no wonder I haven't done a lot of hard bouldering outdoors.

Every year I look for different parts of my climbing performance that are weaker than the ohers, areas that I can improve on to therefore make the all-round climber in me as strong as possible. This weakness in bouldering has been something that has plagued me for a long time... I corrected this through training indoors which I have seen massive gains from, however, from no experience of outdoor bouldering I feel that my confidence in attempting harder moves on rock (even on sport) was affected. For example, if someone told me that the crux of the 8c was a F7C or V9, then I would suddenly be really scared as I know that F7C for me is hard... Now that I have climbed a number of F8A's in relatively quick succession, I feel a new confidence has awoken and that potentially I could step things up in my sport massively having found this.

So anyway, this last week has been great for my bouldering. I headed out with Adam Lincoln and Ian Patterson for a day at Dumby early on in the week. It was pretty cold at Dumby that day but after warming up, things started to feel a lot better. I began the session with a very quick ascent of a popular link up F8A called "Spam Dagger". The previous session I had climbed the other popular link up "Nice and Sleazy" (F7C+) so it made sense to try and go for the harder version. Nice and Sleazy has a different starting and end but shares the middle section at F7B+. Basically "Nice and Sleazy" is like doing a F7B+ into a F7B+ more or less whereas "Spam Dagger" starts lower in the cave from a different point and includes the meat of a 2 move F7C and instead of going direct up the finish of the next F7B+ as "Nice and Sleazy" does, instead you only climb the crux and finish out left on some slightly more tricky ground.

When I did "Spam Dagger", I was really surpirsed at how easy it felt but having climbed "Nice and Sleazy" already it made sense because I had already climbed some of the moves before. So for fun, I thought I might as well climb the rest of the problems I hand't done there... this included "Spam" (F7C), "Glasgow Kiss" (F7C+) and "Thoroughbread" (F7C+). Its funny, because every one of them felt the same grade... in fact, I found "Spam" harder than "Spam Dagger" and that is supposed to be two grades harder! I honestly do find the F7A finish to "Spam" harder than the F7B+ finish to "Spam Dagger" :P

After ticking this whole section of the boulder, Adam asked if I wanted a spot on the problem I had come that day to try, "Sabotaged" (F8A). I had climbed the original to this problem the week earlier as you know, but "Sabotaged" changes the problem slightly with a much harder finishing move and a wierder more awkward way of getting there. After brushing all the holds and repeating the last hard move a few times, I was ready to go for it from the start :) I began as for "Sabotage" but purposefully climbed quicker than I was the previous week to try and save some energy for the last move... before I knew it I found myself sticking solidly to the sloper around the corner and move really statically to the crimp on the edge from which I make the last hard move. When I got matched on the crimps, I found I could rest, chill out a bit, even shake! I placed a high heel hook and locked off, Adam was giving me a good spot and providing much needed encouragement as I locked deep for this last move... suddenly I had the edge, I crimped up on it and had it strong! The mantle here is tricky but I haven't yet fallen off it - I flipped my locked hand to a palm and pushed hard to gain the slab... I was soon enough standing on the slab and topped out to victory over "Sabotaged"!

It was an great feeling to have done this problem right there and then as I had been watching strong climbers from Edinburgh, Mike Mullins and Eddie Barbour trying it the week before when I was trying "Sabotage". They were very close but had fallen from that last move quite a lot, somehow I just managed to do it first go when I reached the good crimps... I think it was a bit of luck and possibly me going through a bit of a confidence boost having just climbed several 7C+'s and another 8A earlier in the session. A quote from "Rat Race" springs to mind:

"Good things happen one at a time, Great things happen all at once" I am sure it wasn't just from that movie but it felt like a very good quote to remind myself off :P

One more trip to Dumby since then and I ticked another good 7C called "Silverback" and in the process was very close to "King Kong" in a session, but only if the last part had been in better conditions. I also climbed the last variation to "Sabotage" called "La Saboteur" (F8A). This was only a little bit harder than the original and in my opinion probably a little bit easier than "Sabotaged" - but it probably suits me more being longer, probably like climbing a very short f8b+.

Liverpool Selection Events So I also travelled down to Liverpool for a weekend representing the Scottish contingent of the GB Team and acting as part of the selection team who would be working out the new Youth Lead and Bouldering Teams.

I also had a number of kids whom I coach who had gone down for the event so I was there to support them throughout.

There was of course some disapointment with personal performances on the day, but really everyone I saw climbed really well and irrespective of whether they achieved what they had set out to, I think all the kids should be proud of their climbing and use the experience of the weekend as a test from which they can learn from.

It is a shame that the new Youth Lead Team is so much smaller than it was, as I believe there is so much benefit in sending kids to international competitions for experience. Now, it will be a lot harder for kids to make the team due to the new much higher criteria for selection, something which I don't agree on but which will certainly provide more resources for elite team members. The only issue I see is that because there is less opportunity for kids to make the team now, experience that could be gained early on is now something that won't be available unless they meet the criteria which in some cases means not even 3rd, 2nd or even 1st place podium places is enough...

 

A Visit to the Doctor So, a visit to the doctor the other day revealed something which I have been wondering about for a while - I have Carpol Tunnel Syndrome in my left arm. For a couple of years I have been affected occassionally by a tingling sensation in my arms, often caused whilst doing any task in which my arms are set for a long time. Some examples include driving, reading, sleeping or lifting things up.

Although it has been around for a while, it has only got particularly bad in the last 6 months and more recently it has become very painful on the night. I wake up with no feeling in my left arm at all with the exception of a very cold stabbing sensation. To relieve this I need to let my arm drop towards the ground and it feels as if blood returns to my arm and fingertips... the only issue with this is that if I leave it like this for too long I end up getting another terrible pain, like searing heat burning the inside of my arm and hand.

Initially I thought it was blood circulation issues, but the doctor has assured me that it isn't this and instead is related to a compressed nerve in either my wrist or elbow. He suggested Carpol Tunnel Syndrome and I am to see a hand specialist very soon.

Reading up about Carpol Tunnel Syndrome, you can get either a steroid injection or surgery to relieve the symptoms. The fomer is prefered as I have heared that surgery can take anywhere from a year or longer to recover... I don't think I could take that long off climbing :P

 

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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TCA Onsight Competition - Dec 2013
16 December 2012, 11:12 pm

Saturday



I had a pretty full on day at the TCA in Glasgow where I competed in the second round of their Winter Bouldering Series.

In the morning I headed over to pick up friends of mine who were also competing, Neill Busby, Eddie Barbour and Lisandro Defays. Eddie is probably for lack of a better term (and possibly the most accurate one that comes to mind right now) my rival :P In a friendly way, but he is a good guy for me to try and beat as we both tend to climb at a fairly similar level, in quite a similar style and Eddie always tries really really hard, so you know it’s going to be a good challenge!

When we arrived at TCA, I went for a quick mosey around the problems to check what the setters had prepared for us. The competition format allows for everybody to try the same problems but with each successively higher hold gaining you more points than the previous. It’s like a route competition more or less but on boulders :PChris Everett on the campus move of one of the hardest qualifier problems - Photo by Jonathan Bean

I really like the format, especially on the Onsight days when you are only allowed one attempt for each problem. This basically means that you can’t screw up on your first attempt, as it’s the only one you are going to get. The best thing about this format - because you only try 20 x problems, 15 of which for the top 3 competitors shouldn’t be too hard, everybody is fresh for the finals allowing for a proper fun final battle to see who comes out on top.

The problems looked excellent and I couldn’t wait to get stuck in – so much so that I totally ignored the first 13 and just did 14, 15 and 16 straight away! I then went about some of the easier problems, getting a total shocker at No.8 which was totally sandbag for one of the first 10!

Once I felt up to it, I headed over to the top 3 problems to finally give them a good attempt. It was really funny though, all the strong guys were just looking at the problems and not trying them… Most of them were waiting on somebody to step forward and try first. Some of them were being attempted but nobody was getting really high, so for the guys who were aiming for finals it wasn’t giving a lot away as to the sequence. Eventually, I stepped up to try the middle of the top 3, in doing so, the boys behind me started to shout in jest - an possibly also to put me off a little :P

“Mr Phillips is getting on it now! EVERYBODY! ROBBIE IS GETTING ON THE HARD ONE!”

This definitely set the pressure as I was one of the first to try this and now I had a good crowd behind me watching intently to see what I did. It was a really cool problem actually and I didn’t do too badly on it.Edwardo Barbour on that damn heel hook problem! - Photo by Jonathan Bean The first 5 moves where very easy after which you had a tricky sequence coming out onto the volume and then a slap around it to reach a really positive sloper. The next section caught me a bit by surprise as I didn’t expect the lock off to be as hard as it was, but luckily my fingerboard training has been paying off and I managed the lock all the way to the crimp. It was here I got a bit stumped and made quite an out of control catch to the next pinch and came off. Not a bad attempt really, and well enough that nobody managed to get any higher during the rest of the day.

At the end of the qualifiers I had racked up a good score, dropping only 2 out of 20 problems and still scoring very high on them. This was more than enough to make the finals alongside Eddie Barbour and Mikey Bleausard.

After watching the juniors compete and seeing some impressively strong performances by the next generation, it was time for Seniors to step up to compete in the finals. We all walked out to view our problems, a fun looking black set. The left hand one was techy on small crimps and volumes, the middle was a horror fest on snake-like lapis crimps and the final on the right was a totally bewildering sloper test-piece on volumes.Me on the middle snake crimper problem in the finals! - Photo by Jonathan Bean

I had unfortunately suffered a very bad split on my left middle finger directly on the pad! This was really painful throughout the whole competition and by the time finals came along, it was starting to bleed slightly.

My first problem was the snake holds, this was really sharp and crimpy and it took all my effort not to let go in pain as I pulled. Luckily I topped it quickly, this gave me time to rest. If my finger had not been in so much pain, I am positive I would have flashed this quite easily, the power screams I made as I climbed were not due to the difficulty of the moves, more just trying not to think about my sore finger…

The second problem was the horrendous sloper on the right side. I got a little shut down on this, more to the point though, I had to quit early on it too. As I was climbing, I heard a loud crack come from my right knee as I rocked over on my heel. Following the crack was a sudden rush of pain and instead of pulling any further, I just dropped off. I lay on the ground in agony for what felt like ages… Everyone was asking how I was, I knew that I could walk but the pain was so bad that I didn’t want to. Eventually I just got up and walked out of sight so I could stretch and test what my knee would take.

Me again on that snaky crimps problem - Photo by Jonathan BeanBasically, any heel hook felt like my knee was going to explode… the next problem required a really hard pull on my right heel which of course was not ideal for my current situation. In the end, I had a decision to make, either give up and place 3^rd in the finals, or take a risk and see if my knee holds up on the climbing. What I did was stupid and not in any way reflective of what I would advise as a coach, but as a competitor, I wanted to win. I decided that one attempt would be all that it takes to top this and if my knee was too sore then I could just drop off…

I pulled on the first two holds, a couple of tiny slopey screw on crimps. The fact that my finger was now also gushing blood from the pad wasn’t helping and  the crimps felt like daggers in my finger! The second I pushed on my right foot I felt the pain rise up through my leg… I withstood it though… The next move required a high heel hook and a lock to reach a big sloper. I crimped down on the slopey crimp and felt the blood run out and slide along my finger, the heel was causing my knee to burn and I felt sick from the pain but I just locked harder on my arms and tried to pull as little on the heel as possible. Thankfully, I got a seat on the volume and this took the weight of my heel – thank god!

The next moves were all very easy and I could more or less leave my right leg hanging completely limp as my left leg did all the work. I crimped down on some more slopey crimps and yet more blood ran down my finger… It was pretty grim but I topped it regardless.

After I had topped, I jumped off and landed in a heap on the ground… down climbing was too much like hard work. I crawled away to sit down and didn’t even look at how Eddie or Mikey where getting on with the other problems, I just needed to rest and focus on stopping my leg from pulsating. I came back 10 minutes later to find out that somehow I had won? I was confused with this (and still am to a certain extent) as I was positive that Mikey had climbed better than me. Both of us topped 2 problems but because I had made it higher on the first attempt on problem 3, I won… Eddie was 3^rd and Mikey was 2^nd. Dave Macleod himself gave me my prize and I got to shake his hand… covered in blood :P

Anyway, massive big up to the setters of the fab problems throughout the competition. The qualifiers were great and the finals superb, can’t wait until the next competition in January. I hope I am fully recovered for the final competition – a 1^st and 2^nd place in this years winter series is not too bad for a route climber and it’s looking good for a series win if I can pull out another top 3 position. Just need to make sure Eddie doesn’t win another :P

Sunday



So, I awoke in Aberdeen around an hour after I went to sleep unable to move my leg without a shot of pain from my knee to my big toe. It seems the adrenaline of the competition and travel has worn out and the knee crack which at the time was very sore but afterwards had dulled down to a minor ache was now a deep throb and sore with only the slightest of movement.

Regretfully but unavoidably I had to cancel my coaching plans in Aberdeen and get the next train home so I could get to Hospital for a doctors opinion. Turns out, the doctor thinks it might be a damaged meniscus but there is no sign of any damage on the bone after an X-Ray. Theresa Tait at EICA has a few ideas and she gave me a good little massage to ease some of the tightness which already has given me a lot more freedom of movement without pain.

I have a physio tomorrow at 3, so we will see what he/she thinks and hopefully an ultrasound will show up anything more sinister deeper within the knee if it's there... Hope not though...

 

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Coping with Injury
24 December 2012, 9:43 pm

Injury is something I have both little and lots of experience with. Throughout my career as a climber and coach, I have been surrounded by injuries, but I have yet to experience the real horror that is being injured to the point of complete shut down.

Injuries in the Blogosphere Nat wrote an amazing blog on her experiences with injury that touched both myself and many others around the world. It told of her life of training and competing on the Youth European and World circuit whilst dealing with repetitive injuries in her fingers and abdominals.

Much more recently, Mr Macleod himself has been writing some interesting blogs on his currently unfortunate predicament – one which was suffered not due to the commonly caused over-training, but by accident, a mistake really, by falling off the end of his rope lowering from a warm up route.

My friend and boss at EICA, Nic Crawshaw relates to Dave’s predicament with a funny story in which he was lowered off the end of the rope whilst climbing at Cascade sector in Ceuse. Anyone who has climbed there knows what it’s like being lowered over the edge of the main sector – it’s a little hard to judge with the ground being a further 5-10m lower than the point where you climb and belay from. The funny side of the story being the bit where he described crawling back to the campsite to get an ambulance as he couldn’t afford Mountain Rescue having taken out no Insurance! This always makes me think twice…

And finally, what has made me think more clearly about injuries is the very sad and thought provoking blogs of Ailsa Graham, an English lass who started her first blogs and quickly made a very powerful message amongst young climbers out there which was – A tweek might take 6 weeks to recover, 6 weeks might feel like forever, but it doesn’t feel nearly as long as a fully blown rupture when you’ve pushed despite the pain. Listen to your body!



My Life of Injury

I have yet to suffer something as terrible as what those above are experiencing now. When I first started climbing at 15 I would climb everyday god gave me. I remember being told to stop and rest but like a stupid little kid I just kept pulling until one day I felt a pain in my back… This knocked 3 weeks off climbing, 3 weeks that still I remember feeling like the longest time on earth, but I recovered and have not felt a pain quite like it since…

During my higher exams I remember feeling a slight twinge in my finger – it hurt whilst writing more than climbing, but after a couple of weeks, it was fine…

Last year during a period of very intense finger strength training I noticed a pain once again in my fingers. I was lucky enough to be hitting rock within a couple of weeks of feeling the pain knowing full well that the release of high intensity training would do it good, a couple of weeks of peak training and 4 weeks on rock – I haven’t felt a pain since…

Now, as any of you who follow my blog will know, I have a gammy knee… This isn’t the worst possible injury I could have but it does affect me and my training. First of all, it is painful just to walk on… Secondly, I can’t climb using my right leg without experiencing pain and I certainly don’t want to make it worse so I am avoiding using it in any way that is going to cause aggravation to the damaged ligament.

Frankly, I am incredibly lucky to have had such an amazing run in my climbing career so far without so much injury. I do think that I am incredibly careful with the way I train and have always prepared my body for the excess training and stress I put it under.



Emotional Injury Reading Ailsa’s blog, she is incredibly brave to write about her injuries in such an emotive way. To be honest, when I first read her blog I was both saddened by it and slightly put off, simply because of the intense emotional element to the writing. Obviously she is in a great deal of pain both physically and emotionally.

Since reading her blog however, I have been thinking more seriously about the implications of serious injury and how it would affect someone whose life revolves around a sport. Personally, I don’t know how I would react if I had such injuries that stopped me from climbing fullstop… I hope that it would be easier coupled with the fact that I have a strong connection with climbing more than just the physical aspect i.e. my entire social life is based in climbing as is my work.



Me socialising at the crag with fellow... errrrr... climbers?

With Ailsa, she is still very much involved in climbing to a great deal which I think is fantastic and also shows her passion for the sport – it also identifies strongly that climbing is a lifestyle and not simply a hobby for most of it’s partakers.



A Message to Climbers In the ending paragraphs of Ailsa’s blog she quotes Edward Whymper, the first ascenionist of the Matterhorn and also a celebrated author and illustrator:

“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.” Scrambles Amongst the Alps As someone who strives for excellence and improvement daily, this quote hit me hard. Remembering the fact that knowledge of what you are doing and why you are doing it forms the base of effective training, forgetting this is the first step to failing at what we are striving for and risks far more than not achieving. We climb because we love it, that’s how we started and it never leaves us. Never forget that whilst you may lose sight of it for a moment, climbing is something that enriches your life not through achieving, but simply through doing. When the endeavour for success makes you forget why you started and forces you in haste to take risks and badly placed steps, try and remember the beginning… think what may be the end…

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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MCofS Training and Evolv Boot Demo
10 January 2013, 2:14 pm

Things have been pretty fast paced since New Year, although not a bad thing (being busy is never a bad thing), it's all quite tiring and when it catches up with you the feeling of exhaustion is hard to shake off. I am currently sitting in my living room with aching triceps, biceps and finger tips, every click of the keyboard seems to send a shiver up my arm and my eyes are literally aching to close with every minute that goes by.

 

Climb Newcastle Boot Demo

Last night I was in Newcastle working an Evolv Boot Demo at the Bouldering wall, "Climb Newcastle". It was a really good experience hitting a new scene during the boot demos as I have only ever done them at Ratho. It was refreshing to see such a vibrant climbing scene bringing together both the young and old climbers and allowing them to socialise and share experiences climbing together.

It was a pleasure to meet some of the pioneers of Northumbrian Sandstone Climbing at the wall on the day as well, all of whom where incredibly friendly. As I have grown up climbing, I have seen their faces in the guide books and heard of their expoloits climbing on the sandstone when it was a very different era for climbing e.g. no mats! To meet them in person finally was really cool and frankly inspiring to say the least, I hope I am enjoying climbing as much as they are now when I am their age. John Earl told me that between the lot of them there was 8 metal hips! Not ideal when going through customs at the airport, but that is what happens when you fall off the wall onto hard ground for years and years!

I also got to do a bit of climbing at the wall as well which in my opionion was some of the best quality problems I've done at a climbing wall in a while. It was mainly the consistency of top quality problems that I liked about the venue. There was a few jug ladders dotted about for beginners, but generally, everything, even the easier stuff had thought put into it and required some skill and not just brute strength. What was also very good was the fact that they set a new circuit every week, something I wish we could do at Ratho. Every week a new circuit is set with problems ranging up to 7A in nearly every circuit, meaning that there is probably something new and hard to try for everybody nearly every week!

After the demo, I drove back home along the winding A68 which in the day is a stunning drive and at night I saw about 3 cars between coming off the A696 near Newcastle and hitting the Edinburgh bypass!

 

MCofS Boulder Training (Elite+ Academy Event)

Last weekend I was working at TCA (The Climbing Academy) in Glasgow for the MCofS both organising, setting for and running 2013's first Elite+ Academy Event. This one was geared at testing members of the Scottish Team and British Team's abilities on the bouldering wall with problems set specifically to certain grades across a range of different styles so that kids could better identify their weaknesses.

I also split the kids up into Teams, the aim of which was to encourage the kids to throw aside any singular competitive drive and instead help their friends and team mates to ultimately win the Team Event.

After the first round, we broke up for lunch and I ran a short lecture on Technique, Mental Drive and Determination and what it takes to become a better more all round climber.

We started climbing again, this time though we where on the main competition wall. I had spent the best part of Friday (day before) setting this wall with an array of confusing, challenging and very difficult problems for the kids to throw themselves at. They picked up on important skills learned from the first round but where at another level entirely than what they had tried previously.

What is quickly becoming a trademark problem of mine on the TCA competition wall is setting with the Tufa's! The last two times it has been the first holds I have set with and I don't really want to break the tradition. Last time however, the Tufa's where only set to around V4, wheras this time I had set two problems, both a V4 and a V7!

If you have been at TCA this last week no doubt you will have got to try the problems, so if you like them then please comment below and tell me what you thought :) This is what i set:

• Red V4 (Left Side)
• Yellow V5 (Ellis Brigham)
• Blue V5 (Ellis Birgham)
• Black V6 (Ellis Brigham)
• Yellow V7 (Scarpa)
• Purple Tufa V4 (Scarpa)
• Blue V7 (Scarpa)
• Black V6 (TCA Left)
• Purple Tufa V7 (TCA Central)
• Blue V4 (TCA Right)
• Black V8 (TCA Right)

All of the problems got climbed with only William Bosi climbing everything - though the black V8 did take him a bit of effort :P

Notes for next time though, set some more V8's and maybe a V9 - Kids are too strong!

Now to see some of the kids in action on the day, here is a little video I made of day:

 

 

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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A big year ahead...
23 January 2013, 2:02 am

2013 is only less than a month in and already it is proving to be much busier than I expected. Not a bad thing really, I am having to come to terms with the fact that I eventually had to start working full-time :P The great thing is that I am doing a job that I absolutely love, something which I was terrified would never happen.

When I first left school I had no idea what I was going to do. A Year of doing not much but climbing taught me my life would have to be involved in the sport somehow. Two years since then and my career path is laid out in front of me clearer than water...

The big issue now is making sure I still have enough time to do what I love, which of course is going climbing myself! I am spending most of my time training other climbers that I am struggling to find time to think about my own climbing goals. And believe me, they are most definitely still there and as vibrantly built in my mind as ever, I just need to make sure they don't stay there and actually become realities instead of just figments.

I am planning my year very carefully... It's more or less built around competitions, training camps and coaching trips, all of which I am attending so of course cannot be organising any climbing trips when they are happening.

My first climbing trip in 2013 is probably going to be Costa Blanca in March. I am heading there around the 17th of March (the day after the last round of Scotlands series of the YCS). The main aim of the trip is to run a coaching trip for kids of all ages and abilities, but of course I am going to sneak off a bit earlier to make sure I get some climbing of my own in :P

Some friends of mine, Stuart Stronnach and Amanda Lyons know the area really well so I picked their brains a bit as to where the best routes for my grade are. Further investigation on 8a.nu showed there are around 6 x routes in the 8b+ to 8c mark that look good and are climbed often. I'd like to take a bash at doing some of those if possible with an aim to getting at least one of the 8c's done. If I have a couple of weeks before the coaching, potentially doing them all would be possible if I'm going well, but we will have to see :)

The next trip would be to Imst, Austria in May. Again I am travelling out with a bunch of kids who are competing in a competition at Kletterhalle Imst called the Youth Color Climbing Festival. The event itself is only the start of our trip though as we will all be staying an extra 5 days to train with the Austrian Team at Kletterhalle Imst and go out climbing with them in the local area. Hopefully I will also get to do some climbing during this week :P I might even stay an extra week myself and get out climbing in the local crags. I'd love to hit Zillertal and try and do "Total Brutal" (8b+).

I am still contemplating my Summer trip. The easy option would be to hit Ceuse and go for glory on all the remaining hard routes I still have left there, basically everything that is any good is 8c or harder now :P There is also potential in going to another crag not too far away, quite close to Serre Chevalier that a friend David Falt has been going on and on about. I would like to check this place out!

After the Summer we are into Autumn and come October and the BLCC's I will be heading to Kalymnos! We are going to do another big trip there with the kids and once again I hope to get some personal climbing in at the same time. There is one climb I really want to do here, a mega roof climb called "Inshallah" (8c+)! I remember the day it was climbed by Nico Favresse - I remember talking to him as he said he was off to try his project, I didn't even know who he was at the time, just some guy at the crag :P

And finally, I can't forget about the UK. Well, I am of course going to try and get back down to Yorkshire at some point, but as soon as conditions are ripe, I am going to be heading north west to the steely crag of Steall Hut! I have started contemplating what is required of me to climb at the 9th grade and a simple truth that I don't have a lot of time to be galavanting across the globe trying the biggest and hardest routes for me has dawned. So, after a conversation with Dave Macleod,  I decided to check out the old project of Cubby's that Dave climbed back in 2007 - that is of course "Ring of Steall" (8c+). The cool thing about this is that it has an extension at 9a now thanks to Dave, so if I am wanting to climb at this grade, it would be awesome to do it in Scotland. At least I could give the 8c+ a right good go at this year, then it would leave the 9a part open for the future...

That would shape 2013 up nicely I think...

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Fear: How much does it hold you back?
7 February 2013, 2:13 pm

A topic with thousands of different avenues, paths and directions. What does fear actually mean in climbing? Does it help or hinder us? What are the different types of fear?

As a climbing coach I am covering the dillema of fear with climbers of all ages and abilities basically every day of the week. There is too much out there to put into one small blog, but at least I can make a start at it.

Falling

The biggest barrier I have found facing 95% of the climbers I coach is the fear of falling. For everyone the challenge to overcome is slightly different, as are the symptoms it causes and the level to which it affects them. In every single example however, fear is holdin them back from achieving their potential...

A fear of falling is something that isn't unnatural to us. In fact, it's very much a natural reaction of our minds to escape the inevitable outcome of death (or pain) when falling from a great height. The difference however, is that if we are attached to a rope, the risks are greatly reduced irrespective of whether the route is a sport climb or traditional. For the purposes of this blog, I am going to be focussing purely on sport or indoor climbing, because that is the area that most of my clients have issues with.

Why then do we struggle to overcome our fears when the risks are lowered to such a degree that really, there is little or no risks involved? This is a question I have been asking myself for years and still have yet to come up with a true solution - the best work I have done towards helping climbers overcome their fears is simply through a lot of personal involvement in their climbing, trying to make them more confident climbers in general.

Climber A has been climbing only for a short while but is improving at a steady and positive rate. He can push himself on top rope fairly hard and even on something as steep as a cave or roof (if it's high), but when it comes to something only slightly overhung or vertical/slab, there is the fear again!

Climber B has been climbing for a fairly long time but goes through phases of being comfortable to push his limits and other times when he just stops and can't go any further...

Climber C is a very accomplished climber who has a long history of developing her climbing for high-end performances on rock, but struggles to push harder on terrain that she has not already climbed on top rope a number of times. And even when she has done this, she might still struggle to push it on lead until she has made it high on the route at least a couple of times on lead before shouting "Take!".

These examples are real-life people I coach or have worked with in the past (they will know who they are if they are reading this).

In each example, there is the element of fear that crops up that is holding them back from pushing themselves when they really need it - so how do they overcome this?

Less steep lead climbingClimber A needs to spend more time on less steep walls - initially dropping the grade they climb and just leading on routes at that angle with a lot of success and no falling. Eventually, introducing a bit more challenge to the sessions by trying something harder is required. When you begin this, it will be a good idea to also start practicing lead falls on the same bit of wall with someone you trust to belay you. Start of taking small repetetive falls with your harness at the clip until you can take bigger falls with your hips just above the clip. Continue like this 2-3 days a week for around a month and you will see big gains in confidence! It's important not to let yourself slip back into fear though, keep up with the fall practice and start attempting routes at a harder level again until you feel that you are capable of pushing it on hard onsights with little fear holding you back... Climber A is going to have average progression as he has only just started climbing.

Climber B is half-way there. He has already shown improvements in his ability to deal with the fear, but it is still holding him back. He needs to keep battling it out and not lose focus of what is most likely the biggest factor holding back his lead climbing performance. Remember that although there may be other aspects of your climbing performance that need work on, your fear of falling is actually driving them back as well whenver you tie onto a rope with the intention of leading something. You climb worse, you over grip, your technique turns to crap, etc... If you are confident and free to give a lead your all, you will improve every other aspect of your climbing for lead so much faster!

Climber C has got stuck in the rut that so many climbers get into. She has been in Taking the Lead Fall!this place for a long time now and has no doubt developed her climbing style, tactics and goals based around her fear of falling. For her it is going to be more difficult than anyonelse to overcome and it comes back to the age old question of, "Do you really want to overcome it?". Is it holding her back from what she wants to achieve or is it something that she can get by with forever. In the end of the day, climbing in a way that reduces the chance at failure during a lead climb AKA "A fall", is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does seriously slow down progress and the development of good technique and style. In my opinion, all effort should be bent towards overcoming this over everything else if you find yourself in this situation, because if you do overcome it, you will get so much more enjoyment out of your climbing!

 

Falling is something everyone eventually is challenged by. It might be the fear of:

• Hurting Yourself
• Being dropped by belayer
• Mistrust in Equipment
• The actual sensation of falling
• The unknown... (The actual fall itself is fine but the moments before are agony)

Whatever it is, you will most likely encounter it at some point in your climbing career, the important thing to remember is not to let it take advantage of you or latch onto you for too long otherwise it can soon become a metaphorical 100kg weight pulling you off the wall!

A recent 8a.nu forum post described the notion that if most 7a climbers climbed with the white hot intensity and fearless confidence of that of a 9a climber, then they would be hitting the 8a mark pretty soon... This isn't a rule nor is it necessarily true of everybody, but I can tell you this... I have yet to coach one person so far who I think couldn't improve their grade at least by a couple of grades with more confidence and ferlessness on the wall...

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Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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Fear: How much does it hold you back? (Part 2 - Failing)
11 February 2013, 1:13 am

“Fear leads to anger… Anger leads to hate… Hate leads to suffering…”

Yoda

One of my favourite quotes of all time! And it is so very relevant in the world of climbing…

• Fear of a route or situation holds us back, which if we are competitive in any way, will anger us.
• The anger we feel leads to hating that climb or situation.
• The hatred of those climbs or situations forces us to avoid them at all costs which leads to suffering in the way of being held back in our strife for better performance as we are not addressing our weaknesses.

In the last blog post, we had a look at “Fear” with respect to “Falling”. What was quite rightly stated by some people on the comments is that there are different types of fear that holds us back, not just that of something obvious and tangible like falling.



Fear of Failure

I have written a lot on this subject, but it’s always something that is good to continually re-address to remind people as it is the first thing usually forgotten.

Anybody that considers him/herself performance orientated will come across “Fear of Failure” (FOF) at some point in their life. I am naturally a very competitive person and am confronted by FOF on a daily basis. It pops it’s head up in many different situations, not all climbing orientated, but it’s always in climbing that it affects me the most because climbing is what I am most passionate about.

Here are a couple of examples of FOF in action:

Example 1: I am at the wall with a bunch of friends I regularly climb with. Everybody is trying a new set of routes recently set and are all trying to onsight them. I look at route 1 thinking, “doesn’t look too bad… I know I can Onsight this”. One of my friends attempts it and fails. Instantly I am energised to get on it and prove to my friend and myself that I can onsight it.

Competition among friends and peers can be difficult...

Suddenly, another on of my friends jumps in front and asks if he can have a shot. He gets on it and Onsights it with a bit of a fight at the top. This guy is one of the best of the group, probably a similar level to me. Suddenly I am feeling a little bit nervous, I don’t fancy trying this anymore, it looks a little tricky in that upper section, I think I will go try some different climbs… There is a harder graded route right next to it nobody has tried yet… I get on it and onsight it to the top!



If I onsighted this one, then really I should onsight the easier one as well… I’m a little tired now… I think I’ll leave it for another day J



Example 2: I have been trying this route for a few days now. When I first attempted it, it felt way out of my league! Now I am falling off reaching the last few holds but I keep failing at that section. Every time I get on it I feel a little nervous, sometimes slightly sick… I am so close to doing this climb but it just seems so far up the wall to fall of repeatedly. Why can’t I just do it and get it over and done with!



I have another attempt, I feel ill at the start, really nervous but I continue anyway. I make it past my previous high point but I fall again! AGGGGHHHHHHH!!! This is so frustrating… What am I going to do? I wasn’t even pumped!



I decide to have a rest day and try it again when I am fully recovered. All day I am thinking about the climb, re-hearsing the moves in my head… I have it dialled, I just need to seal the deal, then I can move onto something else!



I stand below the route, prepping myself to try it… I don’t feel right… I’m just not in the right frame of mind. I try it again but this time I am shaking with nerves, I fall off at the first crux – I haven’t fallen of this low on any of my redpoint tries! I am getting worse L



Redpoint stress is a difficult opponent...

So the main thing to take away from each of these examples is that the FOF has had a negative effect on the performances. One thing to note however is that in each example, the FOF stems from a slightly different source.

Example 1 is very common and although you might be sitting there thinking “I have never experienced this”, really have a think about it! I believe a very high percentage of boys most likely experience this on a week to week basis whereas girls are probably less so (but are still susceptible to it). Example 1 is all about the FOF brought on from how you are affected by what other people think of you. If you are very self-conscious (a lot of people are), then this will affect you massively!

What you need to do is recognise that nobody actually cares how well you do on something, only you do. You are the one putting the pressure on yourself, not them, they are just there climbing, get used to it! If someone you are very competitive with is climbing with you and does really well, use it as fuel to push you harder on your attempt.

I have been using competitions for years as a way of training myself to deal better with nerves. When you put yourself on the spot to perform well on a route you haven’t chosen, in front of a crowd, in a competitive scenario and at a set time, you can be guaranteed a good mental challenge! The National Open Competitions are good for this, but so are the little winter bouldering leagues. With those, I tend to go around with a group of friends trying the problems. I always like to go first and avoid taking beta from people who have already tried it so I can stack the nerves as high as possible. For me going first is the most stressful, I at least like to see a few people do the problem usually, that’s why I now avoid that scenario and instead opt for the more challenging option :PCompetitions are intense mental scenarios that can train you to better deal with the mental side of climbingCompetition climbing is one of the most stressful and intense climbing scenarios around

If you look at the situation in Example 1 you will see even at the end, when he onsighted the harder of the routes, he is still wary that he doesn’t want to jump on the one that he could potentially fail on and look bad. If I was in this scenario, I would challenge myself to get on it anyway and tell myself that even if I do fall of, that there is nothing to worry about because the only thing that matters is how I felt about the climb, and that nobody else’s opinion matters. A hard thing to do, but if it’s just training down the wall it doesn’t really matter, and if it’s a hard route outdoors, then there is a million routes to onsight outdoors so blowing one is not really a big deal.

Example 2 is again another common scenario of FOF. This is Redpoint stress! I have had this many a time and still struggle with it. The source of the fear this time comes solely from your ambition to do the climb. Sometimes a spot of peer pressure if one of your friends is trying it as well (or has done it) also crops up, but keeping it separate from Example 1, in our scenario the climber is trying the route on his own.

He has been climbing the route for a few days and has in that time built up in his head that he can do it. His mistake however is getting too relaxed in thinking that the route will be sent shortly now that he has made a few high points. It is easy to get sucked into a hole of failing endlessly due to nerves if you put too much pressure on yourself to tick the route. A prime example of this is Dani Andrada on “La Rambla” (9a+). He has been trying the route for 15 years and has failed on the penultimate moves endless numbers of times! It might be now that he has developed a mental block on this route due to too much pressure - it will be a very hard wall to push through with 15 years of pressure built in front of him. But imagine the feeling of triumph the day he clips those chains!!!



SUCCESS!!!

Even after a rest day he has built the route into more of an issue than it needs to be and he ends up having a terrible first attempt. This is probably partly due to the fact that he has had a rest day and might be a little rusty on the climb – it is definitely worth warming yourself up a but by dogging the climb and brushing all the holds before your attempt. At least then you are reminding yourself of the moves and giving yourself the best chance at succeeding by brushing the holds and warming up specifically.

Some special tricks I have learned to reduce anxiety for redpoint attempts are:

• Listening to relaxing music
• Visualisation
• Positive Reinforcement

The three above all tie together. Usually I have a playlist of my favourite chill tunes that always get my relaxed and in a flowing state of mind. During my chill out period, I will be visualising the sequence both from an inner and outer view point as well as reinforcing my belief in myself as an individual climber and not as someone who is affected by outside influences such as peers, competitors or spectators.

This won’t work for everybody, but it works for me. Unfortunately it will be up to you to find out what works best, but it is worth experimenting with a few different things until you get one that sticks...

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips

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YCS Round 1 - "The Peak" (2013)
17 February 2013, 10:25 am

Yo Guys

Last Saturday was the first round of the YCS for many regions round the country including both North and South Scotland. In the North it was held at Inverness Leisure Centre and in the South it was at Stirling's "The Peak"!A host of competitors and coaches checking out myself and Jonny's creations (Photo By Rachel Carr)

 

This year was set to be the biggest one yet with 75 kids participating in total! This is massive for our regional rounds and it really shows just how Climbing as a sport is growing year after year. Rock Climbing is now considered to be the fastest growing sport in the world taking over from Skateboarding which has been number one for the last 20 years. I believe that the growth of the sport relies heavily on the regional work put into getting more kids into the sport such as events like this - if we can keep up the hard work going into these events, then the future for Climbing is going to be getting brighter for sure!

Our leader, Area Youth Co-ordinator Scott Forsyth (Photo by Rachel Carr)This years YCS is not only the biggest it's ever been, but its probably also looking at being the most competetive in each category we've ever had. There are so many kids in our Southern region that deserve a podium place and thus an opportunity to go to the YCS Finals in June, but the categories are so dense with strong climbers all operating at a high level that it becomes a real fight for the opportunity to go. This of course makes my job as setter and coach very tough indeed.

The day before I have to set the boulders and routes to a level that wil:

• Split the field of strong candidates in a fair unbiased way (i.e. no big reachy moves and in a variety of styles and technical skills so that the most developed don't have advantages i.e.only the most skilled will get through)
• Be enjoyable for the majority of the groups and not just acting as a splitter for the top guys and girls.
• Hopefully split everyone without a need for a superfinal as it becomes a long day if this happens.

These are my main parameters as a Routesetter for the YCS Rounds.

This of course becomes very difficult when you set 3 x Routes and 3 x Boulders and in order for the meat of the climbers to enjoy it, they have to top the first 2 of each! This makes things harder as the pressure is all put on one route and one boulder which if not set perfectly, could lead to a lot of joint 1st places in the more competetive categories.A YCS Competitor cranking it out on one of Stockings yaldi test pieces! (Photo by Rachel Carr)

Saturday's competition in Stirling was set by myself and a good friend of mine, Jonny Stocking (Junior British Champion). We arrived at "The Peak" around 8am and got together a plan of where the routes and boulders would be set. Because I am the Scottish Coach and heavily involved with the top climbers in each category either through 1:1 coaching or training events, I know pretty well the right grade to set the routes at and what will hopefully split each category... saying that... it is still hard work getting it right and we all make mistakes :P

Working with Jonny was great fun, we have a good laugh together and he is as hard a worker as any so the job gets done quickly and efficiently. By the end of the day, i felt that we had set together a quality selection of routes and boulder problems that the kids would both enjoy and be challenged on.

On the day, I was nervous for the kids I coach, but also nervous for myself and Jonny as I knew we had set to split the competition and if we had not done our job well enough, the competition could have been a flop!

Ian of the Stirling Spiders starting out on the gnarly V6 I set for Youth C, B and A Boys! (Photo by Rachel Carr)As the day progressed, we saw some amazing climbing skills, fantatsic displays of courage, fight, determinataion and effort on all fronts! It was good to see as well the comraderie amongst our young climbers, working together as if in a team but also against each other at the same time. This is something I don't think you see in other sports... yet another reason why climbing is the greatest sport on earth! :D

By the end of the day, there was of course a few tears amongst the crowds of children... but mostly they where happy faces with smiles. And the tears never last long because children always bounce back higher after they have fallen. I was proud of every single kid I saw climb that day - from those who have been training a year for another chance to make finals to those who had only been climbing 3 weeks and had come along just to see what a competition is like.

I am happy to say that we didn't require a superfinal and each category was split despite a few close calls in the more competetive categories :D

Looking forward to Glasgow Round 2 in a week and a halfs time!

PSYCHED!

Source: Blogs from Robbie Phillips