[shark]

His advice on skin maintenance in his book was very good.

What? IRCC this was one of the weaker bits in an otherwise excellent book. No mention of sanding your tips, elizabeth arden cream or antihydral.

I'd marry him. 

[Doylo]

I'd marry him too. Be great to have a coach for a husband.

[cheque]

Honestly, I think that latest blog post is designed to wind us up

and win back Nibile's affections.

[petejh]

DM strikes me as a no-compromise type of person. I wouldn't want to be married to him!

I wonder who really wears the kilt in that household..

[SA Chris]

As in most houses, probably their child.

[Jaspersharpe]

Or the cat.

[Doylo]

Cats get in the way of climbing performance, get rid of the cat.

[nai]

Not Dave's cat, Dave's cat is the one-in-ten

[petejh]

It gave up its career as manager of mouse-catching to focus on life as a sponsored tree-climber.

[nai]

moved from the city and its punter deciduous scene to be in the heart of hard coniferous climbing. Spends hours on his purpose built scratching post.

[lagerstarfish]

anyone got a link to Dave's cat's blog?

[webbo]

Dave is lucky that his cat was ok with his move nearer to climbing and allowing him to build a board. Our 3 cats ( Smarty, Poppy and Kitty) would only allow me to have a house with a board if we moved to Lincolnshire. So they could continue their campaign to annihilate Englands small mammal population.

[gme]

Like TB says this is just self promotion, as all blogs of professional sportsmen generally are, and i don't mean that in a derogatory way. Dave stated he was intending to run coaching sessions from his new wall ages ago, has got a new book out soon and hasn't done anything major on the rock this year (correct me if i am wrong). He is very good at keeping his name out there and therefore keeping his sponsors happy, as well as obviously a very good climber and this is what companies want.

Whilst i agree that he is just stating the obvious to people on here in his last few posts we are not who he is really talking too. However if i was a spotty youth living at home i would be lapping it up and showing my dad what he said to get him to move the car out of the garage.

[Luke Owens]

Or asking your boss for a longer lunch break 1 or 2 days a week so that you can train (someone on here gave this practical advice to Luke in Power Club).

This was way better advice than anything in DM's recent blog post's.

When I bought my house in May I really did want to find somewhere with a garage to build a board. But when faced with saving ~£20,000 for a place without a garage it was a no brainer. As much as I want to improve at climbing a cheaper mortgage and better quality of life is obviously a better option.

[nik at work]

What GME  said.

[a dense loner]

You haven't saved 20k Luke? You just haven't paid 20k for a garage that could put 30k on the house later on. You've just lost 10k for nothing  Doylo would have paid to keep a board in there!

[lagerstarfish]

allow me to have a house with a board if we moved to Lincolnshire.

is it true that if you live in Lincolnshire you can get a board on the NHS?

[tomtom]

allow me to have a house with a board if we moved to Lincolnshire.

is it true that if you live in Lincolnshire you can get a board on the NHS?

Ask Webbo...

[webbo]

allow me to have a house with a board if we moved to Lincolnshire.

is it true that if you live in Lincolnshire you can get a board on the NHS?

This is true in as the money to pay for the board has come from the NHS ( In the form of my wages as an overpaid/over pensioned burnt out clinician )

[Boredboy]

Dave just seems to be reiterating that you make your own choices in life.  If you disagree with this then I guess that means that you disagree that you are an entity of free will.

There's an argument to say we're not an entity of free will.

[Jaspersharpe]

Who told you to say that?

[lagerstarfish]

he could call his next book "I Chose to Climb" or something

maybe put a pic on the cover of him bouldering on the back of The Calf

[Boredboy]

Who told you to say that?

The online climbing coach

[comPiler]

And another point about fear of falling
15 January 2015, 2:33 pm

I’ve posted on this blog several times about fear of falling, and of course written a whole book section on it in 9 out of 10. But further elements of this complex issue of mental training continue to challenge so many climbers, certainly if the number of emails I get on the subject is anything to go by.

One aspect that just came to mind while reading another of these is the issue of focusing your mind too much on the problem of fear of falling in the process of trying to address it.

So the problem of excessive fear or anxiety in leading may arise subconsciously.  By the time you realise that it is actually a big limitation with your climbing, it may already be quite a large and engrained issue. So you need to stare it in the face and look at the roots of it to first understand its origin and then change your habits to reduce and eliminate it.

But the subtlety of how to approach this effort seems to be important. I notice that some climbers seem to view their fear of falling as a foe in which they are in a constant battle with. Given the time and difficulty involved in overcoming fear of falling for a proportion of climbers, I can completely understand why it must feel like this. Nevertheless, viewing it along these lines could become self-defeating.

Fear is a healthy and and entirely natural human emotion. Again we have to go back to the difference between the actual risk, and the fear we produce from it. Sure, we can swallow fear in a moment of truth. But this is not a training strategy. The training strategy is to alter the inputs that result in the fear. You’re not trying to squash the fear, you’re trying to change how you think, plan and act on the rock so the fear needs not arise. The fear inputs can be reduced either by resetting your sense of what is actually fearful, such as by gaining familiarity with practice falls, or by reducing the sense of uncertainty about your position on the rock, by learning all the countless tactical tricks of leading.

Although you must face the problem directly to get to this stage, you must be careful to maintain attention on the pleasure and satisfaction of leading, as opposed to a constant battle against fear. When people have asked me about the boldest leads I have ever done, I’ve always come back to the same basic idea that the desire to experience and complete the climb simply overwhelmed any fears I had, no matter how serious they were.

You must give active energy to thinking about why you are motivated to have the experience of leading difficult rock climbs. What positives are there. When these elements are front and centre in your mind, the fears are naturally pushed to the side, or rather put in their place.

Dave MacLeod

My book - 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes

Source: Online Climbing Coach

[comPiler]

Hyperhidrosis and climbing
15 January 2015, 10:32 pm

Over the years I’ve heard from a few climbers who summer from hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) of the hands. For obvious reasons, the condition is a major hindrance for rock climbing and causes much torment for sufferers who love the activity but are constantly hampered by severely sweaty hands.I do not have the condition myself, but I definitely have more sweaty hands than average and I find that my indoor climbing performance has always lagged as much as a number grade behind my outdoor climbing grade. I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to deal with the condition as a climber, having dripping hands with the slightest exertion.

Hopefully, most sufferers will already know about iontophoresis, but in case not, I thought I should write this post.

I am grateful to Bob Farrell who got in touch last year to let me know that discovering the treatment had completely transformed his climbing. He went from a state of despair about how to enjoy rock climbing to being able to enjoy good friction and dry hands on small holds, both indoor and outside in warm weather.

The treatment involves passing a small electrical current, supplied by an iontophoresis machine through the hands, for 15-30 minutes or so. The hands (or feet) have to be placed in a water bath to apply the current. Despite its remarkable effectiveness, its mechanism of action is still unknown. But it blocks the sweat glands in some way, temporarily. Several treatments are required to see the benefits, and top-up treatments are needed every few days or weeks (with individual variability) to maintain the effects.

But those effects appear to essentially solve the problem for a great majority of sufferers. Although I have not tried the treatment myself, it sounds from Bob’s experience and the evidence from other non-climbing sufferers, that all affected climbers should definitely try it.

It is available, at least in some places on the NHS. But most sufferers who try the treatment and have good results seem to just purchase their own iontophoresis machine and do their top-up treatments at home. Machines cost £3-400 for a standard model.

There seem to be few side effects, although if you have cuts in your fingers from climbing, these will burn during the treatment, with the workaround of just excluding the cut finger from the iontophoresis bath during treatment

I hope this post provides some help to sufferers who have yet to hear of the treatment.Dave MacLeod

My book - 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes

Source: Online Climbing Coach