[abarro81]

Right, none of this " 5 year project but I only climb on it once a year" crap. That's not a project, that's something you've dabbled on a few times.

In general I agree with Bonjoy though - all project and no send makes Alex a weak boy. Nice to mix it up - sometimes being focused on a route for a few months or a whole trip, sometimes quick RPs and sometimes just onsighting/flashing.

The only big sieges I've done have really been on trips, so I can amass lots of days on a route in a short space of time. I find this way less stressful than when you have to wait for the next dry, not too hot, not too seepy weekend.

[rodma]

Right, none of this " 5 year project but I only climb on it once a year" crap. That's not a project, that's something you've dabbled on a few times.

I trust that you're not referring to me, cos if you are, you are making some utterly incorrect assumptions.

[abarro81]

Just seemed to be a theme developing, maybe I've misinterpreted some posts, I just read the whole lot at once so it's all blended into one..

[TobyD]

In general I agree with Bonjoy though - all project and no send makes Alex a weak boy. Nice to mix it up - sometimes being focused on a route for a few months or a whole trip, sometimes quick RPs and sometimes just onsighting/flashing.

I agree with the general point as well, but quite like (in theory at least) to have a long term goal which i occasionally spend a day or so on, both as a way of progressing towards doing it, and as a way to train for quicker ticks. In Britain, however, you quite often don't get that luxury, and you have to fight for the ticks when the crag / boulder is dry.   

[shark]

Topic for the likes of tomtom and shark and other fans of repeated failure eventually leading to success...

I prefer to think of it as repeated progress eventually leading to success.

The first point to make is that long term sieging is just a means to an end – the end being to climb a hard route. The process requires you to climb and apply yourself at your absolute limit. By comparison onsighting at your limit is only a limit relative to that style of climbing - not your absolute limit. If you aren't sieging you aren't at your (absolute) limit IMO. The question of “why siege?” can be re-framed as “why climb at your limit?”.

So why climb at your (absolute) limit?. Because it is giving all you've got to a particular route or grade – achieving something that is some kind of impossible dream. Like any commitment there are downsides and sacrifices.  I can understand that the deferred gratification, the uncertainty, the frustrations, the time and the sheer effort might rate as too much like hard work and sacrifices not worth making. Of course you have to follow what get's you psyched. Personally I love working inspiring hard routes – refining the moves and getting links getting a buzz from the little steps of progress. Overcoming set backs can also be gratifying.

By the time you are close to redpointing the chances are that the route is no longer at your limit and that little factors such as conditions, luck, skin are the only things standing between you and the tick and that can admittedly be tedious. And once that impossible dream is ticked other challenges a little bit harder hove into view. And so it goes on.

I talk to a lot of people in manufacturing who have a passion for continuous improvement which drives them to relentlessly seek out methods of working and processes to improve production efficiency. You might think that this has an ultimate profit goal but most of them view it as a journey not a destination which is motivating of itself.

[Bonjoy]

Here are the words on ondrawad on the matter, from a 9b interview (full interview here: http://novebi.ning.com/profiles/blogs/two-friends-for-a-9b-adam-ondra-la-dura-dura-interview)

What have you learned by climbing La Dura Dura that you think you could share with any climber trying to redpoint an important project and maybe progressing to their next grade?
That after two weeks of working the same route, it is very difficult to make further progress. That was quite suprising to me. The 3rd and 4th weeks on La Dura Dura were completely pointless, I was climbing one level below and no matter how efficiently I climbed, I couldn’t and didn’t progress. If you don’t feel close after two or three weeks, better to give up for a while, train specifically for it and get back on it. Body will forget how to move in the route, but in a couple of days it is back.  Climbing a certain grade within 10 days of work doesn’t mean that you would climb another level if you worked for a year.

Seems like after 2/3 weeks of effort, your best bet is to sack it back to training and get stronger 

Amen brother.


Shark - That’s the theory, it could be characterised as the direct approach (or the Stone paradigm perhaps). I’m not convinced that the direct approach is the most effective way to break new levels of difficulty, even at the limit of your potential. I’ve always thought it works best to sneak up on things and pounce when they least expect it, so to speak. Some level of concentrated effort is needed to get a thing done but I don’t think this is worth exerting until you are almost good enough to do the thing you have in mind – for the reasons Ondra is pointing at, your window of improvement is short. Once that window is closed you are reduced to riding a bumpy plateaux and waiting to get lucky, not my idea of fun. What’s worse is that whilst you’re maintaining your ability on your target set of moves your general level at everything else is slipping. This last issue can be addressed if you properly mix things up, but I think this can be hard to do if you are very fixated on one goal as you tend to get on this every time conditions and/or your body feel up to it.
The only time I’ve tried to really siege something was on Mecca (pre-kneebars). I didn’t get up the route, I didn’t enjoy the experience and I got weak. I do feel like it taught me what I don’t like to do though.

[abarro81]

Some level of concentrated effort is needed to get a thing done but I don’t think this is worth exerting until you are almost good enough to do the thing you have in mind

I definitely think it can be worth putting a few days into a 'future project' before you might be ready to do it so that you know 'the score' and what you need to train for/where you need to be in - say- a year's time to be able to go back and crush. I think a lot of the top guys do this - try a proj at the end of their trip to Catalunya, return home and train with it in the back of their mind for 6 months, return and crush.

[Bonjoy]

Of course. Range finding. You need to know how far off the mark you are if you're aiming at/above your limit.

[Fiend]

The first point to make is that long term sieging is just a means to an end – the end being to climb a hard route. The process requires you to climb and apply yourself at your absolute limit. By comparison onsighting at your limit is only a limit relative to that style of climbing - not your absolute limit. If you aren't sieging you aren't at your (absolute) limit IMO. The question of “why siege?” can be re-framed as “why climb at your limit?”.

Bollox, absolute limit on a route or long boulder problem?? Yeah right too many factors like conditions, stamina, technique, skin, etc come into play.

Absolute limit should be applied to campussing and deadhanging.... See, dense was right all along, as if anyone doubted that 

[slackline]

Bollox, absolute limit on a route or long boulder problem?? Yeah right too many factors like conditions, stamina, technique, skin, etc come into play.

*Cough*

By the time you are close to redpointing the chances are that the route is no longer at your limit and that little factors such as conditions, luck, skin are the only things standing between you and the tick and that can admittedly be tedious. And once that impossible dream is ticked other challenges a little bit harder hove into view. And so it goes on.

[Sasquatch]

Seems like an interesting spectrum of responces.  I'll start of by my initial answers to the questions, seeing as I've had a 12 year 60 plus session project that finally went down this past year....

What's it like long-term projecteering?
You can approach it any way you like.  I personally have never been big on the ultra-focused siege mentality.  On pretty much all of my long term projects (both route and boulder), I start off casually just seeing how they feel, and being generally playful to see if they might go.  This will go on without a strong siege focus from a couple of days to a couple of years.  Once I feel prepared and possibly capable, I'll put a bit more dedication to the project.  This will generally start with a focus on it for 1-2 weeks (3-4 sessions).  On a boulder problem this would mean doing a good warm-up, then straight to the project.  Work it until progress is backwards, then go play on other problems at every grade for the rest of the day.  On a route, I would treat it much the same.  If no success or luck in those sessions, then relegate to another time and go do other stuff. 

How do you manage the repeated failure / backwards days?
I find it VERY important to recognize regression and call it a day when you do. Go do something else instead, this can be easier stuff that you can have fun finishing, or it can also be helpful to get on harder stuff to push your personal perspective. I really believe most climbers are capable of climbing harder than they do, but their head holds them back (myself very much included).   

What sort of motivation do you have to sustain it? (I'm assuming some sort of awesomeness-of-problem motivation, I'm not interested in grade-chasing toss)
My motivation generally boils down to an innate desire to see what I'm capable of doing.  Sometimes the line or movement drives me, but generally I'm looking to answer the simple question" Can you do it?"  I think this sometimes gets confused with grade chasing toss, but they're miles apart.  Nibs is a great example of this.  I'd never peg him as a grade chaser.  He has no interest in the "easy" ticks.  He wants to climb 8B because it's really 8B and that's really hard and he wants to test himself against that.

What do you consider really long-term projecteering? Is there such a thing as too long?
Nope. I remember reading about the history of Jim Holloway doing Meathook in Colorado.  He would go boulder with his friends and they'd climb all day.  At some point during the day, they'd all walk over to these two chest high underclings and try to just pull onto the wall from them.  If I recall rightly, after a couple of years of this he actually pulled on.  At that point he realized he might actually be able to climb a problem there.  This inspired me to always just try stuff regardless of difficulty.  If at some point you could do it, great.  If not, fine as well as you were always just out climbing.

I think some of the confusion in responces may stem from what you mean by Projecteering.  Do you mean trying one thing to the exclusion of everything else?  Or do you mean something that you try regularly while out climbing and while doing other climbing?

[shark]

Shark - That’s the theory, it could be characterised as the direct approach (or the Stone paradigm perhaps). I’m not convinced that the direct approach is the most effective way to break new levels of difficulty, even at the limit of your potential. I’ve always thought it works best to sneak up on things and pounce when they least expect it, so to speak. Some level of concentrated effort is needed to get a thing done but I don’t think this is worth exerting until you are almost good enough to do the thing you have in mind – for the reasons Ondra is pointing at, your window of improvement is short. Once that window is closed you are reduced to riding a bumpy plateaux and waiting to get lucky, not my idea of fun. What’s worse is that whilst you’re maintaining your ability on your target set of moves your general level at everything else is slipping. This last issue can be addressed if you properly mix things up, but I think this can be hard to do if you are very fixated on one goal as you tend to get on this every time conditions and/or your body feel up to it.
The only time I’ve tried to really siege something was on Mecca (pre-kneebars). I didn’t get up the route, I didn’t enjoy the experience and I got weak. I do feel like it taught me what I don’t like to do though.

Good points but I think this more a matter of effective siege tactics.

When training intensely it is best to ease off after 2/3 weeks and the same applies to hard climbing at your limit. That could involve a rest week before resuming the siege or taking time out to specifically train. The value of repeatedly attempting a route is that you get specifically strong and refine moves to the n'th degree. I'm sure muscle memory plays a big role too.

I accept that just dedicating your climbing to sieging is counterproductive and will make you narrow. Perhaps I'm guilty of doing it too much. However, I stand by my assertion that a siege is unavoidable if you are to climb something genuinely at your limit. Any cutting edge route I can think of has been sieged - Overshadow, Action Directe etc. I cant accept that Steve Mac or Gullich got their tactics wrong and should have somehow sneaked up on those routes instead  .

You have the ability to climb harder than Mecca if you embraced long term projecting. 

[petejh]

What sort of motivation do you have to sustain it? (I'm assuming some sort of awesomeness-of-problem motivation, I'm not interested in grade-chasing toss)

It's not easy to correlate: a mindset which sees trying harder climbs as being 'grade-chasing toss', with: enjoying projecting harder rock climbs.
 
Projecting is usually done because a route's harder (normally reflected in its grade) than what you can do 'quickly'. It would be weird to project a route you find easy.
If you choose to think of projecting in terms of grade-chasing toss then I imagine you're unlikely to ever discover what its merits are. If you can accept you have an ego, and that it likes to occasionally be fed with trivial trinkets such as the number 8 and the letters 'a', b or c, (or E, 7,8,9) following a battle on a weirdly satisfying piece of rock, then it's all just a fun and challenging game set by geological forces. Or something.

[tomtom]

Long time projecting for me has always been easy, the lack of talent made me immediately realize I had to fight hard for my goals. If you put that together with a grade chasing attitude, there you go!

Interesting Lore, I was thinking about this today. I'm crap at on sighting stuff, and not especially strong - so projecting things is maybe a way of doing things that suits me... 

[Blunk]

I remember reading about the history of Jim Holloway doing Meathook in Colorado.  He would go boulder with his friends and they'd climb all day.  At some point during the day, they'd all walk over to these two chest high underclings and try to just pull onto the wall from them.  If I recall rightly, after a couple of years of this he actually pulled on.  At that point he realized he might actually be able to climb a problem there. something that you try regularly while out climbing and while doing other climbing?

Significant to me since that's the problem I've projected the most over many years. And failed on. To me projects are both an inspiration and a brutal lesson.

A project shows you what you can do and what you cannot. Give it your all for 2-3 weeks, if you can't do it but it seems possible come back later. You'll probably do it then. If not, move on. Explore what you can do. It's far better to spend your energy driving further afield to great problems rather than painting yourself into a corner on the same moves ad nauseum.

Disclaimer: Written by a boulderer of 40 years with ruined elbows and the desire to do as much more as possible.

[Fiend]

Interesting Lore, I was thinking about this today. I'm crap at on sighting stuff, and not especially strong - so projecting things is maybe a way of doing things that suits me...

Projecting definitely suits me better, especially redpointing routes. Two of my main strengths climbing is working out and refining sequences (and remembering them!), and climbing quickly through when I know the sequence, and two of my main weaknesses are committing to the unknown (negated by redpointing) and rubbish stamina when I'm hanging around for ages.

I'm much better suited to redpointing and I much prefer onsighting, go me 

[Doylo]

I've had a fair few sieges over the years and once you've got a few under your belt the mental side of it definitely gets easier. Dave Macleod touches on it here, 10:10:

http://vimeo.com/mountainequipment/dave

For me going hell for leather on the same route day in day out is the wrong approach. Sometimes you need to step backwards to go forwards.  On last years seige i made steady progress but then just could not progress. Self doubt crept in on the critical moves to the point where  couldn't string the set up moves together.  The was a result of too many sessions in close succession so I really think if you're going to siege it's best to do it over time and climb on other stuff aswell.  Full on seige is no fun and leads to mental issues! Fair play to those who can do it though. I hope I have at least one 50 day route in my life. Now that would be interesting...

[Fras]

Bollox, absolute limit on a route or long boulder problem?? Yeah right too many factors like conditions, stamina, technique, skin, etc come into play.

I think Shark's right. Not sieging something is effectively 'not going to your absolute limit'. Of the factors you cite as coming into play, the only one not in your control is conditions. And that's simply a matter of waiting for them to be primo. Everything else you can work on or improve ad infinitum.

In short: there are no excuses.

[abarro81]

Whilst I see where you're going with the 'absolute limit' thing, in my opinion its just as valid to define limits within a given time frame. After all, with projecting you're still only finding your limit within a certain set of parameters - route length, angle, hold type, move type etc. So your 'limit' thing kind of falls apart unless you are projecting a route perfectly suited for you. Or at least its no longer really different from your limit onsighting or limit within a day or limit within a week long trip etc

[tommytwotone]

...and how many times have we all been engaged in a battle with something that we thought was the living end, only to finally do it and find it wasn't as difficult?

To quote / paraphrase a great philosopher: "...I mean it's hard, but it's not that hard - I could do harder..."

[SA Chris]

...and how many times have we all been engaged in a battle with something that we thought was the living end, only to finally do it and find it wasn't as difficult?

To quote / paraphrase a great philosopher: "...I mean it's hard, but it's not that hard - I could do harder..."

Ah the mighty Moon.

I've seen people engage in long term seiges on routes and their desire to succeed being the cause of their failure; they want it so badly that they bear down on every hold with everything they have and end up climbing like a woodentop rather than just flowing and enjoying the process. The battle is with themselves, not with the route.

[moose]

I think what also can happen with sieging is that repeated practice just ingrains bad movement.  I've noticed it with boulder problems that rely on timing or a "knack".  Hitchhikers at Kyloe In thwarted me for years despite me being strong enough to do it - the constant repetition of falling off a barn-door move seemed to have hard-wired failure.  I eventually kept away for six months, hoping that the bad "engram" would fade away, and then did it in pretty short order afterwards. 

As an aside, I think my most stellar bit of pointless sieging was on Underhand.  Around three years of falling off the same move - trying for at least an hour every-time I visited Almscliff (which given my lack of imagination and the Yorkshire weather was often).  Then on one visit, someone suggested that I made a conscious effort to "cock" my left ankle to enable some better drop-knee action .  Felt good but I was too tired to really tell. The next session I bagged it (and, as always with these matters, it felt pretty steady!).

[JohnM]

Where do you go to vanquish these bad engrams?

[SA Chris]

I think you can have a shot at removing them directly from your brain by trepanning and then using a hot soldering iron to kill off the relevant brain cells. You might lose a childhood memory or two and control of a few bodily functions, but it's worth it on balance.

[moose]

Where do you go to vanquish these bad engrams?

A giant crystal cave, I then put on mind-magnifier, which to lay people strangely resembles a wizard's hat made of tin-foil. 

... I knew I should have made more of an effort to find a non-Scientologisty synonym (though, so far as I am aware "engram" is used in serious memory studies literature)! I do find though that a bit of selective forgetting can work wonders.  I am thinking of opening a clinic for depressed red-pointers - therapeutic alcohol consumption will likely feature.