[r-man]

China in your hands can be done by a better non-piroutting sequence by stepping accross and using heel-toe thing in break and releasing them in control. SF and bransby have done it like this and I was getting close.

Surely not better! That pirouette move is fantastic. Mind you, although I can do this fine, and match the hold, I still haven't finished the problem. Perhaps I'm being useless - what's next, do you just slap the sloper to the right? It felt awful.

[uptown]

I'm sure Richie Patterson wouldn't be called lanky - born snappy was his before Ben did it, and he could deffo get off the floor.

[Andy B]

after a quick measure by the wife I am 5.10 1/2 with a +1" ape so consider myself normal(ish) in stature anyway.

I can't believe you used to give me shit over reach!

5'10" and -2" ape index

I reckon my stats must be close to the limit on Baz Sheene as I could just bounce to the crimp with my fingers fully extended and my feet came off as I pulled it into a crimp. Thought it was steady from there on mind. Also did China in your hands without pirouetting or heel toes. Just crimp and swing. Also failed on Trellis but also think it is possible for shorties, although I was thinking more along the lines of jumping than trickery. also

[Nibile]

Ben is borderline but i'd say he just about falls into the rather-tall bracket and has a fairly positive ape index I think.

Hmmm. Where is the line drawn then? I recall a previous discussion where 6 foot 2 was proposed as the line of lank. Ben is certainly not a lankster imo.

dammit, i'm 173 cm tall (short) it makes 5 foot 6...
gotta upgrade all my sends now

[Fiend]

I believe I did the 1st ascent of Fall. I am 5'9.5 - no positive ape index- I claim to be officially "not tall", since I found the crux move on Acid Drop nails (on lead), but my 5'10 mate (with +1 ape) found it piss.

Off-topic, but I managed to reach the hold on Acid Drop at 5'8" +1AI (and the height makes more of a difference than AI as AI is divided between each arm, approx), still standing on the ledge. It took a long time to work out some very subtle foot positions to make the reach but I did it. Good route but I'd say better at an easier standard for the tall, makes it more balanced overall.

On-topic, I have nothing to say except I like Bonjoy's list discussions.

[Somebody's Fool]

I don't know if anyone's got a copy of OTE 84 handy to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure it said Ben Moon is 5'11'' with a +1 ape index.  As I said, no giant.

Re China in Your Hands.  If by better you mean 'difficult for the sake of unusual moves', then yes, the pirouette is the sequence of choice.

[dave]

I've got OTE 84 but not to hand. I could have sworn he was doen as being 6', but apparently not:

http://www.freakclimbing.com/modules.php?name=People&rop=showcontent&pid=11

[Bonjoy]

 I'm hearing lots of "I'm sure it's possible for the non-tall" but not a lot of grades here. I know most of these probs are still doable, I'm looking to find out the correct grades for the average height. More grades please.
 Dave K - Cheers, that clears one up. Not sure where I got the idea you were tall from. I think it was Kim T (v tall and can't grade) who did it and said 7b+. What's your best guess on grade for you, 7c or 7c+?
 Am keen to hear from Greg if he has done WH.
 Jim - I don't suppose SF told you who showed him how to do it the non-pirouette way  
 SF - 5'11" with +1 AI is certainly on the border of too tall to be considered average height I'd say
 UTG - I'm not sure of the details on Born Snappy but assumed (guessed?)something low must have snapped off since then. Have never given it a proper look.
 Abarro81 - I know of a couple of tall people doing it and finding it knowhere near 8a. Something to do with being able to pull on rather than jump to holds. Would be good to know if anyone non-tall has actually done it (how tall is Jerry?), if not it might be best described as a 7c off stacked pads!

[dave]

mean UK male adult height i believe is about 5'10", not sure what the standard deviation is, think its supposed to be about and inch or so either way. Please remember I have no real evidence for this, but it is scientific fact.

[Houdini]

Here

It has discovered that the average British man is 36 millimetres (1 inches) taller than his French counterpart.

The mean height of UK citizens is 1,755.1mm (5ft 9in). Among European men only the Dutch are taller, averaging 1,795mm and with a clear height advantage over the US men's average of 1,760.4.

The average British woman is 1,620mm tall (just under 5ft 4in), compared with 1,604mm for her French counterpart, 1,610mm for the Italians and 1,619mm for the Germans. Swedish women average 1,640mm, Dutch 1,650mm and Americans 1,626.7mm

[Houdini]

Release the lank, Smithers!

[Jaspersharpe]

 SF - 5'11" with +1 AI is certainly on the border of too tall to be considered average height I'd say

 Abarro81 - I know of a couple of tall people doing it and finding it knowhere near 8a. Something to do with being able to pull on rather than jump to holds. Would be good to know if anyone non-tall has actually done it (how tall is Jerry?), if not it might be best described as a 7c off stacked pads!

Average male height in the UK is about 5'9" - 5'10". So anything a couple of inches either way should still be included as not abnormally tall/short imo. Ergo 6' (and certainly 5'11" & +1 AI) isn't lanky in my book. Over 1/3 of men under 25 are now over 6' and the trend is ever increasing. No idea what the average climber's height is although you'd kinda expect it to be a bit taller than the average of everyone (well I would for some reason). 

Ben Moon is slightly shorter than me and I'm bang on 6'. Jerry slightly shorter again I think. This is based purely on standing next to / climbing with them and no actual measurements of them. Don't know what my ape index is but I had an inch or so reach on Jerry and pretty similar reach to Ben so I'm guessing it's about 0.

Perhaps it's bias as I've never considered myself to have a particular reach advantage over the average but I've always felt that for a route/problem to be "morpho" then it needs to be more difficult for all but the abnormally tall?

[The Sausage]

Don't know if this is relevant for the problem(s) discussed, but in many popular areas the ground level has dropped considerably due to erosion. This will obviously affect height of starting holds...

[Houdini]

. . . as if by magic, the lank appeared.

[Bonjoy]

Jasper - I'm not trying to getto-ise the tall, or diss climbs done or grades given by anyone.
 I just think if a climber who is over two inches taller than average (with a +ve AI) has done a problem by a sequence they found very reachy, that the grade they found it might be inaccurate for the person of average height (for whom the problems are theoretically graded).

The Sausage - True and in the case of the trackside boulder risen!

[Jaspersharpe]

Yeah good point. It's a very tricky grey area really but rezpekt for what you're trying to do.

[dave]

can we also have a symbol denoting problems only repeated by shortarses too (are there any?).

[slackline]

Average male height in the UK is about 5'9" - 5'10". So anything a couple of inches either way should still be included as not abnormally tall/short imo. Ergo 6' (and certainly 5'11" & +1 AI) isn't lanky in my book. Over 1/3 of men under 25 are now over 6' and the trend is ever increasing. No idea what the average climber's height is although you'd kinda expect it to be a bit taller than the average of everyone (well I would for some reason). 

The average height of males in the UK in 2006 for all men surveyed over the age of 16 had a mean 175.2cm and a standard error of the mean of 0.11 (standard error of the mean is an indication of how accurate the mean is, since you have only taken a sample from the population, and is simply the standard deviation (SD)divided by the square-root of the number of samples).

Height (and many other quantitative traits) follow the Guassian or Normal distribution which is a bell-shaped curve.  Within such distributions the 95% Confidence Interval around the mean is generally considered to be the "normal" range for values and is calculated by subtracting 1.96 x SD from the mean to get the lower boundary and adding 1.96 x SD to the mean to get the upper boundary.  Thus a height in the range of 158.3-192.1cm would be considered within the "normal" range (this equates to 62.3"-75.6" or 5'2"-6'3").

For females the mean height is 161.6cm in 2006 with a standard error of the mean of 0.09 (which equates to standard deviation of 7.21 based on the sample size).  Thus the "normal" range for females is 147.47-175.7 (or 4'10"-5'9" in old money).

Assuming that the subset of the population who climb is random (which is fair, its not like its basketball where the mean height of players tends to be higher) then the same ranges would apply for climbers.

Source of data is Health Survey for England (2006).

There ends todays statistics lesson   
(Yes I am a sad geeky statistician!)

[Bonjoy]

can we also have a symbol denoting problems only repeated by shortarses too (are there any?).

Ramboid?

[r-man]

Thus a height in the range of 158.3-192.1cm would be considered within the "normal" range (this equates to 62.3"-75.6" or 5'2"-6'3").

I don't know much about maths, but that's clearly wrong... 

[r-man]

Gaz Parry isn't that tall. From his blog:

we moved on to Barry Sheene 7c, Earl got close, Martin Smith dispatched and after a great deal of persistence i managed to get the tick. The only sacrifice being my rib cage feels like it has been torn apart and crushed all at the same time!!! I think for me 7c+ is a more true grade.

[slackline]

Thus a height in the range of 158.3-192.1cm would be considered within the "normal" range (this equates to 62.3"-75.6" or 5'2"-6'3").

I don't know much about maths, but that's clearly wrong... 

I clearly don't know much about imperial measurements 

The cm to inches conversion is presumably correct?  And there are 12 inches in a foot so 62.3 inches  == 5 foot (5' as I've seen feet written before) and 2.3 inches (rounded down to 2" as I've seen inches referred to) etc., or did I get it all the wrong way round?

Either way, stick with the cm and its all fine, you'll find that very close to 95% of the male population's height falls within this range.

[Jaspersharpe]

Gaz Parry isn't that tall.

Gaz is 5'11" so no, not that tall. 

[jimacp]

can we also have a symbol denoting problems only repeated by shortarses too (are there any?).

Being nigh on 6'5" i find myself having regular conversations about the relative advantages given to tall boulderers.  While there are problem types that are clearly easier for the short (low traverses or any problem that forces feet close to the hands for example), the fact is that tall boulderers are necessarily carrying more mass on every problem.

How about a symbol for only repeated by the slight of build?

At 197cm i'm roughly 10% taller than the average.  Weight unfortunately doesn't increase linearly with height, so with a similar body composition i might way 15% more than my average height buddy.  So take your favourite non-reachy problem testpiece, add a 10kg weight belt to your 65kg body and see how the grade feels now!

Though the extra body weight is a disadvantage that tall climbers in every problem, it is most evident on steep problems on small holds.    So how about a symbol for problems that don't offer any reach advantage to offset miniscule crimps?

  

[r-man]

Thus a height in the range of 158.3-192.1cm would be considered within the "normal" range (this equates to 62.3"-75.6" or 5'2"-6'3").

I don't know much about maths, but that's clearly wrong... 

I clearly don't know much about imperial measurements 
, you'll find that very close to 95% of the male population's height falls within this range.

That's the problem. 95% is too big a range. People at the extremes are not of normal height. How many 5'2 men do you know? That's smaller than Dawes, by some margin. It would be on the small side for a racehorse jockey.