Post by jlarson on Oct 26, 2015 16:18:32 GMT -7
Last season I identified highballs as a weakness in my bouldering. Obviously this had to get corrected because:
A) many (most?) classic and inspiring boulders are tall
B) getting scared up high just makes an intense experience more intense, more scary
C) mental fortitude could translate to roped climbing
I just sent my first subsidiary highball goal and it was relatively easy and it came down entirely to tactics.
In the past I would attempt highballs only when I felt "good" which sounds very vague. Some days tall boulders would intimidate me and other days I was eager for the challenge of getting up there ("good") but I didn't know what caused one or the other. At the end of last season I got up to a cruxy section high off the deck on a project....kinda freaked and down climbed to the base. This past weekend I went back to the problem but before giving it a go I did a couple laps on a different easier highball that I had sent a couple months back. It was like a mental warm up after doing my physical climbing warm up. Feeling mentally warm was all the difference as I went back to the previously terrifying problem and sent it with ease. From now on, whenever I have a tall project I will always try to incorporate a couple laps on a tall warm up to get accustomed to the feeling of being high off the ground.
Any other bouldering tactics you guys use out there? We could probably crowd source a pretty nice list of tactics to supplement the bouldering chapter in the RCTM.
A) many (most?) classic and inspiring boulders are tall
B) getting scared up high just makes an intense experience more intense, more scary
C) mental fortitude could translate to roped climbing
I just sent my first subsidiary highball goal and it was relatively easy and it came down entirely to tactics.
In the past I would attempt highballs only when I felt "good" which sounds very vague. Some days tall boulders would intimidate me and other days I was eager for the challenge of getting up there ("good") but I didn't know what caused one or the other. At the end of last season I got up to a cruxy section high off the deck on a project....kinda freaked and down climbed to the base. This past weekend I went back to the problem but before giving it a go I did a couple laps on a different easier highball that I had sent a couple months back. It was like a mental warm up after doing my physical climbing warm up. Feeling mentally warm was all the difference as I went back to the previously terrifying problem and sent it with ease. From now on, whenever I have a tall project I will always try to incorporate a couple laps on a tall warm up to get accustomed to the feeling of being high off the ground.
Any other bouldering tactics you guys use out there? We could probably crowd source a pretty nice list of tactics to supplement the bouldering chapter in the RCTM.