Power Company Podcast: Moonboard

[arrase]

So Kris Hampton had a discussion with Nate, and afterwards a summary with Ben Moon about the Moonboard

www.powercompanyclimbing.com/blog/2017/3/11/episode-31-devils-advocate-the-moon-board-featuring-ben-moon

What do you guys think?

My thoughts are that Kris might be overly negative to the board due to him being sick of it from his instagrams feed, and not willing to see the fairly simple solutions to the problems he has with it (like adding more holds to get a more diverse and filled up woody).

I get the feeling that he might have a bigger problem with the way he feels people are using it then the board itself.

Also, looking forward to see the new additions Moon is coming out with, hope it's well thought through and usefull.

I am a bit of a fanboy tbh, so what are your thoughts?

[Charlie S]

The negativity in some regards felt forced. I'm not sure he despises it as much as he pretended.

I'm a major fan of the Moonboard. I can't get that style of route in my current gym, so, I'm super glad they put one in. The Moonboard has helped maintain my strength during a power phase, simply due to the smaller holds.

For what it's worth, I'm a crack-climbing trad snob, and see a bunch of benefit in the Moonboard even for that style.

[mclay]

It was a good listen, especially with Ben being willing to give counter-point at the end.

I've never used a Moon Board, and likely won't have the chance for the foreseeable future. That said, I'm intrigued by it and would love to give it a go at some point. In keeping with the podcast here are my biggest pro and con:

Pro - Trying to train without partners or access to a gym/resources, the Moon Board would be amazing for being able to get the access to all the community problems. Just this morning I went out to supplement my Base Endurance with a bouldering circuit near my house. It's an amazing problem to have, but only one other person has ever climbed these rocks. So I'm developing as I go, and I have no idea regarding grading. Also, I can't open problems harder than my current ability level, so it's really hard to push yourself or even see new lines as a beginner. The Moon Board would connect you to others that are psyched to train and you have an endless supply of hard problems to measure improvement.

Con - (One of Kris' big ones) - Cost, space and availability of the holds (can't get them shipped to where I live).

[tedwelser]

My friend Grady and I had a conversation about the podcast, and more generally with the ways that the Moonboard could be adapted to make it a better resource for more diverse problems without altering the basic benefits of the board. 

In terms of the podcast, I felt rather embarrassed for Hampton because he had obviously not spent much time on the board, and put himself partly in a position of arguing from ignorance.  And thus, his criticisms were often a bit off the mark and he missed the chance to point towards better solutions, or they were easily solved or refuted.  (the holds are actually not expensive compared to good holds in the US, there are problems with the usability of the app which really bug users, but Hampton did not experience them, so they are not addressed, etc )  But the most important problem that he identified was the limited style of movement that is common on many MB problems.

Grady and I have climbed on our MB a great deal and we agree that the biggest shortcoming comes from the limitations of the app, the narrow rules for problems, and especially the narrow range of hold types, and correspondingly, the stylistic constraints on the types of problems possible.  This constraint is especially problematic at the top end of the difficulty range because of the lack of subtly difficult holds, both for hands and feet.  As Grady puts it, after V9, all the problems tend to be hard because they are either jumpy or weird/awkward.     

For a moon/kilter hybrid wall (with the extra 180 tnuts) this can be largely solved.  The hybrid set up will allow climbers to tailor the additional holds to meet their needs.  Currently our wall is better suited for boulderers concentrating on problems between V1 and V8.  Our additional holds are mostly larger and more positive than moon sets, and give us the option to use our MB for power endurance, endurance, ARC, etc.  

We also get a lot more value from our MB hybrid because in addition to the extra holds we are free to change the rules of what counts as a problem, and with high hold density we can take advantage of problems with open feet and bad or medium good hands.  This pushes practice with lots of back steps and drop knees, and is good RRG prep.  This also makes it possible to use some the more difficult holds without having to pull off giant, difficult moves.  Once again, these attributes are not often found in the "Grady entertainingly difficult" range.   

This means that Grady is getting a bit bored with the MB (I think).   To optimize the MB for the V9+ climber you would need to invest in additional holds.  Specifically, we would need more truly bad hands (usable as intermediates only except for V12+ problems).  We would also want to extend the rule set to include tracking, all feet, tracking plus specific hold set, or specific feet sets only.    For instance "tracking plus all yellow" would go far toward making many of the V4-8 problems climb less jumpy and size specific.  

Hold type expansion and rule options would go very far towards making the movement style more diverse and interesting.   Of course, people are free to do this on their own, but it would be better if there was a structure for sharing these additions easily and systematically. 

Problems with the APP: 

you cannot edit a problem after you upload it.  if you forget a hold, your problem is forever wrong.

problems should display with grade and consensus grade displayed, both should be searchable or filterable attributes.  For V4 climbers it is super frustrating and time consuming to identify what are actually doable V4s from crazy hard "V4".   The app could infer from consensus and simply assign minus, standard, plus to grades. Which would go pretty far to making it easier to find the right difficulty.     

Many navigation features are clunky and awkward  (too numerous to list right now).  Generally it is very time consuming to make lists and groups, searching often fails even when you know the name of the problem.  Copying the organizational gesture/methods of grouping photos for upload to FB or making a layout in instagram are good alternative models.  Generally Moon should hire a usability speRCTMkicksAsst to collect data from users or just standardize the organization to be less idiosyncratic.  

If you make a FA it does not get entered into your log.   this makes is hard to use the app to actually collect all your problems and ascents in the same place.  

Ok, that is all for now.  gotta get to work. 

[scojo]

I think Ben would be receptive to suggestions for how to improve the app.

I like the idea of being able to modify the rules for individual problems, and I think having some small foot jibs would open up more possibilities for varied movement.

Recently, they've introduced "benchmarks" for certain problems, which will hopefully help cement the meaning of different bouldering grades. I like this idea a lot, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Has anyone tried the benchmark problems yet?