Dyno Madness!

La Guillotina7A+ in the international capital of dynos: Albarracin.

A Parable: Two climbers, let's call them Dynamic Dave and Crimpy Chris, are working a problem: A sit start on tiny holds leads to a huge dyno to the lip. Dave pulls on at the dyno and easily sticks it. Chris has more trouble with the move, and after half an hour of trying, still hasn't stuck it.

After a while, they both start working the problem from the sit, and here, roles are reversed. Chris dials the crimpy moves and is quickly falling from the dyno again, this time from the sit. Meanwhile Dave, who did the dyno with relative ease, can barely pull off the ground. 

Chris goes back to working on the dyno and eventually sticks it with great difficulty. He then goes from the bottom and, after a few falls, eventually sticks it from the sit and tops out the boulder. Dave is still struggling with the sit. A new climber: Rounded Reginald arrives at the boulder and, after warming up, flashes the boulder, crushing the crimpy moves and effortlessly sticking the dyno.

The moral to the story: Non dynamic people can do dynos, it just takes them more time and effort. However, if you lack the crimp strength for a certain problem, no amount of dynamism, persistence or any other skill can substitute. 'Finger strength is king', but it's obviously better to be a Rounded Reginald with a broad range of skills.

You have to be a special kind of masochist to do a granite dyno. Ingravido 7B in Corme.

Dynos are a difficult beast to train compared to crimps, which are relatively straightforward. If you hang on a fingerboard, as I've been doing consistently for the last four years, you can't help but improve, but dynos don't lend themselves to systematic training in the same way. This is because every dyno is different: the quality of the feet, the distance travelled, the angle of the wall, the quality of the start and finish holds and the cut loose factor. With so many variables, the method of training has to be equally varied.

In my usual training sessions, I alternate between Woodsing: climbing on the smallest crimps possible, and Webbing: climbing on physically powerful slopey or compression problems.(guess which one I like most!) Also I make the effort to throw a few dynos into the mix. Variety is key with this, and I also try not to make them too hard. You'll ultimately learn more movement from twenty easy/moderate dynos than from just one insanely hard one. Also, if you suffer from terrible skin, dyno to slopers!

Gato con Botas 7A+

Take it outside: Dynos outside are really cool and I've always gone out of my way to do them even though they are a weakness of mine. Each one is unique in a way that inspires me to suffer the extra time and skin damage. 

Tolmojoncito 8A

 Here's how I measured my progress. Last autumn I tried Tolmojoncito (8A) the stand start to this monster by Nacho Sanchez. I was unable to stick the first move at all, I wasn't even close. I started to try it again a few weeks ago and now can actually stick the move. Of course the rest of the moves are nails too and it probably won't go until next year now the temperatures are in the mid-thirties. But even small progress is still progress!

On an unrelated note, this is the king of all dynos in Spain. Maybe in a few years I'll be brave enough to try it. It's HUGE!

Projects and megaprojects

After my Christmas illness, which saw me throwing up between tries on boulders all over Spain. It was time to get to work on some serious ascending of small rocks. Here's what I've been breaking myself against this month...

Five seconds before I hit the crashpad... again.

1. Incognito Sit (8A) I got onto this thing in Tamajon at the very end of the session I did Encantador. I did the jump crux move pretty fast and actually felt confident. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was the belief that a limestone boulder would be a nice treat for my skin. 

Yesterday I had my second full session of falling off the jump move. Initially progress was fast, I linked from the jump to the top, which was quite psychological (it's a highball) and was falling off the jump move by the end of that session. I didn't think I'd still be there two sessions later falling off the same move. 

I've managed to stick it from the bottom three times in total. Every time I get there I get a bit over psyched and fall of the next move which is also powerful. The moves don't really ease off until a glory jug right at the top, so maybe I'm also a bit afraid of 'pinging off the top and looking like a tit.'

The hold that you have to jump to trashes your skin. In yesterday's session of eight tries my hands were bleeding all over the place. Skin: my genetic ceiling, making sure that every boulder I do takes me about three sessions and half a pint of blood longer. Somewhere there's a southern European clone of me crushing crushing everything in sight because of his magical regenerating skin.

2. Flor de Loto (8B) A great new classic that got put up last year in La Pedriza. Here's a video of the FA. I started to try it by accident last year when I was working on El Belen, which is also in the cave. The weather came in and soaked everything that wasn't a roof and pretty soon a giant group of Basques including this guy came to join me in my little cave. Once I'd gotten over my sense of inadequacy I joined in, flailing around on the problem and actually doing a few of the easier moves.

From the footage of my big link!

I didn't start properly working it till January as I was getting close on other things. Now I've been on it every week for the last month and I'm actually daring to believe that it's possible for me. This week's breakthrough was a link from three moves in which means that it's probably time to go from the bottom. Even the link was so hard I power screamed on every move. Oh and it ends in a GIANT SWING move which is really cool! What more could you want from a project? 

Grab the slopers, drop the toehook and hold oooon!

Why Madrid is the best climbing city ever

I've just moved back to Madrid, so naturally I'm a little bit biased on the subject, but the city really does have a lot to offer climbers. So never mind Innsbruck or Sheffield, Madrid is the new black: here's why.

Yeah, it's a dolphin...

Climbing Walls. Don't know why, don't know how, but Madrid has an impressive array of free climbing walls in parks all over the city. Bits of rock concreted to walls or holds bolted onto the underside of bridges to the more traditional bendcrete walls. Some have en-situ crashpads, some don't, the variety keeps things fresh and there are always a bunch of locals making up problems. I used to be a snob about climbing walls and still think that in terms of pure fun, nothing can beat a big expensive London climbing wall. However, purely for training purposes, I'd rather have an overhang with glued on bits of rock. Most of the footholds are small and slippery in a way that forces good technique and body tension. (honestly when was the last time your foot honestly slipped off a resin blob?)  Also, the range of  glued on rocks as hand holds makes for interesting climbing rather than the same plastic holds as always. Having watched the prices for indoor climbing walls double in the last six years, it's nice to see something that opens up the sport to everybody. I often see complete beginners scrambling around in trainers. Check out  http://www.escalamadrid.com/rocodromos/ for more walls in Madrid.

Far West 8A in La Pedriza.
 pretty much perfect boulder problem

As far as real rock is concerned, there's plenty too. El Escorial and Zarzalejo have plenty of granite boulders but La Pedriza is ridiculous. The bouldering guide has 1864 boulder problems and if you see the area, that's only the tip of the iceberg. The bouldering is a relatively recent addition: there's also lots of trad and sport including some pretty impressive multipitches. Further to the east the granite gives way to the limestone sport crags of Patones and el Vellon, even further is Tamajon, a relatively new hard bouldering spot. And those are just the ones I know about! There are definitely more crags out there.

Connections. Look at any road map of Spain and you'll notice that it looks like a giant spider's web. Madrid is right at the centre. This is incredibly frustrating if you want to go across the country because you have to zig-zag, But if you live in Madrid you can go directly to Albarracín (three and a half hours), Hoya Moros (two and a half), Santa Gadea (sub four hours) or Cuenca (under two hours). So not only do you have plenty within day tripping distance, your weekends will be looking pretty full as well.

Madrid's airport is a hub airport, which mean that you can get anywhere in the world, from a direct flight to Rocklands to a cheeky weekend in Fontainebleau. Also, domestic flights are dirt cheap so you could go deep water soloing in Mallorca for the weekend if you keep an eye on last minute discounts.

All this climbing but with the advantages of being in a big city. There are plenty of huge climbing shops which stock pretty much every imaginable product. There's also a climbing book shop which has everything from autobiographies to (surprisingly) every single gritstone guidebook out there! I also recently resoled my solutions in Madrid. It took less than a week, cost a mere thirty euros and was the best resole that I've ever seen.

Projects, so many projects! Madrid is the biggest city in Spain so it figures that they've been developing here for the longest. In other regions you'd get to the boulders by downloading a scanned pdf of a shaky drawing on the back of a napkin. In Madrid most areas have comprehensive guidebooks. So there's loads of climbing and it's relatively easy to find. On top of this, it only rains sixty-three days a year. I have a few projects on the go at the moment, all of them are five stars and I'm slowly hammering them into submission. Watch this space!

Tamajon- angry limestone cave bouldering at its best.