Just to get some banter going, what are your climbing goals or dreams for the upcoming year?

My aim is simply to drag my slap carcass out of my house and git kranking again. Want to get up to my previous 25 best before the year end. Wont bore you with the whole project list but yeah....

Thoughts, wishes??...

One simple climbing goal: stay injury-free for the year!

I wanted to chase grades this year and I just got completely shutdown with injury. I (we, with the various doctors and physios) think it's tendonitis, but no-one is sure. With physio and rest it now seems to be getting better, so more of the same please, Jeeves, and the grades can come if and when they please.

Hopefully boulder 8B...

hey proze - u seen this article on tendinosis? Bit different from tendonitis.

http://www.nicros.com/archive/climbers_elbow.cfm

You will need to dig around, but these was also some useful info on the Rock and Ice forum:

http://www.rockandice.com/forum/

I am off to hike the Fish River Canyon In June, then on to Mt Kenya in September. A long awaited climb.

Lose 8kg
Build some endurance - sick and tired of huffing and puffing behind everyone else.
Finally get around to opening some of those projects...
Open at leasy one big wall trad.
Whatever happens it's gonna be fun

Oh man,how hard is new year resolutions,never mind climbing goals!

What a cool topic! I have wanted to climb 30 on sport every year that I can remember since I started climbing. Every year something's got in the way. Too much beer, too much pizza, too much fat, too much work, not enough training, the list is endless. In the past six months I've fixed a lot of this stuff and am climbing way better. But, I made the mistake of cranking my ass off at every session whether at the crag or at the gym, and ended up with a very sore body and a desperate climbing style. So I took a three week break and I'm back in the game again having learned yet another lesson. Too much is as bad as not enough. My goals are to climb with composure and confidence, to go to the crag with determination instead of expectation, to be patient and build a solid foundation on every level of the grade pyramid, and of course!!! .... to climb 30!!! Would also like to climb lots of trad next year. Roll on 2010, I'm gonna see you coming this time.

I could steal a line from each of the above.
-8kg. stay injury free. open some of those projects. etc
I'd also like to bolt a few more routes and climb more consistently.
But most of all have a good time doing whatever it is I'm doing

Garvin

I would love to be able to eat a bucket of kentucky in one sitting..yummy s**t that ..

Walking normally would be a nice start...

_________________
Gustav
Roc 'n Rope Adventures
Waterval Boven
013 257 0363
rocrope dot com

Cool guys!

Proze: If its your elbows (most likely) try using wrist rotations as rehab exercise. You can do these by holding one end of a light (2kg - or whatever is comfortable, dont push it) dumbell and lifting to the side by twisting your wrist. 3 sets of ten in both directions on both wrists daily build the reps up to twenty a set over time. Avoid wrist curls (lifting dumbell toward your bicep) and reverse wrist curls like the plague, the reason is that curls make the tendon move in the sheath under load which simply aggravates the imflamation. Rotations dont do this and strengthen the stabiliser muscles around the wrist. Warm up and down religiously every time you climb, use gentle massage as part of the warm up. Stagger your training sessions so you are doing one hard (tuesday) one soft (Thursday) during the week. Likewise on climbing days Saturday you can push a bit, Sunday climb just for fun. Training much more than this is unnecessary for most climbers. I suffered for years with trashed elbows, eventually I learnt to just back off a bit and stop my climbing day while there was still some gas in the tank to use for recovery. Yoga or stretching (particularly mobilising the spine - esp. upper spine) helps immensely. If the problem persists see a physio.

Gustav - u injured? Didnt know - all the best with recovery and rehab bru!

Have a rad xmas guys - spot u on the rock!

Keep the dreams flowing if u wanna share, its cool to hear ppls plans.

Great topic. Although I'm sure some of my goals will shift in the near future, here are the big ones for the year:

- Co-bolt my first multi-pitch sport route;
- On-sight Freak On at Boven;
- Help establish the foundation for a youth climbing league in Limpopo;
- Climb a trad line where I pick the right gear for each placement first-try;
- Red-point Monster or Snapdragon at Boven (a bit ambitious for me, but why not aim high?);
- Red-point two or more of my long-term projects at the Red River Gorge when I visit home (the US) in August/September;
- Most importantly, don't let failing to meet any of these goals reduce the joy that climbing brings to my life!

Good luck to the rest of y'all with your goals, especially Gustav!

- Ed

On sport:
To fall first before shouting "Take!"
I've got about 5/6 projects at different areas around the Cape I've worked on, but still have to redpoint

On trad:
Complete a project that has been slumbering way too long
Do some more single pitches at Hellfire & perhaps open another line or 2.

Thanks for the advice and links, guys. Will incorporate some new stretches into the daily regimine!


Advice (but not beta :p ): don't leave it to the end of a full day of climbing! So close dammit...


Another excellent one! I'll also incorporate this into mine!

Howdy Xmod et al
What a lekker topic
OK, here we go. By end of May 2010 I need to climb 25 sport and lead 20 trad.

I have been training pretty hard for the last 4 months. About 2 sessions during the week on the hangboard at home or on the climbing wall, then at least one session on actual rock on the weekend. And yes my grades have improved.
I have been working Malcolm Gowans route ''Cling thing''(24) at Kalk bay, which has been kicking my arse. You will know it well Xmod. I can do all the moves, but i need to string it all togther.
But why do this all by the end of May you may ask ?
Well i have my 2nd pikkie on the way, due +/- 1 June. That kinda puts the pressure on as i will not be doing a whole lot of climbing (but on my hangboard) for a few months after that.
So 25(S), 20(T), and of course a very healthy baby will top all of that.
enjoy the holiday and climb safe

Get my daughter to use her own legs to do the short walk ins, to carry in her 15ks, a boulder pad/rope&draws, a pack and 3 "my little ponies" is getting a bit exhausting! so the plan is to find someone whose kid digs running, I am hoping for "monkey see, monkey do" type thing. I live in hope (as do some of my friends, no doubt)
Have an awesome Festive season everyone!

legend!

make another trip to tafelberg. and the place we're not supposed to mention.
introduce at least 5 people to climbing
meet 5 people (while climbing) from countires i have not visited
have a single malt and smoke a cherry cigar under an overhang while waiting for the rain to stop
laugh more while i'm climbing
no regrets
onsight a 21 sport climb. a 22 after that.
lead a 5-star trad route

Yeah super pumpy! I seem to remember a toe-cam for the leftt foot(?) that makes the first long reach up to the crappy rail way easier as you get leverage, the hold in the rail is better on its left side. After that its just an absolute sprint through the underclings (wandering rightward is easier) to the last move to the ledge, I just slapped through that as I was about to peel off! Bloody exhausting for such a short route!! Give the routes on either side a whirl, they need chalk desperately- left of Cling thing - Hang Thang 20(?), right - Kill Bill 23 ecstatically thin pocket and a hard reach right into the crack then easy.

go to Kransberg more often
climb in Boulder kloof for a change
climb superfly and al's bells in boven
be there when mok leads his 5 star trad route
have an incident free trip to the cedarberg
but the first one would probably be to recover from a new years party in boven

yeah brah you better be there

goals:

- climbing injury-free (also a bad case of tendonitis in the left elbo, was out for 2 months - taught me to be patient, listen to sound physio advise and enjoy things other than climbing, etc...)

- 8a
- some more 7c+ classics like monster and snappy
- discover and open more trad lines, and free some of the old aid lines in magalies
- getting a schools league going in the north-west province
- learn to bolt

- climbing injury-free
- climbing injury-free...

- climbing injury-free

- Don't only sport climb but also get a good balance of bouldering/trad/big wall/deep water soloing (if any is to be found in this country) so that I get my head around certain aspects of climbing and broaden my horizons
- go to milner
- onsight and flash more climbs
- aim for 8a
- learn the art of resting

oh ya, and bolt a line.

Tickoff some of my issues in the kloofs: Crystal Fire, Dogstyle, Suicide, Just Hot and Circuit Breaker.
Open that new line in Upper Tonquani
Open that diaginal crack at Wilge that I cried like a little girl on.
Open THE LINE at Makapansgat with Ian - its a wild one.
Climb something on the Wall of White Light and do Razor's Edge at Blouberg.
Go somewhere new and big and garly.
Have people at work ask me why I have scabs on my hands on more mondays than not...

Do two routes in a day at Blouberg
Open new routes at Magageni
Go to Krakadouw and Tafelberg
Open that route at Makapans
Open new routes at Blyde
Onsight Ego Whip, Space Walk,Bullit, Aqua Balls, Prelude to Luka, the File, Dive bomber, Hang Dog
Resolve issues:
Difficult Shapes and Passive Rhythms
Question of Balance

Free Crack.exe

Go check out Scheeperskloof and find some of the other old trad venues and see if we can organise access.

New Year's Climbing Resolutions: To forget completely about grades I've been too obsessed with for too long and climb routes solely for the love of the feeling I get when I climb and to be able to climb at my absolute limit and take falls without fear.

Bomber Thread.

I wanna do a trip overseas..just to climb..thinking Mallorca at the moment for August, be great to persuade Juzh to join & show me some stuff.

Get a few local projects that keep me fired up and motivated.


But most of all, to see a good mate get healthy & strong again & have a great year would be the biggest of all.

Check one off my list of biggest climbing goals for the year!



Sunday did not have an auspicious start at Boven. My mates and I awoke at the Roc n' Rope Lodge to pouring rain. Although it stopped after an hour or so, only one of our two vehicles made it up the muddy road to Tranquilitas (think sardines in a rally car). When we arrived, virtually everyone who spent the night camping was packing up and making an early retreat home.

We figured at least something would be dry, and we weren't disappointed. Regardless, my head was in such a bad place that I backed off my warm-up route thanks to a more-than-healthy fear of insecure moves above big ledges. One of my mates [Proze] was keen for an onsight attempt of Rock Chucka Chick, however, so we made our way over to the far side of the God No! wall (my bruised ego notwithstanding).

Proze onsighted Rock Chucka in solidly inspiring fashion... so inspiring that I was able to get my head straight and follow it up with a flash of my own. My spirits buoyed, I decided the time was right for Freak On. After up-and-down climbing to clip the first, then the second bolt, I felt supremely confident. I raced up through the low crux to the rest, took a few minutes to settle, then fired for the chains, fighting a desperate pump through the final moves.

Clipping chains never felt so good!