Week three didn't bring about too much new that we learned, it did teach us some important skills but it didn't add to much to what we had been doing.
First we went over stemming. A stem is used in a chimney or when you have two vertical walls next to each other. You put your feet and arms out and apply pressure to the holds such that you are almost pushing yourself up. Your arms should not be higher then your shoulders when stemming. At any time any two parts of you should be able to hold you up. We learned about hand/foot matching as well while stemming, if my hip hadn't been so out of whack I think I might have even been able to do that. (that is where you put your hand and foot on the same hold).
The other thing we went over is route reading. Every time you climb you should try to read your route before you go. Start at the beginning and work your way to the top. Use your hands in the air to determine where you would be putting your hands as you climb. After going over the hand holds look again to see where your feet holds are, you may not determine every foot hold you will use but it's important to determine where they are so you don't miss one that really would have helped. Identify the crux (the hard spot) of the route and try to figure out how you would get past it, if you can't figure it out exactly try to find a couple different ways you might try it.
We also went over some climbing features and what they are called. We went over flakes (an thin outcrop of rock that sticks out of the wall and can be used as holds), cracks (they are what they sound like), chimneys and a few other things I just can't remember.
Then we practiced. My hip wasn't feeling all that well so I climbed pretty horribly. But the movements we learned stemming have been good for me to use in other climbing situations since. I found the stemming to be particularly difficult as I could barely reach the two walls we were going between.
No comments:
Post a Comment