What makes the difference on a climbing project?

Last time was all about breaking rules and shoe choice, and this time…well you’ll see below

I really think you should try this, or at least give it some thought for your next project. It’s definitely something I will be doing in the future.

On the second crux of my new trad line there are two finger jams where you stop and place a cam. you place the cam off your left hand and essentially become quite tired on this arm. immediately you then have to blast straight into some face climbing moves.

There are 3 moves to complete off the right arm and 2 moves to complete off the left arm before reaching better jams at the end of the crux sequence. I came to notice that on every failed redpoint I fell when making a move off the left arm. This wasn’t because these moves are necessarily more difficult, I found that it was because I was noticeably more tired in the left arm from the time it took to place the cam.

To shake out the left hand in the cam placing position is not simple, but I decided I would try and make a difficult shake out with the right arm to give the left some respite. Essentially I’d sacrifice the right to improve the left (for some context the shake was only around 5 seconds, so not much at all).

However, it was just enough to make all the difference. Following this small change, I made it past that section and subsequently did the climb. The moves off the right hand became harder due to more fatigue, but now the moves off the left hand became possible due to some respite. I’d balanced the fatigue between the arms with just an extra 5 second shake.

I felt like there were 2 lessons to take away from this

1. take as much care and thought over your shakeouts as you do over moves and sequences on the route
2. When redpointing it’s the little details that make the final difference between success and failure. pay attention to them.

That’s all for now, see you in the next newsletter and in the meantime, keep spreading the jamming joy :D