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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

The Art of Onsight Trad Climbing 9-Nov-2005 At 5:20:23 PM jiminy cricket

Message

>1) If trad onsight climbing is your deal, how do you train?

By climbing. That's it. As Mikl once said somewhere on this forum "time on plastic makes you good at fondling plastic, time on rock rocks".

>2) How do you differentiate the emotions and feelings you experience on
>a trad onsight vs. your first crack at a bolted line?

The technical skills involved in finding reliable (and sometimes creative) trad placements give it an extra dimension over sport climbing.

>3) Where does the future of the onsight trad lead appear to be going?
>(does not include preplaced trad gear) What role will it play for future
>generations?

Styles come and go and ethics change etc and in the end everything goes in circles. Onsight trad will be the new bouldering (again) sooner or later. There will always be many people who like the simplicity of just focusing on the moves, but in the long run, how can people resist all that funky gear?

>4) What sort of mental preparation and strategies do you employ when you
>are getting ready for an onsight trad lead at the edge (or beyond) of your
>current abilities?

Mental preparation? Get shaky and try to keep calm. Talk lots to try and hide the fear. Keep chalking up unneccessarily and compulsively.

>5) How do you get to that next level? The next grade?

I try and keep climbing a grade until I feel confident with it. Not very game I guess, but if I can only just haul my backside up a grade, I don't usually rush off to have a crack at the next one.