Two photos, separated by almost a year from my friends Lucia and Libby—both amazing, fearless climbers, one a scientist, one a nurse, both awesome. Both gonna save your life one day.
After waking up at 6 AM, after coffee and chats with the awesome Korean BBQ truck near the 22nd street Caltrain station, after taking Muni to the mission to retrieve the motorcycle, bobble-headed to Girl Talk, I met up with Chris at the gym. Sending 11As on a hangover is pretty fucking sweet. I think I leveled up.
Did I mention that Girl Talk is my hero?
Managed to traverse the entire lower climbing wall at Mission Cliffs this morning with only 2 falls—one at the 5.12/5.13 lead starts. The longest stretch was between that fall and the second, including two roof/arch traverses.
Somewhere in the middle of that, my arms burning out, hitting what I thought was the limit of my endurance, I flailed for a shitty hold, barn-doored—and to my surprise—hung on. It was like getting past that initial feel-like-shit burn when running—every move, every hold after that was actually easier. That was a wonderful feeling.
I have a thing for purposeful monochromatic constructions, devices that simultaneously tickle my parietal and occipital lobes, Venn diagrams of precious little intersection of the trickster, beauty and math. Childhood ingredients included parts Escher, Pinball Construction Set and the Basel School. This week I was ecstatic to be exposed to not one, but two examples of this meter—one physical, the other virtual, both Japanese, rendered in white, challenges to be experimented with.
First is Illoiha’s insanely cool climbing wall. As I said to one .tiff, this gym in Ebisu tugs on my spidey heartstrings. Your vertical progress is marked by gripping picture frames, flower vases and in one case, a deer head. As anyone who’s drank the bouldering Kool-Aid, seeing a manifestation of the real world in white, pared down to the basic physical forms that demand to be climbed is a beautiful thing.
Second is the reality distortion of Echochrome, a minimalist game built around the brilliant concept of turning what you see into what happens. To paraphrase, Echochrome is an Escher puzzle made live. Control is handled simply by rotating the stage, while the mannequin walks around blindly, falling through holes and bouncing off jump pads until you’ve assembled the stage in a manner that reaches closure.
I anxiously await March 18, and debating how to retrieve my PSP. :P My fingers are crossed hoping Echochrome is another Portal, Rez or—at least a little—Katamari. It’s promising.
Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in October 2007.
My blog has been a morass of moblog messages lately and it’s time for some real [brief] content, yo! I’ll take this break from [attempting] to sleep to rectify.
This movie needs more exclamation points!
Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in October 2007.
Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in September 2007.
Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.
Climbed an 11a yesterday, with overhang. Janet was on belay, and she didn’t pull me up the wall.
Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in July 2007.
Yesterday was a milestone for me in rock climbing. I didn’t ascend a new long route, or best my previous hardest grade. What happened was the ease of which I was able to ascend bouldering problems I’d previously struggled with. On problems I’d previously only barely gotten to the top of, straining the entire way—I could climb laps on. Where I was flailing a week ago, I was able to make every move with confidence and grace. Lunges became static moves.
Bouldering problems (at least at my gym) generally fall into one of the categories: Overhangs, stemming problems, and balancing acts. The latter are usually on sheer, vertical walls with minimal hand and footholds. They tax your ability to get close to the wall, trusting your feet (and to a lesser extent, your fingertips).
Overhanging problems stress grip strength and power/endurance. You need to keep your arms straight and focus on footwork. Otherwise you fall off because your arms are pumped and you simply can’t grasp anything.
Stemming problems have few, giant holds involving flexibility and strength (pushing and pulling). A glance at a stemming/mantling problem is most likely to enlist a “how the f*ck do you climb that?” response.
My arms and grip strength are weak. My core strength is fairly decent, and my legs are most developed. I’ve found I’m climbing these grades:
Need to work on that first one.
Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in July 2007.
