Getting out of a Plateau

It’s been a long time and a lot has happened since the first blog. Writing a dissertation doesn’t lend well to blogging I’ve noticed. However, dissertation-writing has lent well to improving my bouldering. I came to Chattanooga in December, wondering what the season would bring. Each season, I think, and even write down somewhere that this could be The Season, THE Season! The season that I’ve tied all my hopes and dreams into, perhaps done some training that will finally work, perhaps something different will happen and I won’t sustain a finger injury. Well, this was THE season I’ve been waiting for - for about 5 years.

I finally climbed V10, not one but two and a whole bunch of V9s. V7s and V8s were easy. In fact, I thought Chaz Warren’s goal of 9 V9s would be pretty cool so I tried to copy-cat him. Also, I have a little philosophy that in order to be able to say you climb a certain grade, you need to climb that number of boulder problems of that grade so it gets harder as you get better. For instance, you need to climb 5 V5s to be a V5 boulderer and 9 V9s to be a V9 boulderer. This resolves the ambiguity when someone is trying to size you up and inappropriately asks how hard you climb. It really doesn’t matter, it is just a fun little game. I ended up with 11 V9s or harder!

Anyway, I probably jumped up 2 V grades, which by the way, and frankly, I feel I deserve since I have been in a plateau for 5 years or more.

So now you might wonder how I finally got out of this plateau; did it just miraculously happen because that’s what just happens one day. I don’t think so.

I am a scientist so I feel I can’t really answer this question in an unbiased way. Many things changed in my life in December that could have contributed.

1. I realized that women must train differently for bouldering than men. I emphasized dynamic fast pull ups and dynamic movement in general to try to increase my dynamic abilities.
2. I completely changed climbing partners and began climbing with people with a similar attitude, at the same level of climbing, and who aren’t afraid of failing for the benefit of improvement, and love to project.
3. I moved to Chattanooga where I began climbing at a gym with world class climbers setting problems and had outdoor climbing available whenever it was not raining. As a consequence, I didn’t get worn out from driving three hours to boulder fields. I slept in, waited for it to warm up, met my local climbing partners, and perhaps some Athens drive-ins, and drove 20 minutes to the boulders.
4. I started climbing on rooves again.
5. I seriously started projecting V10. Up until this year, I kept saying I wanted to send V10 but I had not really tried to send one in a LONG time. You have to get on V10s if you want to send them, lots of them.
6. I read Dave MacCleod’s “9 out of 10 climbers” which hugely influenced me. Thanks Jill.

7. I saw Will Smith’s inspirational video which also hugely inspired me. Thanks Thomasina.

8. I had few work distractions such as courses and field work as I was only writing my dissertation on rest days, my focus was bouldering.
9. For most of the season I did not have a boyfriend which is highly unusual.
10. I lost a lot of weight and was about 10 pounds lighter than previous years.
11. I changed my attitude about being shortish (5’4”) which compared to other women is average but relatively short compared to my male climbing partners who are both 5’11”. Dave MacLeod has a good argument for why it is actually better to be short and once I learned how to climb using the benefits of being short I quickly made progress on long moves. I never want to hear another person say something is reachy. Changing my attitude from "I might not be able to do that because I’m shortish" to "there is probably a way I can do that dynamically or if I climb tall" made a big difference.
12. I laid off the crimpy problems for the most part and focused on powerful climbing.
13. I saw a physical therapist about some back issues I was having and he noticed I was pulling from my neck instead of the big muscles in my back, weird, but physical therapists rule, they are the real GOD if anyone is truly seeking the truth. I made a concerted effort to change how I pull.

So there are many factors that I could attribute my success (at finally coming out of my plateau) to. Shedding the scientist in me that would really like some hard data, I could guess at the four most important; 1. Positive serious climbing partners, 2. The weight loss, 3. Living next to boulderfields, 4. Attitude change and all the repercussions associated with it.

So now my bouldering comrades (Josh Spegal and Michael Wohner) and I have a little competition to try and keep the progression moving forward. We have a set of three V10-V11 boulder problems; Lord of the Dance at Dayton Pocket, Zion at Rocktown, and Biggie Shortie at Little Rock City. The first of us to send all 3 problems receives an all-expense paid trip to Hueco Tanks for Thanksgiving from the other two! This little competition is to try to motivate us all to climb V11 since none of us have done it but also to work on our weaknesses. All the problems have something each of us have weaknesses in. We have all started training hard for the coming season. I'm really planning on sending all three first!!

So here is a video of me doing a few problems at Rocktown.

BionicRats and RottenEgg from Patti Newell Nickerson on Vimeo.