{"id":133,"date":"2015-11-09T21:59:43","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T21:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/?p=133"},"modified":"2015-11-22T23:18:52","modified_gmt":"2015-11-22T23:18:52","slug":"bmc-regional-academy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/?p=133","title":{"rendered":"BMC Regional Academy"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Saturday I went to The Climbing Unit<\/a> in Derby for a BMC Regional Academy<\/a> training session. \u00a0You get invited to these extra sessions if you come in\u00a0a podium position in your regions YCS<\/a> qualifying rounds. \u00a0The theme for this day was “Climbing Smart” and was run by Tom Greenall<\/a>, Lucinda Whittaker<\/a> and Dave Mason<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Climbing Unit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Warm ups<\/strong><\/p>\n

Firstly our group was split into two teams of about 4 kids in each group to create a warm up. \u00a0My group created a pulse raiser whereas the other group created a warm up where they merged dynamic stretching with climbing. \u00a0 Once we’d finished them we showed them to the other group and tried them out. \u00a0We learnt why warm ups are important activities to do before each\u00a0climbing session.<\/p>\n

Climbing Brain<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then we played a game of “minesweeper” on a taped out grid on the mats. There are\u00a0hidden mines in the grid and each player tries to get the safe exit avoiding them. \u00a0Once we had all played a few games to get the gist of it, we were split up again to make our own, harder, minesweeper grid. \u00a0The other team tried out our grid and we tried out theres. \u00a0Once we finished this the coaches explained how minesweeper can be like route reading because you have to choose which option to take in each move on a route or boulder problem.<\/p>\n

\"The
The minesweeper grid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then we did an obstacle course where we pretended the the floor was made of lava and we had to try and get to the marked exit without touching the lava. \u00a0Though it wasn’t clear there were two different paths you could take, one was longer but easier whereas the other was harder but shorter. \u00a0Both teams\u00a0chose a different course to each other and we both managed to finish it. \u00a0Then the coaches explained how you can sometimes choose an easier, but longer, route in climbing or a shorter harder one and which way would work better. \u00a0This was really fun!<\/p>\n

Route Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

We then each chose an easy climb, drew it and labelled the holds, the sequence and which hand or foot goes on each hold. \u00a0We then showed this to the other members of our group and they tried out our climb using the sequence on the sheet.<\/p>\n

The coaches\u00a0then got an A3 piece of paper and asked us all what we think of when we first route read a climb. \u00a0We thought of such things as the type of wall, the holds, the sequence and the crux. We then ordered the list into from first to last.<\/p>\n

\"Applying<\/a>
Applying route reading skills with Dave<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They\u00a0then put us in pairs where\u00a0we had two different aspects each from the list we had thought of, \u00a0and had to list as many different things you should take into account when route reading. \u00a0I had to write down different wall types to consider and I thought of roof, overhang, slab, vertical. \u00a0I then had to think of what you would do with your feet when doing a\u00a0climb, I wrote down a long list of techniques including \u00a0smears, toe-hooks and heel hooks. \u00a0I then linked them with the wall type. \u00a0The whole group then found links between everyones different aspects of route reading. \u00a0For example, what clipping positions would have to do with the sequence of the climb.<\/p>\n

The Climbs<\/strong><\/p>\n

We were then shown eight different boulder problems and then for each climb we had the choice of wether we could on-sight them (try them without watching anyone else climb it)\u00a0or\u00a0flash them (watching a video of someone doing it or watching someone else try it).<\/p>\n

\"Climbing<\/a>
Climbing a problem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I chose to on-sight most of them because I don’t know anyone else who climbs exactly like me! \u00a0I on-sighted five\u00a0of them and didn’t manage to finish three of them because they were supposed to be hard for the category A boys that were part of the session.<\/p>\n

Comp preparation<\/strong><\/p>\n

The coaches then put\u00a0seven post-it notes on the wall, one for each day of the week before a\u00a0competition. \u00a0We were then given an aspect that you had to do\u00a0think about that week, for example your bedtime and then had to stick it under which day(s) it applies to\u00a0. \u00a0I was given stretching and I put it under all the days (for some climbers such as me who has tight hamstrings) or just the day of the comp to loosen yourself up before the climb (for most other climbers).<\/p>\n

Overall I thought it was a really fantastic day and I would recommend going to BMC Regional Academies<\/a> if you get invited, or any other BMC activity sessions you may hear about.<\/p>\n

The Climbing Unit<\/a> is an amazing climbing centre<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0which has a ginormous bouldering area and smaller top-roping room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday I went to The Climbing Unit in Derby for a BMC Regional Academy training session. \u00a0You get invited to these extra sessions if you come in\u00a0a podium position in your regions YCS qualifying rounds. \u00a0The theme for this day was “Climbing Smart” and was run by Tom Greenall, Lucinda Whittaker and Dave Mason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bouldering","category-training"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6USQ6-29","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152,"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilytheclimber.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}