distance, hearts, and fondness

8a.nu Research Harem

three important ingredients: 1) Jens “Hey I Don’t Understand What Debate Means” Larssen (Founder of 8a.nu and General Innovator) 2) 8a.nu (news and quantitative spray/”debate” site), and 3) my distance from the much-loathed but still popular site ((time+space/8a.nu)+me).  it was all there.  fondness, however, not so much.  when i returned i found this*:

* bold emphasis mine.

Debate/Jens:

Jamie Emerson is working on a topo for RMNP where Jade is located giving him a delicate issue, that in a way also describes grading theory, and the problem for 8a once producing news.

Jade seems to be a reachy one move problem that Daniel Woods, 168 cm?, did in 2007. In the 2008 8a yearbook, Björn Pohl appointed it to be one of the Top-10 most difficult problem in the world. It has been, rather quickly, repeated by five taller guys but no suggested downgrade before Carlo Traversi did so last week.

It is totally understandable that nobody has mentioned a down grade before as this should only be done when you feel something is totally wrong. Carlo has not done 8B+ and crimps are not his strong point. In the video, Carlo says it felt like 7C+ on the ascent.

Grades are delicate matters but if we only base it on feelings and consensus, we will never get it right. We must include second opinions, facts and Time Comparison Grading analyses. A topo producer or 8a can not just wait until another five guys like Carlo has suggested another grade.

Already in March the topo producer Jamie Emerson speculated about Jade being 8B+. Now, Paul Robinson says he is OK with this. My point here is if Daniel Woods have suggested an 8B+ FA grade, probably all of the repeaters would have agreed on that in the same way they agreed on 8C.

If we think grades are important I think a slash grade 8B+/8C is appropriate but if we do NOT think grades are so important and accurate, I would go for Jamie Emerson gut feeling.

I would also like to underline that it is just natural that the FA’s can not get it right 100 %. Daniel Woods has been leading the pack by 12 first ascent boulders graded 8B+ to 8C+. He has a clean record showing that he is very capable of suggesting humble FA grades. He has been a true role model since he was 19-years-old!

two reactions: 1) “bro, whaaaaaaaaaat?” and 2) SCIENCE!!!!

GTFO

-tt/milyoo

Time Machine Accoutrements

things i hate: hatred

landlines. omg. the 90's were hell.

i was rereading my post from yesterday and i think i might have jumped the gun a bit.  i mean, sure, i’ve been totally shut down on two three ‘bouldery’ routes in the last few weeks, and sure it makes me wanna rethink my strate..

*rage blackout*

what was i talking about?

oh, right.  hatred.  yeah.  it’s wrong.  especially in climbing.  because it’s all like about being with nature.  not like sexually.  natural sex is gross.  but like, you know, getting all in-the-flow with flowers and dirt and stuff is pretty good.  like the new prana look.  it’s so with nature because it’s all about doing natural stuff…. IN nature.  look after the jump:

movie music motivation magic: you’re the best!

in what might (but probably won’t) become a regular thing, we here at icftg.com have decided to end each week with a bit of motivational music movie magic music…magic.   this week’s feature is joe esposito’s Karate Kid classic ‘you’re the best’.  we’ve not only imbeeded the youtube footage, but we’ve also included the lyrics (with commentary).

enjoy your weekend and try not to chuff harder than you send.  you know who you are.

the routes doth call

you ever look at pictures of sport climbing and say to yourself “man, that looks badass!”?

yeah, me neither.  i mean, why would i want to do several boulder problems in a row when i’m already having so much fun doing them in the single?  plus. if you need more than two hands to count the number of moves in a problem, it’s no longer climbing.  it’s math.