The climbing interview continues in today's post.

Interview (Part 2)

Who are your climbing idols?

Ah, I have too many... It depends on what I am trying to channel at the moment.

The Scandinavian climbing YouTubers Magnus Midtbo and Emil Abrahamsson + Wide Boyz (Tom Randall & Pete Whittaker) - for when I need to unleash beast mode and use all my power and try-hard. I admire the raw power of Magnus and Emil, and the psychological toughness of trad climbers, especially offwidth specialists who are absolutely bonkers.

Louis Parkinson (Captain Cutloose) and Johnny Dawes (The Legend) - for parkour movement in climbing. Parkinson's YT videos have been especially important for helping me understand the structure of coordination problems, breaking them down into manageable sub-problems and highlighting features of the problem that one should pay attention to (and their specific timing). I think that made a huge difference in my dynamic/coordination climbing. I will probably write a separate post about the coordination style, in which I will explain Dawes' contribution to my present climbing approach and philosophy.

Ai Mori - for when I feel sad that I can't span stuff and then I remember that she can probably do the problem anyways despite being smol and so I have no excuse.

My ultimate climbing idol is none other than Jain Kim - her climbing style is just so beautiful, efficient, and elegant, but still powerful, precise, and intentional. I try to emulate her as much as possible in my own climbing (but obviously not even close lol). Love watching her climb and have been following her for several years. She is still killing it even after becoming a mom. Mad respect for her.

Special shoutout for Dave MacLeod. He has one of the most well developed and sophisticated theoretical frameworks of climbing technique, which is hugely underrated by the current emphasis on raw strength and parkour style movement. A true old master of climbing technique.

Favorite and least favorite hole type?

My favorite hole types are small holds like crimps and pockets, because I have small hands :) Basically I like hole/grip types where I can really dig my fingers (or toes) in!

Least favorite hole types - slopers. I also do not like slopey pinches and slopey crimps. I have trouble holding on well to slopey things, which I suspect is due to having rather weak wrists and poor friction due to sweaty hands, but more importantly a poor understanding how to engage the upper back muscles.

Climbing equipment: what brand of chalk do you use?

I have really sweaty hands and palms and run through buckets of chalks like crazy. I have been a long-term fan of Friction Labs Chunky Bam Bam Chalk, but recently I tried out Magdust and it is actually sticking to my skin a lot more evenly and longer than any other chalk brand that I have tried. I resisted trying Magdust for a long time because I didn't want to "fall prey" to their aggressive marketing on YouTube, but that shit actually works. I use a generic liquid chalk as a base to try and dry out my hands a bit before using actual chalk as the second layer.

Climbing equipment: what shoe brand are you using?

I have two types of shoes currently. My go-to for almost all climbing is the Per Adra S01 (low volume). It just fits the shape of my feet really well (it is a Japanese brand so they fit Asian feet better? Who knows.) and has the right level of stiffness and softness. I find it really versatile for a range of climbing styles. It also has a generous toe patch and because the fit is so good for my feet heel hooks feel very secure.

The other shoe that I have is the super soft La Sportiva Mantra. I find these shoes really excellent all-rounders as well, and especially good when I need to have a lot of sensitivity in my feet for technical slabs, running on volumes, footwork-centric problems, and coordination problems where I need to land on stuff after jumping around. The extra softness means the shoe conforms well to various hole shapes and generates the friction I need to stay on, but the downturned toe also means it is excellent for overhanging problems or board climbing as well. The only downside is that the overall fit is not as good as the Adras and heel hooking with the Mantra is challenging. In general, I have found that the major European/North American shoe brands don't fit my feet shape 100%.

Any final comments?

As you can see from this blog post (and the previous one), I am obsessed with this sport. What I will mention as a final comment is that climbing is also fascinating to me as a person who is generally interested in the study of human cognition, because it is a super interesting case study to understand how people problem solve (individually and within a broader community), how the development of skill and expertise occurs, the interaction of implicit and explicit learning to develop new knowledge representations, integration of perceptual, motor, and visual information with top down knowledge to solve novel problems, the role of attention and appropriate spotlighting and shifting on specific features of a problem, metacognition of one's strength and ability... Perhaps more in another post!