QEH - 14:00 - 15:00
Up to 10 participants, all adolescent males. This is a regular group to Bloc who have been attending regular bouldering sessions for a number of years as part of their PE syllabus.
As this is a long term group, we look at various aspects of climbing per week, with the aim of improving individual's ability and confidence on the wall. Each session will have a focus on either technique, strategies or competition prep.
Structure:
- Paperwork
- Intro
- Check for illness & injury
- Warm up (cardio pulse raiser followed by mobility exercises - Though this warm up featured dynamic movement patterns i.e., frog hopping, side stepping, skipping)
- Safety Rules
- Free climb to get the group ready to climb.
- Group activity including an introduction to the session aim, a demonstration and then a task to practice newly introduced skill.
- WATER BREAK
- Cooldown/stretch out.
Sam and I split the group up so we had the same students as last week. We had separate session plans for each group. My group were the stronger, more confident climbers.
Follow the leader warm up with this group, followed by mobility exercises. Todays theme is footwork. So I got the bells out and told all the climbers to strap the bells to the top of their shoes and climb:
x4 VB-VO
x4 V1- V2
But, if their bells rang, they had to come down and re-attempt the problem. The climbers loved the challenge and we discussed the importance of foot work and energy conservation. Once they had completed the first 8 problems, I allowed the group to climb any problem of their choice, but they weren't allowed to take the bells off. Most climbers were able to to climb V3-4 without making the bells ring, which was impressive. We then discussed how it felt to climb knowing you had to take such care and attention to placing your feet and what effect that had on the rest of the climbing. For most it slowed their climbing and they found they were move balanced and considerate of their movements. For a couple, they complained that their arms got pumped quickly. Which lead to an interesting conversation about how easy it is to start pulling on your arms when your paying so much attention to your feet and how to rectify this with perfect practice.
Remember: practice does not make perfect! Perfect practice make perfect. Practise itself, just makes permanence.
Area :
Bloc Climbing - Bristol
