Conquering My First Ever f6c
What could have only been a dream a year ago became reality earlier this week. I managed to top a boulder route that is not for the faint of heart.
Whats an f6c? Is it a swear word?
No my dear friend, I'm not swearing. It's a level of difficulty for a boulder problem.
What's a boulder problem you might ask? If you look at the image above, there will be a small tag next to the starting hold (on the left) which I need to touch with both hands while my feet are off the ground. This manuver is called establishing myself on the wall.
Once I’ve established, I need to make my way to the top hold (marked by T in the image) while only making use of the holds of the same colour (white in this case) and grab it with both hand.
I climb at a bouldering gym that uses the French sport grades. The f6c grade is the above average in terms of difficulty. At the gym that I was climbing, f6c is the tipping point towards harder boulder problems.
Caption: The list of boulder problems with their difficulty level at my local indoor bouldering gym
Now hopefully you are armed with the knowledge needed to understand why this was a particularly tricky route for me. I'd never once sent (completed) a boulder problem at this level of difficulty.
There were two main challenges on Project DB (code named after one of the donors) that I was struggling with:
- Getting my right foot on the third foot hold
- Topping the boulder with limited hand holds
Therefore I got to projecting this route over several sessions.
Project like it's hot
Another bit of terminology for those unaware of climbing jargon. Projecting a route is when you pick a problem that is challenging for you and try to send it over multiple tries and sessions.
As part of my hundred indoor boulder routes for charity, I plan to dedicate a project for each person that donated.
And so over the past couple of weeks I tried to send it every single session. And every single session I'd fall short of making it past the first challenge.
I also tried to top the boulder starting from third foot hold and still did not manage to top the route. Sufficit to say, my motivation for sending the route was at an all time low.
The turning point
While at an Adult improvers session, I was doing another project of mine, a particularly tricky purple, when Oscar, my climbing coach, identified some flaws in my technique.
When lunging towards a hand hold, my legs were fully extended with no bend at my knee. Without the bend at my knee, I had much lower travel which reduced my range of motion.
That gave me a brilliant idea to send Project DB. All I'd have to do is keep a slight bend in my knee so that I could travel a lot further.
Sent at last!
I showed up the next day eager to try my new technique on Project DB that had been elusive for the longest time.
I tried it for the first time and instantly made a lot more progress than I would have otherwise. So I spent some time just visualising my move and practicing exactly what I would do once my feet landed on the second big foot hold.
I geared up for my next attempt by releasing the tension in my arms and taking a deep breath as I always do.
The first few moves were well within my comfort zone as I had done them over a dozen times by that point. I then found myself in postition at the start of challenge 1, to land my feet on the third foot hold which I couldn't see due to an intentionally placed hold in my line of sight. I would have to trust-fall my feet into the hold and immediately launch myself off to grab the hand hold above it.
Based on muscle memory, I angled my feet and executed the motion of sliding it towards the foot hold hoping to make contact. Before I could fully process what had happened, I found myself holding onto the hand hold for dear life.
Now all I had to do was to make my way up to the top. The next few moves were a bit nerve racking as making a mistake now could mean I'd have to do the whole route again.
I readied myself for the final dynamic move where I needed to get my right hand up on a tiny hand hold and grab it with both hands. I exhaled as I thrust myself towards the hand hold and succeeded, making it my first ever f6c on record!
Never give up on your dreams kids (and adults)! Where there is a Will, there is a way! Feel free to comment on this post in the fediverse or reply via email.
Until next time,
Tony
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