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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Apr 10, 2013 - 11:30am PT
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GDavis:
I went bouldering last week and there was a pretty good kid who was all of 4'5" and watched him try desperately to dyno to holds I easily could lock off to. If you can tell me with a straight face that he has an advantage then sir, you need to get your test levels checked.
G, why are you challenging me to disagree with you, when you're saying exactly the same thing that I already wrote in this thread:
Umm, go to any popular climbing gym (at least in Boulder) and you'll see little kids climbing very hard, or should I say, what appears to be very hard to an adult. (You'll also see the same little kids get absolutely shut down on "easy" problems or routes that have mandatory long reaches.)
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Apr 10, 2013 - 11:32am PT
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I feel like such a dinosaur. These kids are so good.
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SeaClimb
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 03:37pm PT
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Steve Shea...
Good on you that you recognize that you are living a dream! i get so sad when i realize that i will some day awake from my dream and my kids will have moved on with their lives. I hope to be a part of that as well, but right now, they are my whole life.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Apr 10, 2013 - 05:07pm PT
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Blahblah, you said that being small and light is a gift. I say you have the body you have, and your ability to manipulate it is the gift.
Alex Honnold doesn't have advantages, he has a unique body he adapted for climbing. I don't have advantages, I Have a unique body I adapt for climbing. Etc...
Not at all the same thing.
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the kid
Trad climber
fayetteville, wv
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Apr 10, 2013 - 06:10pm PT
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gonna chime in here. i know Kai and his mom Connie very well. I met Kai 5 years ago when he first started climbing and i saw his natural talent right away. combine that with the fact he is super humble and truly psyched to climb. plus his mom raised him by herself and she is very supportive, takes him to all the comps, belays when he climbs outside. more impressive is the fact that he has only climbed outside a few times, and just recently sent proper soul 14.a at the New River gorge in just 3 tries this trip and tried it once 2 years ago.
He sent it even though the finish was soaking wet. soooo
keep your eye on Kai. he is legit and a very good kid.
like it or not a lot of kids will be hitting the crags, most of them with the same desire and psyche for the sport that i had when i was young...
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SeaClimb
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 06:24pm PT
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Hey Kurt...
You wouldn't believe the talking like a dutch uncle I had to do to get Connie to start taking Kai outside!
hahahaha
Cheers
Rudy
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Apr 10, 2013 - 06:37pm PT
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his mom raised him by herself and she is very supportive, takes him to all the comps, belays when he climbs outside.
Let's see... single mother, raised an awesome kid, and is a professor. Yeah, pretty bad ass momma!
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Apr 10, 2013 - 07:40pm PT
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Blahblah, you said that being small and light is a gift. I say you have the body you have, and your ability to manipulate it is the gift.
Alex Honnold doesn't have advantages, he has a unique body he adapted for climbing. I don't have advantages, I Have a unique body I adapt for climbing. Etc...
Not at all the same thing.
I didn't say being small and light is a gift. I said (something to the effect of) being small and light is advantageous to hanging onto small holds. And being tall is helpful in reaching between holds.
When you balance it out, you'll have funny things like kids being able to climb what has been graded (by average-sized adults) 5.14 but not be be able to do things like a V2 or V3 boulder problem (also graded by average-sized adults).
On average, being generally small is clearly an advantage in climbing; just look at animals if you have a hard time grasping that, but there will be exceptions for certain moves.
Everything I've written on this thread is fairly obvious and non-controversial. I'm not normally exposed to the soccer mom/dad part of modern climbing, for which I should consider myself lucky.
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SeaClimb
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 08:29pm PT
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yawn....
the most controversial part of what you said was very similar to what I heard many, many years ago when Caldwell and Sharma were 12...that was "yeah, they won't climb like that when they are adults"...well, guess what, that didn't pan out did it. You also stated that when this current crop matures that they would only be "marginally" better than the previous crop.
Now here is the kicker. The current crop reached adulthood (let's be arbitrary here and call it 18) just this year and last and they are currently flashing or sending in less than 10 goes what the previous generation does in 3 years (as defined by Sharma).
This trend will continue for at least several more crops. I do not believe we are anywhere near where the fastest mile on record is. There is large amounts of improvement to be had.
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SeaClimb
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 08:30pm PT
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Nice Dingus!
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Paco
Trad climber
Montana
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Apr 10, 2013 - 09:48pm PT
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In theory, 'the gym' supports safer technical habits (i.e. gear management, anchor redundancy, etc.), but as Jim pointed out, many of these climbers will continue to broaden their horizons... and although it's always a good idea to set up quality anchors, there are far more elements to take into account in an alpine environment. I'm sure most of you have heard a story or two about some hot-shot gym rat who got into trouble on a more committing 5:7...
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Paco
Trad climber
Montana
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Apr 10, 2013 - 09:50pm PT
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On another note...wow that kid can climb.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Apr 10, 2013 - 09:54pm PT
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I'm not normally exposed to the soccer mom/dad part of modern climbing,
I think you might be projecting... when I was just a few years older my mom took me out, gave me a belay, and in fact this weekend I'm going to pay her back by giving her a weekend in Big Bear on fun sport routes.
I agree that light and small is good on certain terrains, but without climbing the route I can't have a good opinion on if being a certain size is helpful or not. I mean, he's not THAT small... seems about as tall as Ramon Julien, if not taller.
Not responding to Blabla here, but it is the ULTIMATE beta move to say something like "well let's see him on a 5.7 hand crack...."
Let's see YOU on a 5.14. lol.
Stop moving the goalposts and give the kid big ups!
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Paco
Trad climber
Montana
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Apr 10, 2013 - 10:04pm PT
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The climbing is unbelievable. And I've no doubt he knows how to climb HARD cracks, too. Seeing someone climb as smoothly as that is a serious inspiration. It's hard not to be cynical, with the amount of people that fail to draw the lines between their sport and another. But I suppose that's a conversation for another thread.
GO KAI!
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Apr 10, 2013 - 10:30pm PT
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Let's see YOU on a 5.14. lol.
Stop moving the goalposts and give the kid big ups!
I did in fact watch most of the video of the kid climbing the 14c (that's how I knew height and weight), and he clearly is an expert climber, in addition to whatever strength/weight ratio advantage he may have.
I'm sorry that some people take an attempt to have a rational discussion of the issues raised by kids climbing hard as "hating"--I'm happy to see anyone getting psyched by climbing and am at least mildly interested (and impressed) by the phenomenon of kids climbing hard.
Time will tell how these kids will progress in the future--I'll stay tuned to ST to find out!
Edit:
I mean, he's not THAT small... seems about as tall as Ramon Julien, if not taller. OK somehow I'm drawn in again.
In the video I watched (the kid climbing Scarface I think, the 14c at Smith Rocks), he said he was 4'8'' (I think) and weight was less than 85 pounds.
That weight is about half a GDavis or less, I presume?
According to WikiP, Ramon is 5'2'' and weighs 110 pounds (I'd guess he's in the bottom 1% of normal sized men). Ramon is an example of a tiny adult male climbing incredibly hard--do you think he climbs well because of his small size or in spite of his small size, or it's just a complete coincidence?
And the boy who climbed Scarface is significantly smaller than Ramon.
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SeaClimb
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 10:34pm PT
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Kai is 5'-6"...I'm guessing he's about 135lbs or so, maybe a touch lighter than that. He's a big kid for his age and still growing. Much much bigger than Ramon...He's never touched a crack, but given a week long trip would have not much of a problem, I think.
Drew is 4'-9"...he is a decent crack climber in all sizes (tips to offwidth/chimney) and is proficient at placing gear. I actually had him crack climbing at a very young age because cracks are never reachy.
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SeaClimb
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 10:50pm PT
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Blah blah,
You do realize there are two kids that we are talking about, right? One is my son, Drew. We are from Seattle. He's the kid climbing scarface at smith. Scarface is 14a. Its steep at the bottom and sweeping to vertical.
The other boy is Kai Lightner. He is climbing Southern Smoke, its 14c and located at the Red River Gorge and is very very steep. Kai lives in North Carolina. He's a competitor of Drew's on the USA Climbing Youth circuit. They've been competing against each other since they were 9. Kai is a wonderful kid and his mom is a gem.
There are other freaks out there who are highly trained even though they are very young. Robyn's kids, Brooke and Shawn, i'm sure you've seen. Then there are Eric Horst's boys, also animals. Eric has trained them as ATHLETES first and climbers second.
These are just the kids who are in the general climbing media. There is a whole slew of trained kids in the gyms who don't climb outside but if they did, can easily climb hard hard technical routes.
These are the vanguard of a change to climbing that we have not seen yet. Europe is beginning to experience it, and the US is not far behind.
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SeaClimb
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 10:54pm PT
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One more thing...
Its my opinion that the optimum height for males to climb cutting edge hard routes is from 5'-4" to about 5'-8" or so and between 115lbs and 140lbs...
Only an opinion and I haven't seen a statistical sampling.
I only started this thread because I wanted to point out that the age for developing crazy skills has dropped to well below fifteen.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Apr 10, 2013 - 11:22pm PT
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Just wait till some of the kids are out freeing routes on Trango Tower at 22 or so. It's coming.
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SeaClimb
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 11:24pm PT
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blahblah,
when you get a chance, do check out the video of Kai... Clint posted it aways back. It really is pretty cool to watch...
He's a good kid. Would that every kid had a parent (or two) like he has...the world would be a far better place.
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