I watch a lot of climbing videos and have never seen anyone climb like that. It looked like he was running up the wall. Its crazy to think how climbing style has evolved from slow static movement,of the 80s to this hyper dynamic style of Ondra and Sharma.
Dan
Ondra's style is not particularly dynamic, just fast. And Sharma does not climb fast at all. And I don't think you can say "climbing style has evolved" when Ondra is basically the only guy that climbs like this. He is showing us the way forward.
Andrew
If you watched the Deep Water Soloing comp, all the climbers who did really well were climbing very fast.
Dan
That comp used time as a tiebreaker in the event that both climbers topped out/fell at the same place, so there was external incentive to climb fast. Also, a lot of the competitors were boulderers.
douglashunter
OK but lets not forget that as far back as 1991 Udo Neumann was doing competition video analysis and showing that there was a good correlation between pacing and how well the climber finished. Others have also studied this in a more rigorous way and had similar results. In general faster is better when it comes to sport climbing. The exception being when one climbs too fast and elements such as percision and balance start to decline. Also there are some moves that just need to be done slower, but in general, we are in at least the second decade of there being a fairly wide understanding that faster is better. Ondra isn't so much showing us something new, he is applying our current understanding very well.
On a different topic I think a lot of people here have selective memory about how fast or slow people climbed in the past. Dan Osmond was a sprinter, Marc Le Menestrel ran up routes at Buoux, and when Jibe was on sight he climbed like there was not a second to loose. Then there was a guy like Salt Lake climber Arron Shammy who did every rout in AF in half the time or less than anyone else did. Yea, I can also name a bunch of folks who are total snails on the rock, every watch Steve Hong or Merril Bitter climb? We have always had very fast and very slow climbers. If different communities value slow movement it probably has to do with the style of the more well known climbers in those communities and not the mechanics of climbing movement or the bioenergetic requirements of sport climbing.
Dan
@ douglashunter
I don't think it's any secret that faster is better, with everything else being equal. No one saying that it's a new idea, just noting that Adam has applied it very well. I also think the ability to incorporate momentum to climb not only fast, but very efficiently, is pretty rare.
douglashunter
Dan, yea, I agree, there are not a lot of climbers who come to mind that have speed and efficiency in ample amounts. I'm not even sure that there are a lot of climbers that just have efficiency. I'm not putting down climbers by saying that, I just think that our understanding of what efficiency is, is still developing and will continue to do so for many years to come.
andrew
lol how many 5.15's has sharma put up? and there are at least 7 other individuals climbing 5.15's, a female onsighting .14a, a 13 year old girl flashing v13 & such. ondra is far from the only person climbing so hard. & really the grade at that level comes down to move length & combination of hard moves. And things have definitely evolved, spend any time with old greats & youll hear exactly the same, kids are jumping on things that gents spent years preparing for in a matter of months now, you're what is called a loud mouth.
Dan
None of that has anything to do with style.
THE DIGGLER
COOL THX DAN AWESOMME BIIIIIIEEEEEEENNNNNN
osssmanasdd
Ondra is a very static climber. It only looks dynamic in some moves because that's the only way it can be done. Obviously Sharma hasn't even made a mention of coming to this cave and attempting any of Ondra's new routes. Sharma is somewhat of a dynamic climber, he just skips a lot of moves and does a lot of all points off dynos. Otherwise I'd say anyone climbing 5.14+ is more of a static climber than dynamic. The only time any of them take a dynamic move, is because that's the only way to get forward on the route.
Anon
So i take it you never seen some Dan Osmond vids...
Narc
I've seen a few, but running up a 5.6 is a lot different than what is happening in this video.
zotch
is it called Move because of that one move? or move because he is moving so fast?
J May
I find it nearly impossible to believe that the filmmaker is telling the truth that he didn't speed up the footage at all. Adam looks like he's climbing twice as fast as he does in Petr Pavlicek's footage. The draws are swinging insanely fast, the chalk drops insanely fast, the whole thing looks totally unnatural.
jamaica55
I completely agree. At his first knee bar, you can see the tips of his hair moving unnaturally, unlike how hair is normally moved by the wind. The sped up clips are mixed in well with clips that are at normal speed which makes the entire climb look like it's climbed much faster. I love Adam Ondra and don't doubt any of his climbing abilities and mastery at the sport. I just don't think that this clip wholly and organically reflects that.
Dan
Hair moving unnaturally? Draws swinging insanely fast? What the hell are you guys talking about? The climbing footage is all continuous and uncut, and every little chalk-up and shake looks perfectly normal. Are you are suggesting that Ondra chalks up in slow motion, or that the speed of the footage is being constantly and variably manipulated? What is the motive for this elaborate hoax? Why would they go through all this trouble to trick the climbing world into thinking that Adam climbs slightly faster than he actually does? In conclusion, you guys are dumb.
chris
Sometimes editors speed up sequences, or do cuts, to shorten what would otherwise be a painfully long red-point.
Personally I don't think that's what happened here, at least not obviously. But it's not people being conspiracy theorists.
adam
Why would the world's best climber feel the need to speed up footage to make himself look even better? This is how he climbs dude, he's superhuman get used to it already.
frag
this man is a monster
a beautiful monster
Narc
It's not just that he's climbing fast, it's that his movements are quite unusual. Lots of almost ape-like swinging from hold to hold instead of a more traditional pull and lock off.
Dan
The thing that most impresses me is how precise his foot placements are. He doesn't seem to sacrifice any precision or accuracy by climbing so quickly. He seems constantly "in the zone".
Chuck
I could be just imagining it but it seems to me that you see boulderers like Nalle Hukkataival, for instance, adjusting their grip on almost every hold. It's like they're constantly ratcheting up their grip. Ondra definitely makes grip adjustments but they seem less frequent and much faster. On the crux of Move he barely adjusts at all. He just fires through it which seems so unlike what I see in Graham/Woods/Traversi/etc bouldering videos. Again, I could just be imagining but Ondra's grip precision is uncanny.
Q
Super impressive. I think I'd prefer this continuous-shot style over the typical chopped up multiangle videos. At least in Flatanger it works because the vantage point for the camera is good.
david
Can someone explain how these "hard" sport routes are graded? Is this a long pitch with two .14+ cruxes? if how does that become .15c? On easier routes it seems that a sustained pitch of, say, .10d, might get bumped up to .11a, but not .11c.
Perhaps these guys just feel it is harder than something .15a or b? so therefore they grade the whole pitch, not the hardest move?
I'm not questioning the grade though, looks insane!
Andrew
Think of doing a long pumpy 10d pitch to a mediocre rest then doing a really bouldery 10d pitch. It would probably feel 11c-ish. He mentions in one of the videos that it's graded harder because you have to do the boulder problem after the pumpy climbing, which is harder than the other way around because you've lost power. But anyway, things are no longer graded by the hardest move because pump is a much bigger factor on high end sport climbs than old school trad routes with lots of stances to recover. Pitches are graded holistically based on how they feel compared to many other pitches of other grades.
JMB
Besides the fact that YDS grades being used to denote the hardest move is part relic of the past, part myth (there are comments on Supertopo from Bridwell and others on how this was never the case for sustained routes), Ondra didn't grade the route 5.15b/c, he gave it a French sport grade of 9b/+. Those grades are always given for the redpoint and incorporate all aspects of difficulty including how sustained the route is. All hard modern sport routes are graded this way.
Van
So how hard do you think theses boulder problems in crazy sport routes are? Like dura dura? V12/13/14? Is 15c so crazy it has multiple v14s? Or more like a long crazy v10?
Narc
Based on anecdotal observations of other climbs it seems like the .14d top crux on this route would be something like V12 or harder range.
Van
Ah interesting, so maybe something like dura or frfm could be in v14 range?
Narc
I think bouldering grades would only be appropriate for sections of a climb so it all depends on the length and style of whichever section of a route you're talking about.
Dan
I believe Adam said the crux sequence of Change was V14. But you really can't generalize about the grades of cruxes for a particular route grade; in the classic "wizard" interview, Dave Graham says that the crux of Realization is 7b+!
Van
Yeah that makes sense, kinda like the wheel of life
Jeremy
That kneebar looks really painful
david
good answers andrew and narc. thanks!
Tom
MOVEment that quick makes sense from a physiological perspective. Just think about the pump factor of doing all those moves slowly with massively intense lock-off strength verses quickly and precisely dailed dynamic (or ape-like as Narc said) movements. It just makes sense... the quicker the better, if you can still be in control while you do them, which he displays for us quite well
THE menace
I read an interview with Franco Legrand where he talked about climbing quickly. So you dont get so pumped so fast. By standing around on holds you get pumped but running past you can maintain longer. No need to have a sandwich just before a crux, just hit the gas and hammer it out! I am no 5.15 climber but when trying to find my limit on a route i am working it is for sure best to move as fast as possible but maintain good technique. But that is on a project. On siteing is another game.
old dude
What kind of rock is this? Very cool moves... and yes, the fluidity is noteworthy Adam seems to have bulked up since last summer...
Narc
Granite
JM
They seem to call it granite, although climbers generally have a tendency to lump anything even remotely granitic into the term "granite". From the appearance fo the rock, granitic gneiss is probably the more accurate rock ID.
Dylan
Yeah, it can be pretty amusing when you really get picky about the strict definition (based on chemistry) of granite the number of things that get DQ'd. For example, El Cap is made of granite, but Half Dome is not (it's actually granodiorite).
peter
It used to be granite before Ondra started to crush it. (recycled joke)
Mittens
Adam doesn't look nearly as skinny as he used to. Totally unique climbing style, very cool to watch.
Owen
yeah starting to look like dave graham in that opening clip. boys pickin up some cool?
MadSkillz Media
1. All the climbing is in its normal speed as the camera see´s it. Nothing has been altered in post production. There was a lot of wind and the quickdraws where swinging around like crazy. What I have done is cut out a bit of the painful rest in the kneebar before the final crux part. In reality he rested there for just over 4 minutes. I´v also speed up the part after he has clipped the anchor and is lowered to the ground.
2. Adam says he climbs fast because he feels he naturally lacks endurance compared to climbers like Ramonet and Jackob Schubert. He will be going back to school this fall and is planing to enter the lead worldcup next year so I´m guessing there will be a lot of interesting speed comparison footage then.
3. It might be hard to hear because of the wind noise (sry didn´t bring a mic to the crag...), but he say´s in the beginning that the route is called Move mainly because it for him (Adam) comes down to one move. How hard this "move" is as a boulder problem I forgot to ask, but if I should make and educated guess I would say at least 8B.
4. La Dura Dura: I spoke to both Adam and Chris about the grade of the first part while they where working la Dura Dura. They both agreed that the first section (about 8 meters) would be 8C+ if graded as a boulder or 9b/+ on it´s own as a route. Basically it is several 8A and 8A+ single moves following each other with no rest and barely any place to clip. After this section the route is "only" 8c+ to the top, but this is also very bouldery and has most of the hard climbing just above the first part. After about 16 meters of climbing the route is "just" 8b to the top. According to Adam la Dura Dura is by far the hardest route he has climbed to date.
Henning Wang MadSkillz Media
Narc
Thanks for clarifying and thanks for sharing this video
Vanessa Moura
Perfect!!! Congratulations!!
Joy
Hate to be the one to ask such a lame question on such an amazing video, but what's the background music? I want to check it out.
Ryan
Kaminanda - Time Travellers
Joy
Thanks! Now I can listen to my iPod and feel as cool as Adam Ondra. <-- (probably not)
Adam Stackable
He's got the power-endurance down nicely I do say.
Sean ferrell
Chris and Adam agreed that the crux of La Dura Dura is v16? This would surprise me/I don't get it/it's going to take me a while to process that.
Dan
Note that he said that whole 8 meter section would be 8C+ . . . not the four or five move crux sequence we've seen in videos. Which makes sense, given that pretty much the entire difficulty of the route is contained in that section, and it's the hardest route in the world.
dave
Dead cat next time please. Crazy cool though
pedro
Yep this is definitely sped up. check the end when adam gets down near the ground his legs are going at super humam speed. Anyone who's watched enough of adam climbing can tell you he doesnt ever go that fast. so its obvious.
pipo
Dude, read the comment made by Wang on the 27th! of august. It will explain why you are obviously wrong.
Climbing Narc static archive
56 comments
I watch a lot of climbing videos and have never seen anyone climb like that. It looked like he was running up the wall. Its crazy to think how climbing style has evolved from slow static movement,of the 80s to this hyper dynamic style of Ondra and Sharma.
Ondra's style is not particularly dynamic, just fast. And Sharma does not climb fast at all. And I don't think you can say "climbing style has evolved" when Ondra is basically the only guy that climbs like this. He is showing us the way forward.
If you watched the Deep Water Soloing comp, all the climbers who did really well were climbing very fast.
That comp used time as a tiebreaker in the event that both climbers topped out/fell at the same place, so there was external incentive to climb fast. Also, a lot of the competitors were boulderers.
OK but lets not forget that as far back as 1991 Udo Neumann was doing competition video analysis and showing that there was a good correlation between pacing and how well the climber finished. Others have also studied this in a more rigorous way and had similar results. In general faster is better when it comes to sport climbing. The exception being when one climbs too fast and elements such as percision and balance start to decline. Also there are some moves that just need to be done slower, but in general, we are in at least the second decade of there being a fairly wide understanding that faster is better. Ondra isn't so much showing us something new, he is applying our current understanding very well.
On a different topic I think a lot of people here have selective memory about how fast or slow people climbed in the past. Dan Osmond was a sprinter, Marc Le Menestrel ran up routes at Buoux, and when Jibe was on sight he climbed like there was not a second to loose. Then there was a guy like Salt Lake climber Arron Shammy who did every rout in AF in half the time or less than anyone else did. Yea, I can also name a bunch of folks who are total snails on the rock, every watch Steve Hong or Merril Bitter climb? We have always had very fast and very slow climbers. If different communities value slow movement it probably has to do with the style of the more well known climbers in those communities and not the mechanics of climbing movement or the bioenergetic requirements of sport climbing.
@ douglashunter
I don't think it's any secret that faster is better, with everything else being equal. No one saying that it's a new idea, just noting that Adam has applied it very well. I also think the ability to incorporate momentum to climb not only fast, but very efficiently, is pretty rare.
Dan, yea, I agree, there are not a lot of climbers who come to mind that have speed and efficiency in ample amounts. I'm not even sure that there are a lot of climbers that just have efficiency. I'm not putting down climbers by saying that, I just think that our understanding of what efficiency is, is still developing and will continue to do so for many years to come.
lol how many 5.15's has sharma put up? and there are at least 7 other individuals climbing 5.15's, a female onsighting .14a, a 13 year old girl flashing v13 & such. ondra is far from the only person climbing so hard. & really the grade at that level comes down to move length & combination of hard moves. And things have definitely evolved, spend any time with old greats & youll hear exactly the same, kids are jumping on things that gents spent years preparing for in a matter of months now, you're what is called a loud mouth.
None of that has anything to do with style.
COOL THX DAN AWESOMME BIIIIIIEEEEEEENNNNNN
Ondra is a very static climber. It only looks dynamic in some moves because that's the only way it can be done. Obviously Sharma hasn't even made a mention of coming to this cave and attempting any of Ondra's new routes. Sharma is somewhat of a dynamic climber, he just skips a lot of moves and does a lot of all points off dynos. Otherwise I'd say anyone climbing 5.14+ is more of a static climber than dynamic. The only time any of them take a dynamic move, is because that's the only way to get forward on the route.
So i take it you never seen some Dan Osmond vids...
I've seen a few, but running up a 5.6 is a lot different than what is happening in this video.
is it called Move because of that one move? or move because he is moving so fast?
I find it nearly impossible to believe that the filmmaker is telling the truth that he didn't speed up the footage at all. Adam looks like he's climbing twice as fast as he does in Petr Pavlicek's footage. The draws are swinging insanely fast, the chalk drops insanely fast, the whole thing looks totally unnatural.
I completely agree. At his first knee bar, you can see the tips of his hair moving unnaturally, unlike how hair is normally moved by the wind. The sped up clips are mixed in well with clips that are at normal speed which makes the entire climb look like it's climbed much faster. I love Adam Ondra and don't doubt any of his climbing abilities and mastery at the sport. I just don't think that this clip wholly and organically reflects that.
Hair moving unnaturally? Draws swinging insanely fast? What the hell are you guys talking about? The climbing footage is all continuous and uncut, and every little chalk-up and shake looks perfectly normal. Are you are suggesting that Ondra chalks up in slow motion, or that the speed of the footage is being constantly and variably manipulated? What is the motive for this elaborate hoax? Why would they go through all this trouble to trick the climbing world into thinking that Adam climbs slightly faster than he actually does? In conclusion, you guys are dumb.
Sometimes editors speed up sequences, or do cuts, to shorten what would otherwise be a painfully long red-point.
Personally I don't think that's what happened here, at least not obviously. But it's not people being conspiracy theorists.
Why would the world's best climber feel the need to speed up footage to make himself look even better? This is how he climbs dude, he's superhuman get used to it already.
this man is a monster
a beautiful monster
It's not just that he's climbing fast, it's that his movements are quite unusual. Lots of almost ape-like swinging from hold to hold instead of a more traditional pull and lock off.
The thing that most impresses me is how precise his foot placements are. He doesn't seem to sacrifice any precision or accuracy by climbing so quickly. He seems constantly "in the zone".
I could be just imagining it but it seems to me that you see boulderers like Nalle Hukkataival, for instance, adjusting their grip on almost every hold. It's like they're constantly ratcheting up their grip. Ondra definitely makes grip adjustments but they seem less frequent and much faster. On the crux of Move he barely adjusts at all. He just fires through it which seems so unlike what I see in Graham/Woods/Traversi/etc bouldering videos. Again, I could just be imagining but Ondra's grip precision is uncanny.
Super impressive. I think I'd prefer this continuous-shot style over the typical chopped up multiangle videos. At least in Flatanger it works because the vantage point for the camera is good.
Can someone explain how these "hard" sport routes are graded? Is this a long pitch with two .14+ cruxes? if how does that become .15c? On easier routes it seems that a sustained pitch of, say, .10d, might get bumped up to .11a, but not .11c.
Perhaps these guys just feel it is harder than something .15a or b? so therefore they grade the whole pitch, not the hardest move?
I'm not questioning the grade though, looks insane!
Think of doing a long pumpy 10d pitch to a mediocre rest then doing a really bouldery 10d pitch. It would probably feel 11c-ish. He mentions in one of the videos that it's graded harder because you have to do the boulder problem after the pumpy climbing, which is harder than the other way around because you've lost power.
But anyway, things are no longer graded by the hardest move because pump is a much bigger factor on high end sport climbs than old school trad routes with lots of stances to recover. Pitches are graded holistically based on how they feel compared to many other pitches of other grades.
Besides the fact that YDS grades being used to denote the hardest move is part relic of the past, part myth (there are comments on Supertopo from Bridwell and others on how this was never the case for sustained routes), Ondra didn't grade the route 5.15b/c, he gave it a French sport grade of 9b/+. Those grades are always given for the redpoint and incorporate all aspects of difficulty including how sustained the route is. All hard modern sport routes are graded this way.
So how hard do you think theses boulder problems in crazy sport routes are? Like dura dura? V12/13/14? Is 15c so crazy it has multiple v14s? Or more like a long crazy v10?
Based on anecdotal observations of other climbs it seems like the .14d top crux on this route would be something like V12 or harder range.
Ah interesting, so maybe something like dura or frfm could be in v14 range?
I think bouldering grades would only be appropriate for sections of a climb so it all depends on the length and style of whichever section of a route you're talking about.
I believe Adam said the crux sequence of Change was V14. But you really can't generalize about the grades of cruxes for a particular route grade; in the classic "wizard" interview, Dave Graham says that the crux of Realization is 7b+!
Yeah that makes sense, kinda like the wheel of life
That kneebar looks really painful
good answers andrew and narc. thanks!
MOVEment that quick makes sense from a physiological perspective. Just think about the pump factor of doing all those moves slowly with massively intense lock-off strength verses quickly and precisely dailed dynamic (or ape-like as Narc said) movements. It just makes sense... the quicker the better, if you can still be in control while you do them, which he displays for us quite well
I read an interview with Franco Legrand where he talked about climbing quickly. So you dont get so pumped so fast. By standing around on holds you get pumped but running past you can maintain longer. No need to have a sandwich just before a crux, just hit the gas and hammer it out! I am no 5.15 climber but when trying to find my limit on a route i am working it is for sure best to move as fast as possible but maintain good technique. But that is on a project. On siteing is another game.
What kind of rock is this?
Very cool moves... and yes, the fluidity is noteworthy
Adam seems to have bulked up since last summer...
Granite
They seem to call it granite, although climbers generally have a tendency to lump anything even remotely granitic into the term "granite". From the appearance fo the rock, granitic gneiss is probably the more accurate rock ID.
Yeah, it can be pretty amusing when you really get picky about the strict definition (based on chemistry) of granite the number of things that get DQ'd. For example, El Cap is made of granite, but Half Dome is not (it's actually granodiorite).
It used to be granite before Ondra started to crush it.
(recycled joke)
Adam doesn't look nearly as skinny as he used to. Totally unique climbing style, very cool to watch.
yeah starting to look like dave graham in that opening clip. boys pickin up some cool?
1. All the climbing is in its normal speed as the camera see´s it. Nothing has been altered in post production. There was a lot of wind and the quickdraws where swinging around like crazy.
What I have done is cut out a bit of the painful rest in the kneebar before the final crux part. In reality he rested there for just over 4 minutes. I´v also speed up the part after he has clipped the anchor and is lowered to the ground.
2. Adam says he climbs fast because he feels he naturally lacks endurance compared to climbers like Ramonet and Jackob Schubert. He will be going back to school this fall and is planing to enter the lead worldcup next year so I´m guessing there will be a lot of interesting speed comparison footage then.
3. It might be hard to hear because of the wind noise (sry didn´t bring a mic to the crag...), but he say´s in the beginning that the route is called Move mainly because it for him (Adam) comes down to one move. How hard this "move" is as a boulder problem I forgot to ask, but if I should make and educated guess I would say at least 8B.
4. La Dura Dura: I spoke to both Adam and Chris about the grade of the first part while they where working la Dura Dura. They both agreed that the first section (about 8 meters) would be 8C+ if graded as a boulder or 9b/+ on it´s own as a route. Basically it is several 8A and 8A+ single moves following each other with no rest and barely any place to clip.
After this section the route is "only" 8c+ to the top, but this is also very bouldery and has most of the hard climbing just above the first part. After about 16 meters of climbing the route is "just" 8b to the top.
According to Adam la Dura Dura is by far the hardest route he has climbed to date.
Henning Wang
MadSkillz Media
Thanks for clarifying and thanks for sharing this video
Perfect!!! Congratulations!!
Hate to be the one to ask such a lame question on such an amazing video, but what's the background music? I want to check it out.
Kaminanda - Time Travellers
Thanks! Now I can listen to my iPod and feel as cool as Adam Ondra. <-- (probably not)
He's got the power-endurance down nicely I do say.
Chris and Adam agreed that the crux of La Dura Dura is v16?
This would surprise me/I don't get it/it's going to take me a while to process that.
Note that he said that whole 8 meter section would be 8C+ . . . not the four or five move crux sequence we've seen in videos. Which makes sense, given that pretty much the entire difficulty of the route is contained in that section, and it's the hardest route in the world.
Dead cat next time please. Crazy cool though
Yep this is definitely sped up. check the end when adam gets down near the ground his legs are going at super humam speed. Anyone who's watched enough of adam climbing can tell you he doesnt ever go that fast. so its obvious.
Dude, read the comment made by Wang on the 27th! of august. It will explain why you are obviously wrong.