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‘Going down’ whats all the fuss about?

Come on now, what were you thinking? I am of course talking about how and where to start scuba diving.   

More specifically, about trying it for the first time.  

If you are one of those odd people who want to dive to the bottom of the ocean, a place where we have no business being, read this to get started.  

In case you haven’t noticed (if not don’t worry, it will become more apparent as the post continues) I am not a diver, well, not a scuba diver at least.  I couldn’t think of anything worse. In fact, the only reason I am writing this post is because my ‘diving expert writer’ was too busy. That and the fact that my son is one of those odd people who has interest in going to the dark depths of the sea where everything wants to kill you. So as any responsible parent would, I suggested he give it a try. I mean what could go wrong?  

It turns out not much, in a local swimming pool at least, apart from legionnaires disease maybe. Better than a shark attack or slowly running out of air 50 metres below the surface though. 

The local pool was where he went for his ‘try dive’. Local pools hire out their facilities to dive clubs for them to train in.  In the words of Peter Sellers… “Not a lot of people know that.” So, you don’t need sea legs at all. You can get your ‘try dive’ done, then be in the pub within 15 mins of being out of the pool! None of that 3-hour chug back to the harbour on a wet, windy day in a cramped boat with someone being sick over your brand-new wetsuit boots.   

So, off he went to Havering and Ilford Scuba club which is a BSAC club. Cue keyboard warriors threatening to kill my cat and feed me to a giant squid.  

If you don’t know the difference between BSAC and PADI, my advice would be; don’t ask! Conflicts in the middle east have been settled with more ease.  All I will do is tell you what they stand for; 

‘British Sub Aqua Club’ and ‘Professional Association of Diving Instructors’ 

Look them up and make your own choices kids. 

Anyway, back to a try dive. It turns out it’s remarkably simple. Ring them up, pay your £15, don your speedos and off you go.  Gonna be a short post this one, eh?  

My boy had an instructor there Called Graham. An excellent teacher and obviously a master diver. In fact, I think that is actually what he is called, something like that anyway. A total pro, who I would sincerely recommend to float you through your first time underwater with ease. My boy couldn’t speak highly enough of his teaching technique and exuberant knowledge… it is his Grandad though. He honestly is a rather good dive master to be fair.  

It all seemed too simple to start on the road to drowning yourself (they think I am mad for climbing up high or skating a halfpipe etc.  We have a mutual fear of each other’s chosen pastimes)  

So, I asked him what are the usual questions people have when they come so I could post the answers.  

  1.  Bizarrely you do not need to know how to swim. Well, not really anyway. If you ask me, it’s common bloody sense to be good at swimming if you are going miles out to sea to dive below the surface. Apparently not though. So long as you can ‘swim’ unaided for 200 metres you’re good to go. Let’s hope the boat doesn’t leave you negative buoyant lot behind.  Doggy paddle counts allegedly!  
  1.  As you have probably guessed by now, kids can give it a go. They must be over 12 though and they need to be at least 14 to be fully trained. Only then are they deemed physically capable enough to fight off angry octopi.  It’s like the diver’s version of the Maasi killing a lion to enter manhood.  
  1. You need nothing, apart from your aforementioned speedos and a desire to go places with literally no oxygen you can breathe.  Maybe an old t-shirt to stop the tank rubbing on your shoulders would be an idea as well.  
  1. Training comprises of 3 parts (this may be different for PADI, don’t shoot me) theory, comprising of lessons, practice, and application. Also, a final ‘checkout’ dive in a lake somewhere.  
  1. Sharks won’t kill you. Nor will the bends, venomous sea snakes, Lion fish, Portuguese Man o War, propellers, anchors, Killer Whales, whales in general (they clearly didn’t read Moby Dick in which coincidently the boat was called the ‘Essex’). Sharks, did I mention those? They deserve a mention twice anyway. 

Yeah, if you listen to those ‘diving fanatics’, it’s a particularly safe sport. The science and stats seem to back it up I admit. If you believe that lot, you are probably as crazy as those fools that want to venture deep underwater. My son claimed that it was brilliant and can’t wait to do it again. Keen as mustard to do his full dive training now.  

He is a bit weird though, takes after his mother.   

So, if you still want to give it a go and you are near to these guys, contact Havering and Ilford Scuba club here https://www.bsac49.org.uk/book-a-try-div.  If not, dip your toes (like what I did there?) into the eternal battle of the Titans and the Gods and pick a local BSAC or PADI club and get involved.  

In the meantime, feel free to book me for a day’s climbing. It’s great, we take a picnic and beers for after. No sharks I promise…none.  

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Climbing in the Olympics, how does it work?

olympia, olympic games, olympiad-1535220.jpg

Climbing conundrum of the Olympics confusing you?  

You are probably not alone. I mean, how did it even get there? You had heard ‘sport climbing’ was neither, right? 

Doh! That was a joke by the way, not my view or even my joke actually. I stole it from the tinterweb. We will cover it another time though. But for now; 

This Olympics sees 3 new ‘sports’, all of which got a fair amount of resistance from their respective communities regarding their inclusion. It’s long been argued that Climbing, Skateboarding and Surfing are not ‘sports’ and therefore should not be in the Olympics.  That’s an old skool, staunch traditionalist view, one that probably deserves discussing in a full post later. I can see both points of view though. As an aside, it was interesting to see that the average age of the female competitors in the finals of the street skateboarding was 13! 

But anyway, climbing, what’s going on? Why has Shauna Coxey got her stopwatch out, and is Ondra going to crush everything he attempts? 

I really don’t know, I mean the dude is a beast, his neck is long enough to give him a head start on the speed climbing for sure. That was a low blow, sorry llama, I mean Ondra.  I am just jealous. He is younger, stronger and more talented than I am. In fact, he is more talented and stronger than I EVER was and he comes across as a really nice bloke, probably nicer than me as I am giving him some stick. He is obviously more intelligent than I am as well! He speaks 5 languages fluently and has a degree in economics. Damn, I am going to stop bigging him up, it’s depressing me.  I can match him on the youth thing though, I was young once.    

Anyway, climbing poses an interesting conundrum for the competitors given that all of the athletes will be competing in something comparatively new to them, by Olympic standards anyway.  

The format sees one climber compete in 3 disciplines.  The thing is, unlike old Daley Thompson who always trained the ten elements of the decathlon, most, if not all of these climbers will have never really tried some of these styles. The speed climbing is the biggest spanner in the works.  

First let me explain the format somewhat.  

Each climber will compete in Bouldering, Lead climbing and Speed climbing.  

This is how they will score each  

Lead: Climbers climb a 15-metre route with a 7-metre overhang. Each hold on the wall represents a point, the higher you get the more points you get. You get one attempt. When you fall, you are done, that’s it.  

Bouldering: The boulder wall is 4-metres high. Each climber gets 4-minutes to try to reach the top hold and securely grasp it. The more attempts it takes you, the more it costs you in points. First and foremost, the more top holds you reach the better your score will be. Then the case of how many attempts it took you is accounted for.  After that, it’s the amount of ‘score zones’ you reached. They are basically getting close to the top but not making the last hold. Fairly simple, get to as many tops as you can in the least amount of tries.  

All good so far, but then we come to speed climbing. This is a weird beast.  Let’s also bear in mind that your final result will be your position placed in each event multiplied by each other. If you finish first in lead, second in bouldering but 10th in speed 1x2x10=20, your final score will be 20. Points don’t mean prizes here, you want as low a score as possible. You can see how just being bad at one of these events could cost you dearly in the final placements.  

So, speed climbing what’s that…? 

Speed: Get to the damn top, bloody quickly!  It’s run in a tournament style with 1v1 heats. Climb the route faster than the guy standing next to you and you advance on. Keep doing that through and the final and you win. Simples. Except it’s not. Let me explain:  

To the uninitiated this may all seem like ‘climbing’ and that it’s all the same, so get on with it.  However that is like saying football, rugby and basketball are played with a ball using your hands and feet and telling Ronaldo to just ‘get on with it’ as he packs down in the front row against Joe Marler!  

Adam ‘the llama’ Ondra, it’s universally agreed, is probably the best lead and indoor climber in the world.  He aint gonna win the speed climbing though! In fact, he had never even tried speed climbing until he was thinking about the Olympics a short while before he was selected. The same goes for Shauna Coxey our girl. The world record for the speed climbing route is 5.48 secs for men, set by Iranian climber nicknamed the ‘Asiatic cheetah’, Ondra’s (nicknamed the llama by all of us that are jealous of him) best time in comparison is something like 7.48 secs. It’s a big difference in a world of 10th of a second margins.   

Sure, Ondra can boulder, in fact he is the only male competitor to have won world cup titles in both lead climbing and bouldering. That alone shows you how different those two are, let alone the speed climbing.  Shauna Coxey, yeah, she is a beast as well, and yes, she can lead climb. She is not a ‘lead climber’ though, she is a boulderer and a bloody successful one at that.   

So, it’s fair to say that most of the lead climbers will have tried bouldering, but not specialised in it. It’s likely, in the scenario of Olympic athletes that all of the boulderers entering had competed in lead climbing before, like Shauna.  That’s not necessarily the case for your average punter in a bouldering gym or at Fontainebleau.  What is common though is that none of the ‘recognised’ climbers out there will have speed climbed before.  The difference is like asking England’s football team to play rugby against England’s rugby team. Whilst I think that would be an amusing spectacle, it’s rather slanted toward the rugby team to win.   

To understand why, you have to first understand what attracts climbers to climbing.  Not including the merits of, the places you get to travel to and the people etc, we haven’t got the time. Let’s just talk about the physical aspects. Climbing is like human chess. It’s about solving a mental and physical problem. It’s about working out that single move on the wall that will unlock the route for you, that will mean you can ‘send’ it and get to the top.  How your mate does it may be totally different to how you need to do it. Famous or particularly difficult, dangerous, or fun ‘chess puzzles’ are what attract climbers from all around the world.  

Even indoor climbing provides a regular supply of different routes and puzzles to solve. One thing I find quite often with people who don’t climb is that they don’t realise all the routes inside are changed regularly. So, when you see a climbing wall full of coloured holds making up a route, they will be totally different from 6 weeks ago. The wall will employ specialist ‘route setters’ who will come in and change the holds around every couple of months to make totally new routes to keep challenges fresh and keep climbers coming back. It wouldn’t be much fun otherwise.  

Speed climbing is the total anthesis of what 99% of people call climbing. Sorry if there any speed climbers out there I have offended. Don’t get me wrong, speed climbers are great athletes, but it’s not ‘climbing’ for me. 

You see, the speed climbing route has been standardised since the early 200’s when it was set almost by mistake by Frenchman Jacky Godoffee. Since then, the route has been the same, and I mean exactly the same, down to the tiniest of details kinda the same! 

This means people have been climbing the same thing, over and over and over again, for years, just to shave tenths of a second off their time to get to the top.  Imagine climbing the same thing week in week out. The same holds, the same shapes, the same movements zzzzzzzzzz.  

To me and most people I know that’s purgatory, boring as hell. I just don’t understand how anyone could keep it up, but I guess it’s no different to being a 100-metre runner, it’s all about your time. 

The standardised route allows people from all over the world to train on exactly the same route and compete purely on speed. It’s all about muscle memory and power and in a weird way the ability to not think. To switch that part of your brain off. It will probably make for the most entertaining spectator event of the three to be fair. It’s easiest to understand if you are a non-climber. Simply who gets to the top first. To be fair they look pretty crazy doing it as well. A lot like spiders on…well speed actually.  

So, the long and short of it is that the three disciplines are so different. Each climber will have never really trained at least one of them, most likely the speed climbing part. Of course, to win overall you need a good score in all three. It’s going to be interesting to see how some of the best ‘climbers’ in world perform when already under pressure, they have to turn their hands to alien event.  

One thing for sure, it’s probably going to be the only time you get to witness Adam Ondra blown clear out of the water in a climbing competition! 

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One word, 7 letters, starts with F … and I bet I am better at it than you!

It’s not that! You filthy lot, it’s not as fun as that, hence no one likes doing it. 

 Its Failure or failing. Damn I am good at that shizza! We could have also used ‘falling’, I will come to that in a bit though.  

There are countless famous quotes on failure out there from Edison to Michael Jordan, so I won’t try to come up with my own. In short though, failing is one of the best things you can do. It’s something you should strive to get good at and teach your kids to embrace.  It’s tough though, right?  

No one likes failing.  Failing is the flea bitten, mangy, skinny, unloved mongrel in the corner of the shelter. It’s been there for ever, no one wants to go near it in case it bites them. No one wants to get bitten by failure.  Everyone wants to take home the pristine pedigree with the shiny coat. It makes them feel good, walking about with the show dog. Avoiding failure is not the answer though. The pedigree dog looks good (like you sticking to your one thing you are good at), but deep down we know that it’s riddled with genetic weaknesses and problems.  Once you have tamed that mongrel and learnt to love it, you are going to end up with a stronger, healthier, fitter beast.   

So, we know failure is good for you but sometimes it’s hard to grasp it when you are young, or even when you are a parent.  It can be a hard thing to learn or practice. How do you really practice failing?  There is, in my humble opinion, one way that is super fun and is a tool that teaches failure like nothing else.  Read on and I will tell you, but first let me give you some insight as to why I think my opinion counts.  

Yes, this blog is about action and adventure sports, many of which I have competed in or coached/taught in, not at a high level I admit.  However, aside from action and adventure sports I have also competed or coached in many other sports such as, Boxing, BJJ, Judo, Karate, Shooting, Rugby, Football and Basketball. I have played around with a lot of others as well. A bit of a ‘Jack of all trades master of none’ but we all know how the rest of that saying goes though don’t we? (It’s included at the end of this post if you don’t!) 

 So, I have experienced failing at a lot of things, in a lot of different ways with a lot of different people.  So anyway, enough banging on, you want to know the best way to learn or teach your kids how to fail, repeatedly in fact, and to embrace it, so here goes.  

Contrary to popular belief, and the impression they may like to give, skateboarders are well adjusted pillars of society. Well, ok that may be a bit strong.  What is true though is that they have a lot of skills and characteristics that can take you a long way in life. I believe that this is, in part, because they practice failing all day long, day in, day out.   

If you want you, or your kids to learn perseverance, determination, courage, humility, teamwork, encouragement, resilience and the value of failing repeatedly and trying again and again until you get it right, take up skateboarding.  

Go to any skatepark and watch the skaters down there for a while. There is nothing that teaches failure like falling onto hard concrete, again and again and again!  

Nothing that teaches you to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and try again.  To put that last failure behind you and try once more.  

Sure, you can participate in other sports and miss a pass, drop a ball, serve out of the box…whatever. Oftentimes you are carried along by a team though. Or you can just slow your serve down to guarantee it stays in.  It may be a crap serve, but hey, it’s in, right? Boom, success.  

With skateboarding there is generally not the same level of tolerance for error. You either land that 180 kickflip, or you don’t.   

A lot of the time in skateboarding failure comes with a physical consequence as well, unlike a lot of other sports.  

 When you are watching the skaters at your local park next, and you see them repeatedly trying a trick and falling …hard! ask yourself how many times you would be willing to do that. How much determination and resilience have you got?  How many failures are too many before you stop to go back to do something more comfortable?  

Teamwork is something I mentioned as well, and encouragement.  Skateboarding may not be the ultimate team sport of course, but … 

 I have been stood on the top of a ramp before, bruised and cut, bleeding and tired, having failed again and again.  

About to go home when the group of 3 teenagers on the ramp helping me swelled to 10, one more attempt, another failure, now there are 15 kids, now 20 all cheering me, a 42-year-old rubbish skater, encouraging me, shouting instructions, willing me to send it.  One more go, the support making the difference. I land the coveted trick…finally.  The ‘crowd’ erupt, the sounds of clanging decks on the surface of the ramp bring a smile to my face.  

If that’s not teamwork, humility and comradeship I don’t know what is.  

In a world where everything is made as comfortable as possible. Where we flatten as many obstacles for our kids or us as we possibly can. We have forgotten how to fail and be comfortable with it 

If you want to learn how to fail and better yourself in life, take up skateboarding. Its gonna hurt, but it will be worth it!  

 https://actionandadventuresportsuk.com/how-to-buy-your-first-skateboard/

‘Jack of all trades master of none, oftentimes better than a master of one’