As of Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m., I boarded a bus and headed out towards the Grampian mountain range for 3 days of climbing goodness. After promptly passing out on the bus, I awoke when we arrived at our first climbing location. Our group was only made up of 7 other people and our 2 guides (Steffan and Will) so we were going to get a lot of climbs in. We headed up to the wall, and got oriented (re-oriented for me) with knot tying, belaying, general climbing technique, then hit the wall. It had been a little while since I climbed, so it took me a climb to get my bearings again, but going into the climbs with the mentality of focusing on my footwork and climbing with my feet instead of my arms really helped me not tire out and I got through one pretty tough climb :D
After climbing for about 4 hours, we headed out to our campground to get set up and make some dinner, and promptly proceeded to PASS OUT. I haven't fallen asleep that fast in a long time, and got some much needed rest. UNTIL Steff and Will woke us up at 7:00 the next morning to get up and ready for our next bit of climbing. Our location this time was directly by our camp, so we just walked over and were ready to go.
The climbs were definitely more challenging. One of them lead up into this cave that I was desperate to get into, but it was an overhand, and I couldn't quite manage the technique needed to get up and over to reach the cave :( I did manage two pretty hard climbs based around these big cracks in the wall, which was good. Though I went pretty hard for the 4 hours in the morning, and realized that I still had to climb for the rest of the day :/ My hands were starting to get pretty torn up from digging into the sandstone for so long, so when we got to our second climb for the day, I tried taping up my fingertips, to no avail.
We went up to the top of the ridge to watch Will set up the climb, so we knew what went into holding us up. By that point, the low-comfort of our harnesses (seat-belt material) and our shoes (the only ones that fit me had holes in the toes which....are kind of critical for gripping) was starting to wear on me. I did 2 fun climbs, but again, burned out on this one really tough overhang :/ We then headed into town to a pub, then returned to our campground to pass out.
The next morning, we completely took down camp, and headed to our final climb site of the day. There were entire gradients of climbs from super-easy ones, to one REALLY hard one. I decided to push myself and try the hardest one, which was just a thin crack in the wall between these two corners, meaning that I had to try to cram my fingers into the crack and plant my feet against opposing walls to stand up. It was by far the most technical climb I did, but I was the only person to get up it besides out guides!! I was really proud of myself for that one.
Anyways, now that I'm back today, I got resettled in my classes, and more importantly (obviously) back in BJJ. Practice was really good, and Carmen definitely put us through the paces. However, then she decided to host a mock tournament, and paired me against Jo (blue belt, about my same size) to fight for 6 minutes (full minute longer than my fight will be). Needless to say, we both went pretty all out. I keep forgetting that in BJJ people can pull guard and gain points, so that's exactly what Jo did. She nearly got a triangle on me, but I avoided it pretty solidly, and all in all, while she definitely held the advantage the whole fight, I managed a good sweep and lasted NEARLY the entire fight without getting submitted. She caught me in a choke right near the end, but I was glad I did as well as I did.
I'm still tossing around the flying armbar idea, and I think I'm gonna just do it. I'm gonna practice more with some of the girl ot get the rhythm of it, and hopefully I'll nail it and win my fight!
Other than that, tonight I'm gonna try to finish up some of my lectures and maybe start on my BMB essays, just to get some busy-work out of the way. Bleh. I'm gonna skip TKD for the rest of this week to get some more BJJ mat time.
On a travel note, Phillip Island and surf trips this weekend! Hooray for surfing!!
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