ML Assessing

Well, I did the first day of two with three great people who have put themselves forward for there Summer ML Assessment. We did the steep ground day today and the first day of the Exped tomorrow, I am walking them into a campsite and then meeting the other assessor there, before head home in the evening.

Anyway, a nice day out in some horrible weather to start off with.

 

Climbing, Forgetting and Coaching

Well, a good weekend, yesterday, Llion and I headed to Tremadog, where after paying Eric £1 for parking Llion realised that he forgotten his harness. Which whilst on one hand was a total disappointment. On the plus side it wasn’t me who forgot anything for once. So we headed back through the mountains and headed to old faithful, Vivian Quarry, I would like to say that I checked out how the iPhone app, I have put together worked, as the vivian quarry is covered in the free lite version as a taster, but unfortunately the number of routes I haven’t climbed, that probably can do in vivian is a pretty short list of bold, dangerous and to be honest best avoided routes.

So instead we went up the sunchaser wall, and finished before going onto the dervish, mainly because my elbow started to hurt, which isn’t good. Rest is in order me thinks.

Today I had a coaching climbing movement course that I was running, I have been pretty disappointed with the response to these CPD courses, as the MLTA were really encouraging about running them, and so far I have had two MLTA member on two of the courses, and have had to cancel one already as there were no takers, and I won’t be surprised if I cancel the mental skills one next week.

The course was good though, and we covered a lot of technique coaching, that hopefully Chloe will put to good use when she is teaching at her local kids club. I have a day off tomorrow, before I am assessing on a ML course. I am praying for good weather!

Free 2012 Calender

In case you’ve been looking for a cheap, or should I say free solution for a 2012 climbing calender, then look no further. This calender contains twelve stunning images from across the UK, although mainly North Wales of some of the best of my images.

It is also partly motivated by me trying to promote the courses that I am running next year at Snowdonia Mountain Guides, and as such features all the course dates I have set up so far. it is an 11Mb download and i’d really like to hear you feedback on it. The idea is that you can print this out and hand on your wall, I think many of the shots are reasonably motivational, and feature a selection of great action shots.

Heres a link to the download. If you like to know more about the courses we are offering then please visit Snowdonia Mountain Guides

Beaconeering

Well, it was another Beaconeering night last night, and it didn’t go according to plan, it appears that in trying to keep up with Pete, I have somehow brutalised my right elbow. I don’t think its the tendon, as the pain is from the joint. Mental note, need to rest for a wee while, so easy routes for a while, as well as as much ibruprofen as I can stomach.

Hopefully it will sort itself out, I think it was from trying to do a nasty compression move on a white in the school room. It requred a dirty lock off and squeeze. Up to know I have mainly injured my fingers over the years, not sure if its a good or bad thing that I have managed to temporarily damage my elbow?!

Beaconeering and Raft Building

Well, today Iwas at the Conway Centre, which if your not aware of the many LEA centres in north wales, it represents the county of Cheshire, although its users aren’t limited to that catchment area. The centre is a really nice place to work at, and the ethos is education through the medium of outdoor activities. Today I had to raft build with a group, at thier dock. I think it must have been over a year since I have done any water based work for them, and fortunately I had many other staff to lend a hand, as for the life of me I couldn’t remember how to tie two poles together!

The groups did really well, and in the afternoon I took another group to the indoor wall at the centre. We managed to get loads done, and the group did really well, climbing up to F5b.

In the evening I was friendless, as Llion had a staff meeting and Katie had no babysitter. So I headed up the wall anyway, and had a really good session. No new problems ticked, but I can now do the crux’s on two of the white problems that were impossible before. I was probably spurred on as Pete was there, and was going knock for knock with him, which believe me is quiet and achievement for anyone.

I have to say on the rock Pete would eat

Effective coaching for climbing instructors

I spent today at the beacon delivering an effective coaching coaching course for climbing instructors. We spent the day looking at theory and practice of coaching as a process of teaching and learning.

There was only a couple of people on the course but I hope they got a few new tricks and ideas to augment there coaching. Although the numbers might have been the fact that Wales were in the the rugby semi final, I blame the Irish ref who lives in France for being biased.

I am running a few more courses aimed at CPD and they are approved by the MLTA. Details can be found at snowdonia mountain guides.

Training and Marketeering

Well, went to the wall again tonight, in the regular Thursday night pull fest. After a rapid return to near where I have been previous, I felt like I was potentially plateaux. As there were problems I could climb and ones I simply couldn’t. However after three weeks, there has been a slow attrition of the harder problems, with one falling this evening, and others feeling closer and probable, rather than impossible.

Other than that, I have mainly been spending my time tapping away at the computer. I have been working on some marketing for next year. The first time I have been organised enough to put a programme together rather than look for private guiding work. I have decided to try and put together a calender, featuring all my course dates as well as a stunning image for each month.

The idea is to put up a free PDF climbing calender for people to print out for themselves, be good to here if you’d download it?