September Sessions- Day One

"Desire is repressed fire, Drinking gasoline"
-Soul Coughing

1st session on the Beast last Tuesday, I was more keen to find out whether my pitiful efforts at stretching had any effect than getting any real progress. I was felling tired from childcare anyway, and I needed to develop some strategies for a prolonged siege.
Step one - The rig. I played with a mini traxion on the static with a shunt backup on a dynamic next door. This allowed free movement on the linked sections but I guess any mucking around on your own above a big hole feels wiggy.
Step two - Elbow protection. I'm not going to get many goes if I keep mashing what skin I have left. Neoprene turned out to be too slippy, and it came back to a good old fashioned tape job to allow some skin retention.
Step three- The Link. On the way down I did my usual play on the top section crux. This felt harder than usual, so I knew not to be too disheartened on my attempts below...

I still felt like giving up, but only for a moment, as the positives started to stack up.
1) a poor intermediate foothold, that allows me to reach a more solid bar, cut everything else loose, and lift the damn hoof onto the hold (If its good enough for Caff...)
2) the whole 8 or so meters has now been wriggled up in overlapping sections.
3) finding lots of poor scuffy foot torques that give a lot more than dragging up an open flared knee bar
4) my fingers have improved, so I can hold the poor pocket and cut loose onto the top crimp one handed without pinging off.

Small negatives like needing 10+ rests in 8m, and still aching 2 days later are going to have to be ignored, I'm back up there next week after all..