I still love making videos and that is sort of a hard statement to say out loud.
Alexandra Miroslaw is not even close to like technically perfect, but this last injury
was the first breaking point I think I've ever experienced.
Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Coming podcast.
I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my guest for today, Albert Ok.
You may have seen Albert's old viral YouTube videos where he does deep dive analyses into
great comp climbing beta break moments.
Nowadays he's spending more time as a speed climbing coach as well as working on his own
training.
In this episode we'll talk about his beta break series, what it's like coaching at
the World Cup, trying to make Team USA, and his slew of injuries.
Of course he also geeks out plenty when it comes to the technical aspects of speed climbing
which is a treat to listen to.
Enjoy this conversation with Albert.
How are you on this fine holiday?
I definitely just had an explosion session.
That's kind of what I call whenever I go full tilt mode, I take 400 milligrams of caffeine
and I just go until like all my fingers are exploded and I try really hard and then usually
nothing actually productive happens but I get to feel good about myself.
Kind of, not really.
Okay, so was it a good session or no?
I can't tell.
There was like very significant glimpses of hope where it's like okay if I am calm, cool,
and collected it will definitely be successful on my next speed run but today was not that
day.
Okay, so not the best session.
Yeah, yeah we'll give it a six out of ten.
Okay, well that's a shame.
But I had fun, I had fun.
I always do have fun, just different variations of fun question mark.
Yeah, are you feeling like up to 100%?
Definitely not, like after sessions I can definitely feel my elbow like throbbing for
a bit and then I kind of have to ice pack it or just stop climbing for a second but
by the time I sleep and wake up it usually is okay.
Take some of my favorite Advil.
Right, yeah.
I thought you, well I guess I was referring to I guess how you feel really tired lately.
I mean we'll get into that later as well but yeah, are you still feeling tired?
I may or may not have just woken up right before this for like a 20 minute crash nap
and now I feel a lot better.
Okay, awesome.
Okay, great.
Well, I'm really excited to get into this interview.
I found you on YouTube a while ago which we'll also talk about in a bit but yeah, I'm sure
you've been following climbing competitions for a while so when did you start getting
into watching climbing competitions and what drew you to them?
It's interesting.
So injuries was kind of the greatest and bad, like worst thing that ever happened to me.
One of the biggest things that I always tell people whenever they ask me for advice on
injuries is I was like you can always train regardless of your situation and like that
goes beyond climbing and so I had ruptured my shoulder extremely bad.
I tore everything inside it and I had nothing else to do and I couldn't climb.
I couldn't do a pull up.
I mean I could walk, sure whatever but even that was a little bit difficult.
So what was the next best thing I could do?
I went through every single World Cup possible.
I went from like, I looked for footage from like 1980s, like VHS footage from like the
Snowbird World Climbing Championship and like I just studied everything and then after a
certain point I think around when I got to 2012 I would start pausing the video before
they climb, read the climb, assume how they're going to climb it as per the athlete once
I like sort of got the repertoire and then I would play it and like that's how I spent
my time.
And this was what?
2017, 2018?
So like not too long ago but long enough ago.
That's crazy.
That's really far back.
Like what were those old competitions like?
I have not gone back into the archives that far.
I think if you are an extreme enthusiast for competition climbing it's worth looking at
how the style changed and sort of like making inferences of why styles changed.
Some of the thing that's so simple is like when you look at 1980s climbing, nobody could
really toe hook.
Nobody could heel hook.
Why?
Because they're using shoes that are laces, right?
And like they don't have like a heel cup.
Now you have the S cup rand or the P3 heel system.
I'm like I don't even know.
Like it gets like outrageous these days but like yeah they wouldn't heel hook that much
or toe hook that much.
You don't see that.
So it's like oh maybe the style changed because like technology also changed or like ability
started changing and that's when you start seeing like the progression and think about
why it changed between all this dynamic style which is kind of entertaining to think about
and like hypothesize and especially the athletes.
So like in the background Kim Jain, she's been around for everything.
You can see how she adapted to all the changes and still was able to stay on top and it's
I think that's more impressive than any of the other things I've seen.
Yeah when did she start climbing?
Wow she's been competing for like what?
Probably like what?
15 to 18 years?
Like she was like doing youth comps I guess when she was what 12, 13 probably.
Obviously there's no footage of that but like you can see her in 2012 versus 2022.
It's like whoa.
Her style hasn't seriously changed but like it's adapted.
And it's like yeah she still is like elegant, lock off, graceful, whatever but she can like
throw herself now when she needs to especially in this recent world champ you can see her
adaptation.
I mean I'm really surprised she came back.
I had no idea that was going to happen so that was pretty crazy to see.
Yeah she's kind of just like gotta be everyone's hero right?
Like there's no brainer.
Yeah yeah for everyone it's pretty crazy.
Is there like a I mean would you say that competition climbing has gotten better over
the years hopefully?
I think it's been like following the trends that it should.
I think yeah you get some experimental moments where like Meijeringen, I love Meijeringen,
that is by far always my favorite comp.
I'm kind of sad that it wasn't was it it was gone this year right?
Uh I'm not certain.
It feels so long ago now but yeah.
I know.
Wait what?
In what way is it experimental?
I mean they always showcase something unique where like they had the hand jam, they had
the paddle in finals, they always do something like crazy or like the 180 turnouts and they
always love like testing something new and a new concept.
I mean I guess 2023 the trend is alright you're on a slab you like 180 and then you reach
out which I love like that you get to see experimental changes like that.
In the beginning I think there was just so much latching on to what outdoor climbing
is so yeah like for like probably from 1980 until what 2000 you saw like just static climbing.
It was very like static don't cut your feet if you have to it's just to reset your feet
and that's it.
But now like I feel like the setting and the styles of changing for competition climbing
has sort of allowed athletes to explore different skill sets that they would otherwise have
never need to and it's like cooler.
I love it.
I love the change.
I love change.
I think there's room for change always so as long as it's in a positive way.
Okay awesome.
Do you think it was kind of like harder to watch the older competitions because they
don't have as like flashy holds or like big macros and stuff like that?
Almost the opposite surprisingly right because like you kind of know exactly what holds they're
going to go to it's like okay is it a sloper or is it a crimp and there's like that's it
or maybe it's a pinch and so you don't have like much variation in the holds and like
oh what's the purchase angle of this so oh you now you get to see how the climber uses
a hold where nowadays like a huge macro hold a single climber can manipulate it in a way
that is completely different than everyone else notably let's say Timon Narasaki on
that men's boulder one in the recent world championship combined final he like was like
meat wrapping and he like pressed into the finish whereas Jakub you saw him like stand
into it completely differently and so there's a lot more variance in how people even just
use a single hold these days with these bigger holds and back then it was like oh now you
get to see what muscles are using what how they're holding things it's like very like
if you you have like a static object and then you have a dynamic field of athletes wow i
just went full computer science nerd there but yeah and so you get to see the the variation
between every athlete rather so much than just like the whole types and how they're
manipulating but then you got to like look at the flip side where because they can manipulate
holds you see who's like so really smart and really creative and at finding positions today
so it's kind of cool especially you back then you got to see like which female climbers
were just like just jacked could one arm pull up on a crimp versus not well i mean a lot
of them can do it now i think yeah i think all of them can do it now it's like kind of
ridiculous yeah but then okay so given like these new holds and like new ways of doing
it that kind of leads into your whole beta brace series if you want to talk about how
you got into that and so basically i'm sitting here i barely can use my arm i'm like watching
every single comp and almost every single comp there's always just like one athlete
that does something just super unique and the rules were a little more lausé fair back
then because they didn't know so like you could grab bolts you could like put your finger
in certain like screw holds and black tape was like poorly designed sometimes and so
you always find the cheeky climbers like you know what i can do that i can cheat the climb
and they find a beautiful solution where it's like yeah actually if you if a layman saw
the climb of course that's the most obvious solutions like why not just use the hold over
there and like okay but everyone thought it was off but then it wasn't and so then they
get to use it and get away with it and so i made this video and uh i sat on the video
for almost a year and a half and a lot of people kind of think that like that was like
my first video but if you the real real real real og albert oak fans they know that i've
been making videos for like 10 years it started with like me stealing my parents camera and
making like fake star wars fight videos and like learning how to edit in windows moviemaker
yeah but yeah and i just like kind of wanted to tell the story and initially i just like
sat on the video and i didn't upload it but then quarantine happened i was like you know
what i got nothing to lose and i hit upload did you i guess did that kind of blow up immediately
yeah so i i titled it a little controversial and i kind of knew what i was doing i'll be
completely honest i was like uh and like i posted on reddit and i i titled it is this
considered cheating and of course you know like reddit users want to like argue and just
say that they know better than everyone else so of course i i kind of i definitely kind
of knew what i was doing and like i knew it was going to get views i just didn't think
it was going to get views immediately and so like i posted it a few hours later and
i saw a thousand views i was like oh that's pretty good like i i know big youtubers get
thousand views in like seconds so like that was pretty good for me i was pretty psyched
and then i like went to sleep woke up the next morning i was like at 10k but the counter
was broken and then i looked in the metrics it was like at like 20 30k i was like wait
what have i done yeah yeah i mean well what was climbing youtube like at that time i feel
like it was not as i don't know as what's the word i wouldn't say saturated at this
point but you know there was a lot less going on back then yeah like what the the channels
that you had were uh eric carlson the vlog bouldering love that guy um you had udo neumann
making just like those like montages of like movement analysis which were kind of harder
to find i don't think many people even know that and then you had kind of magnus kind
of because he wasn't even like getting that big yet and then who else was there oh geek
climber and then kind of rock entry yeah and then and then i was like you know there's
just like this niche that hasn't been filled which is like commentary videos or like little
video essays and um and and like i'm not doing anything that unique there's video essays
in every other sport like basketball or golf somebody's like making content about that
it's like but just like somebody should tell the stories and climbing yeah especially for
competitions i mean even now there's still not that much out there about competitions
um but yeah so going back to your beta break videos um so i guess your videos back then
were more about these like little rules and they've changed quite a few of them since
then um they do the tapes a lot more um i mean you can't put your finger in bolt holes
um even now like with brooks stepping in the bolt holes they're like starting to create
walls that don't have holes at all so is that um is that maybe part of why the beta break
series stopped or what happened to those videos and so like i would like to think that i had
some ripple effect in the rule books in i have to see that'd be pretty cool to say i
don't i'm not actually sure that'd be kind of funny because like i definitely put a spotlight
on i have to see was like hey there are clearly rules but can you let the athletes get away
with it because like it lets me have really good content and it's really fun but i eventually
did start running into like some copyright issues with the broadcasting company of ifsc
not ifsc so much themselves um i actually have like a very good relationship with ifsc
they're they're awesome they treat me well they got me in the commentary booth that was
like a dream come true and hopefully if i'm doing my work well then maybe i'll even compete
at ifsc world cup so that'd be cool but so like i think the broadcasting company you
know like they don't like that they don't like when you use their footage which is which
is fair like you know like i wasn't exactly asking i was like asking for uh forgiveness
not permission and so after a while they're just like yeah you can't exactly do that and
i was like but but but come on like i getting people psyched on comp climbing and they're
like yeah but we're italian so we like are gonna say no i'm like all right that's fair
that's fair that's right yeah yeah do you like what's the broadcasting company's name
i forget i think like different comms were under a different broadcasting company yeah
i guess that's what i'm kind of confused about because i thought it was like different for
each uh like world cup location yeah i think it just gets convoluted because it's like
a european broadcasting company and like yeah okay america has fair use laws and like commentary
over it's like fine but like they definitely like got mad and i'm sure if i really wanted
to i could have just kept getting away with it and just be like well you can't take my
video down because i'm commentating over it but at the same time i was like you know i'm
gonna keep some good relations here i'm gonna try my best and like it's not that big of
a deal i'm sure i can find different videos to make and that's what i told myself and
obviously like i have not done that because it's been like almost three years since i've
uploaded properly yeah you knew that the uh they were gonna ask you to commentate one
day and you wanted to keep that relationship yeah i don't want to make them mad before
i get to speak on their broadcast themselves yeah of course yeah how did you manage to
i guess like speak on the broadcast like do they just ask people who are standing around
it was definitely like i knew a person that knew a person than you person kind of chain
of command and uh i was able to like get in contact with mac room and then so like normally
i think like a ex a non-finalist usually talks on the broadcast or or something like that
and um you know every now and then make a few exceptions um and so i was fortunate to
be one of those few exceptions and hopefully i did a good job i tried to but i was also
too excited to watch the comp itself fair yeah no it was really exciting that here i
was i was so i was surprised and excited to see that you were on it was definitely a dream
come true because initially i was like okay i'm not going to get injured i'm going to
make the team then not make a final and then be able to commentate that obviously didn't
happen but then in a roundabout way it like came true so i was like oh you know everything
happens for a reason yeah yeah you made it there and that's what matters do you ever
um plan on returning to video making i still love making videos and that is sort of a hard
statement to say out loud and for a lot of people i'm sure to believe because they're
like oh well then why aren't you making videos i'm like but i'm sure as you are now a content
creator can relate that like it's hard it is very hard yeah yeah it is a full-time job
and at the rate i was doing it it was not sustainable if i want to train and work and
make videos and have a social life and coach people how can one person do that and like
i'm already cutting back sleep as it is i'm already like you know eating while standing
up like that is not healthy right so i'm sure there's going to be a time and place for that
i i have like a google document with over 200 video ideas that i could love to pick
up and i don't know it's it's something that is always like in my soul in my heart i love
creating but i just don't know when and i'm sure there'll be a right time um last night
or two days ago i did make a really fun meme on instagram so you know so every now and
then i just got to put something out in the world for the world to enjoy maybe shorter
form content but yeah i would like to explore different topics i wanted to make some documentaries
i was even in the midst of making a documentary um about the snowbird world championship which
is in utah uh and that was like the first climbing world championship that was like
ever officially a thing and all the legends are already in town like boon speeds here
like i can like talk to like half of the people that were at the comp and i want to ask them
what parties did they do like what was the after party like and like these kind of questions
and see like a little fun side of the story but in due time i'm sure yeah have you been
to after parties at the world cups you've been to uh i've been to the salt lake city
after party at crazy enough it's boon speeds uh factory for grasshopper boards so like
full circle i'm sure he was hosting an after party after when he was at the world cups
and then he's getting able to pass on the torch but and i like went out to some of the
bars and clubs and after chamonix to like hang out with some of the athletes but like
it was it's difficult because like as a as a coach i'm like i'm trying to hang out and
have fun but like i'm like okay what can my athlete do like the whole time i think the
day after speed qualies in chamonix i was down at the bars and like everyone else is
getting drunk and uh so one of my athletes had made finals and i'm there studying on
my phone the whole time like like a half-drinking beer in my hand um like scrubbing scrubbing
and like analyzing and like one of the french athletes comes like what's what's so important
that you're doing right now instead of having fun i'm like you don't understand my mind
is not here right now i am thinking about what what's next like the like i would like
to party and like relax but like i can't do that that's like not who i am yeah well i'm
surprised that other athletes would be there because wouldn't they also have to be preparing
for the next day um i think it was the majority of the athletes who had a mid-finals so yeah
i guess like only 16 people were for 32 on both sides of the bracket so like yeah those
people were comfortably sleeping but i'm like you know i'm there plugging in everything
it's like all right i gotta i gotta figure it out i gotta like figure what's the next
step yeah well that's exactly what you want from a coach so yeah i think if i
make a world cup i'm gonna tell all my athletes like yo look i'm sorry i'm gonna go party
bye you're on your own for this one time okay yeah they might be hoping on your downfall
then yeah yeah yeah yeah i don't like guys just let me let me have this one one time
yeah okay all right so um i guess moving into like the coaching and speed climbing stuff
um what first drew you to speed climbing when i was in high school i was a pretty prominent
110 meter hurdler um i definitely i think like there's like some records there that
you can find my name on the internet somewhere but like i was definitely above average fast
i think if the trajectory was still consistent i probably would have ran track in college
and maybe beyond um and i loved it like i i am like a short distance athlete and hurdles
was interesting because i didn't have a coach and the coach didn't really care about me
because in the hundred meter itself i was not fast but in the 110 meter hurdle i was
faster than the others because my form was so good i would just analyze over and over
and over again like footage of other higher end professional hurdlers and try to break down what
they're doing and what exercises they're doing and i would spend like hours after school just by
myself doing a single hurdle over and over and over again until my form was perfect and so i was
able to keep my like slower and 100 meter speed but like never lose speed because my hurdling was
so accurate and so of course but i stopped hurdling and you know like my whole life unraveled
went to university and whatever but i start climbing and then what's like the next best thing
to hurdles speed climbing because this is just vertical hurdles you're just yeah and i initially
never had an access to a speed wall i was coaching in grapevine texas and they had like a 10 meter
but it was just like it was like kind of like scuffed like it was not not like it was borderline
dangerous at least by the time i was using it and so i was in colorado for a couple years working
and i got back to houston and they have a speed wall there like of course this is it like and on
my birthday in january 10th i was like well this is time to do it i have to now or else i'm going
to regret not doing it and thus began the journey and you can see a direct correlation of when my
video stopped and when i started speed climbing oh really yeah they like go hand in hand because
like you just can't do all five things yeah yeah so okay interesting so i mean you didn't start
out as a speed climber because you didn't have access to a wall did you like know that you still
wanted to do speed climbing even though you had just started climbing absolutely um so i started
top rope i was a top rope hero then transitioned into lead slash boulder and i even went to a few
bouldering open nationals um 2018 2021 yeah and like tried pretty hard got absolutely dunked those
boulders are so hard like if if anyone's like oh i bet i could do that in a second no trust me you
cannot they're they're beyond like even just the qualifiers of a u.s national round is just insane
like the easiest boulder there is a comp style v9 and so i kind of knew that like okay look i didn't
start climbing when i was six i'm never gonna have the tendon strength i'm never gonna have like the
skill sets like i can gain strength sure but it's always gonna be harder for me to ever be at that
top level bouldering but like speed you you just need to know a pattern very very very very well
have strong legs and strong arms i'm like okay i've got strong my arm uh legs i can just do some way
to pull ups and get stronger arms eventually and so that's kind of why i knew it it's just when i
didn't have access to a speed wall was um the only reason why i couldn't get on the speed wall
um yeah access to a speed walls is a lot harder than a lot of people would think it's so hard
yeah i would still really want to try it and i just have never gotten the opportunity to find one
yeah i think there's like one in reno and took the salt lake yeah reno why i don't know i think
there's one at the mesa rim there i didn't even know there was a mesa rim there that's insane
yeah okay or you can just come to salt lake and then come to my thursday class at 6 30 p.m oh you
teach a class yes okay i mean i might i just yeah i might i'll have to hit you up for that
um i it is so hard to find a speed wall is it ever like even if a place has a speed wall
is it ever like busy and you have to like wait for people to get on i would say busy no insurance
liability very difficult to manage um i think it's no longer but dallas was probably the only
speed wall in america that wasn't like locked up oh seriously yeah oh so they're all locked up
yeah they're usually all locked up you either need to call in advance or have like a coach call in
for you but yo my athlete's gonna come and they're gonna train on it like let them do it they're
training for a national cup but it's hard to access it yeah so then how do you even train for it if i
mean do you need to have like a legitimate reason like i'm trying to be in a world cup to like get
on the wall for a lot of gyms kind of yeah and like i've heard of some gyms even charging like
50 dollars an hour just to use it but and it does make sense because it is a huge insurance
liability it's an auto belay huge accidents happen with auto belays and it's going to be the tallest
auto belay in the gym usually so yeah i've like heard some horror stories even like one of the
athletes i help uh coach uh online he um didn't clip in and fell and shattered everything whoa
still is better than 99.999 percent of speed climbers out there he's like he was at the world
champs and i think he got like 20 something or 30 something plays so like he's doing incredibly
well now but like just the implications of an auto belay and like supervision it's scary forgetting
to clip in on a speed route i can't even imagine and like that doesn't even cover like the accidental
like maybe the gate is like semi-closed and like just unwind somehow magically which which has
happened um what are you gonna do like that's it liability yeah i mean a lot of gyms still have
auto belays i know at my old gyms they actually got rid of them because it was too much of a
liability but um i'm surprised that they just like keep the speed once so locked down if other
auto belays are still open yeah i'm usually the setup i've seen at gyms is like the auto belay
is over like more padded flooring or something or like they're on shorter walls not not necessarily
all of them but like yeah it was like at a height you could survive the groundfall but 15 meters is
a very long way to fall into concrete because um usually they level out the flooring for speed
walls so it meets the regulation height so you're gonna hit some hard ground not just like padding
but yeah i i empathize with the people who want to try speed and at the same time i empathize with
the gyms because i'm like oh man that is a nightmare to deal with yeah wow yeah it's a lot
more difficult to get into speed than i thought yeah i want to say that the gym that i started
speed climbing at like there was a no clip accident like twice that happened so they put a lock and key
on that very very very adamantly yeah uh yeah i can definitely see both sides there um and so how did
you get into speed coaching specifically i was a coach in in texas in dallas for uh quite a bit of
time for bouldering and i guess lead climbing just you just end up coaching both uh i was fortunate
enough to be mentored by very high level coaches um throughout like international coaches even
um and so i started speed climbing and i'm like figuring it out myself and i'm coaching myself
this whole time and i kind of realized after a while like okay i'm not ever going to be as good
as sam watson will ever be but i'm like starting to see that a lot of speed climbers in the world
are like making mistakes a lot more than i expected i'm like okay but how do i help those people
without like beta spraying them as per se and yeah and like i don't have a name to myself like
no i'm not a professional speed coach in fact there's like only a handful of them in the world
so it's like how do i like make that a thing and so i just started helping people at the gym
and then that became into a thing where i made an instagram post over a year ago now
i was like hey if you need help i may not be the best i may not be the worst but i'm more than
nothing if you need help speed coaching i will help you as much as i can and then it like caught
on like wildfire i probably had like 40 dms that day and i was like oh what have i done it was just
it was just a joke i was just joking i was just joking but then i was like oh but actually this
is kind of cool like i finally feel like i can make a difference in a small microcosm in a micro
niche in a way that like matters to me and that eventually translated into like athletes coming
to salt lake just to like work with me and and me help them and i believe you even entered uh
released the podcast with grace and they even uh transitioned into letting me help them work up with
them technically and they made some huge leaps and strides and sort of people just start like
talking and they're like oh who helped you it's like drop like how did you drop 0.8 seconds in
like a month oh albert i'm like oh thanks for giving me credit i didn't ask for credit but if
y'all are gonna credit me sure so it's been cool uh in that way obviously i'm super analytical or
at least i tried to be and i tried to find the details and that came from all started when i
like tore my shoulder and i was watching videos to make beta break so like full circle here i am
coaching athletes and speed but it all came from because i couldn't walk or breathe or use my arm
and watched lots of old videos of world cups yeah i mean also with your hurtling as well i guess
yeah like it's always been like that i don't know i've never had coaches in my life like
everything i've done it's like okay nobody's gonna help you you kind of have to figure out yourself
and there's it's kind of a painful thing to admit but i don't want to see other athletes go through
that um because it was a struggle like i saw other athletes and other like disciplines like
and not even just in sports that they had like resources their parents were helping them they
had like five different coaches they had like sports psychologists i'm like i had me and youtube
and a camera and that's gotta suck for if an athlete has nowhere like nowhere to talk to
like they don't even have anybody like just oh my session was bad today they can't even say that
yeah yeah and so i kind of just like wanted to fill that gap for people so they never have to
go through what i went through because that was not so easy yeah i mean i'm sure that's kind of
how it is for a lot of even like just like professional athletes um weekend warrior
athletes anything like that um yeah i can really make all the difference even myself i got like a
coach and i felt like even if i don't get anything out of it i don't know what's gonna come of it but
it's just nice to like talk to someone and like talk to someone about your climbing and have it
be like focused on your climbing and you can like vent it's like a it's like a sports therapist
what do you think has been the biggest difference for you now that you have a coach versus when you
weren't honestly i'm doing like a physical training stint right now which i've never done before
because i'm not like an athlete or like a physically active person in general um and so
right now i actually am climbing awful like i hate it i feel like i can't do anything i'm so tired
and weak um so if anything it's been really bad but i'm i'm hopeful that what everyone says about
oh you'll like physically train and then after in a few weeks you'll feel like really amazing and
strong and climb harder than ever before i just have to hope that that's true and real and that
it actually works for me um but if not at least the uh the sports therapy was there yeah oh man
like sam right now is what we call in strength cycle jail which you are also sounds like in
strength cycle jail you just have to actually trust the process and it is so scary and daunting
it's like oh but like what if it what if it doesn't and like it always does but it just sucks so it's
so it's so demoralizing it's like dude i can't even climb v1 right now what is happening it's like
no no you'll be fine you'll be fine i promise it's good to know um yeah i think i just have to like
go through this once and then if it works hoping it does then in the future i can be like okay like
this is normal yeah so we'll see what comes to that sam had his first glimpses of escaping
strength cycle jail today so we know it's working it's just it's so hard to see the light at the
end of the tunnel i mean is this like his first time like going through this strength training
he's been through different strength cycles but this is probably the hardest he's been through
and so like the past couple weeks that we've been working it's like just making sure he's not
demoralized and hates everything after a session because he's like there's no way i'm this slow
i'm like no no it's fine you'll be fine just give it time what's the difference with this and before
um it's just uh focusing a lot on making the movements very strict and very like deliberate
so i'm sure his like nervous system and central nervous system is being taxed and his muscles are
being taxed so his coordination feels off on the wall and yeah yeah that's probably like the biggest
feeling right yeah it's everything oh my god okay well i feel better now just talking about it so
that's good yeah it's like wait my hand's not closing it's like i it will close later okay okay
i feel better i feel better yeah that's good you'll be on a strength cycle jail soon i promise
i'm feeling a lot better now thanks yeah all right um yeah what so you're coaching sam um what other
climbers are you coaching grace one of them and it kind of goes crazy because like i'm like kind
of coaching a lot of people um like there's a south african athlete tigwin she just messaged
me a bunch of videos there's uh piper kelly she's on the u.s team that i'm like kind of also working
with and there's like noa brachi i'm also kind of working with zach hammer i was kind of working
with so there's a lot of people i'm like kind of working with i don't feel comfortable taking the
official title it's like you know i'm their official coach because i don't know it's just
like that's just am i like dodging responsibility or something i don't maybe that's a that's just
like a lot therapist question i need to ask like oh what is happening i don't know but like i i
think there's probably if i really listed it out there's like over 40 athletes and some are
international um i just had an athlete finish at the iranian national championship some like an
iranian cup and uh he didn't exactly go as far as he expected to or wanted to but he was like very
grateful it's like i learned a lot i was like that that makes me more happy um there's like a
pakistani climber that will be climbing at the asia championship quite soon and he's hopefully i'm
like crossing my fingers for him and yeah there's like a lot of climbers out there that just
will never have access to a speed coach or strength coach or just a coach in general so i'm like well
if there's anything i can do then that's going to be the gap i feel man i should probably list out
all the people and like what levels of coaching i am coaching them because i've been asked this
quite a few times i just say probably around like 40 athletes yeah i mean and then you also have you
know kind of like a resume of your coaching resume which is probably something i should do at some
point good reminder thank you you wanna if you want to keep doing keep going with the coaching
um yeah you have a few world cup athletes in there what's it like coaching at the world cup
specifically please excuse this brief intermission but i would just like to take some time and remind
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to push this podcast out to more people and get even more amazing guests on back to the show
er what's it like coaching at the world cup specifically it was interesting uh this
when i was at vilars in chamonix and it was a very like i got back and everyone said oh you had so
much fun in europe that must have been so much fun i'm like it was very fun it was absolutely
very fun this europe of course something new and it's it's cool experience but at the same time it
was very much work in the like fulfilling way it like i don't know i just felt very devoted because
like um this was kind of just after i got in the hospital so my energy levels were just tanking
all the time but i was trying to like just manage most of the time i was like manage expectations
manage their scheduling every day and um just like you know something something simple it's
just carrying their bags for them or is that is like it's enough to like help more than what i
was doing and um there there always comes the point when the athlete needs the talk
and i'm like yo i'm not that much older than you right now but like i will try my best to put my
mentor hat on and try to like you know like tell you that yo this it will not define you no matter
what the result is and like when you actually truly believe in yourself you can try your best
kind of speech and it is daunting because i'm like i don't know if i'm qualified for that like
absolute imposter syndrome what am i doing here like how did i get here i'm like seeing all the
other world cup coaches they're like you know in their collared shirt and they have like like four
ipads running at the same time they have a notebook i'm like hi i make memes on the internet like
that's about it and i i don't know it like it was it was interesting so like it was real i was
helping primarily grace um chadwick horton who sort of came on there and then isis rothfork who
she recently won the youth junior world national championship and um grace ran their uh comp pr
and it was a hard wall to do that on because the wall is very slippery for the tomo skip
chadwick also almost broke sub seven for the first time in his life but ran his like all time pr that
time and so i was like just trying to juggle and do it as much as i could but at the same time i'm
like i'm trying to figure out what to do as well like i think all the other coaches there they have
done this been there done that like several times they're comfortable they're relaxed i'm there
biting my nails i'm freaking out i'm screaming louder than everyone else and at the same time
i'm like oh i could be an athlete or i want to have fun i want to go party i want to go hang out
with some people but like and just like oh no this is i should take this seriously like i have to take
this seriously that's like my duty um so it was a really eye-opening experience and i think it gives
me more experience in in the future for other world cups i'll be able to manage a lot better there
yeah this is your first one right um arguably second ish because i was like doing a lot of
support staff at salt lake world cup which was also a very weird interesting thing because i
was coaching multiple international athletes as well but i was not listed as an official coach
either and so i made some executive decision calls that i don't think the usa climbing were
exactly the biggest fan of but in my mind i was like this is probably like the best thing to do
and they kind of like got a little mad at me uh we gotta hear about what these are i don't think
it's like a big deal and i don't think and there's like obviously there's no bad blood between all
of them but like there was like this we had the option to warm up at the milk creek gym and then
go to the venue and and i was like well if it's for speed wouldn't you want to get your laps in
ahead of time so the average speed climber we trained to be our best on our fourth lap
and like we get progressively better so like by the sixth lap and maybe up to the eighth lap you
were like really good and these athletes i was working with i'm like yo i'll be completely
honest y'all are probably not going to make finals but you can make a dent in with the standings and
try your best so it's like let's get you two laps in at mill creek so you're not on your
third or fourth lap for your qualifiers because normally you get two practice laps and then you
have your quality one quality two and so i was like okay why don't we just game the system just
go to mill creek warm up there and then you're on your fifth and sixth lap by the time you're at
qualities which was like in my mind that was a no-brainer if you have access to the gym you
should use it like absolutely but apparently they wanted them to be at the training center
warming up like on a spray wall and i'm like dog wait just you can warm up on the speed wall
instead of the spray wall and so like to me that was like a no-brainer and we got there and then
apparently they like kind of like somebody told me it's like yeah they weren't a big the biggest fan
of that i was like i'm sorry i i just made the executive decision and eventually later they
actually kind of like sort of agreed with me they're like oh that was a good idea i was like yeah
that's okay as long as you don't hate me so it wasn't like against like rules of the world cup
it was just they didn't think it would be the best warm-up for them yeah because they wanted
like all the teammates together and i was like whoa uh they could be together at the gym okay
yeah i had no idea about like it being what the fourth run is the best and then after it's even
better so then a bit about i guess warming up for speed at different world cups you said that the
wall at some of them were a bit more slick this has been like a very difficult situation that
a lot of my athletes have been facing where they train on a wall that has good texture which is you
know fine like that's pretty average but even a wall that is brand new at a world cup the painting
that they'll put over it or like the the actual coating is slick so they have to be within a
standard regulation of grit level which is fine but the literal coating can make something very
slippery or not and so at world champs you saw athletes not make finals because they slipped
on the tomorrow skip that was crazy so yeah like does that happen a lot absolutely um at salt lake
world cup that was like kind of like a funny world cup because you just saw people just like
eat it on the start move uh like and the really strong athletes and really fast athletes yeah they
can get over it but like the athletes who are just below that level they need that bit of friction
and relying on the smear for the tomorrow skip is really important to them and they didn't have that
so yeah that was kind of my thinking and then so i've like tested every environment for slick
surfaces and one of the reasons why salt lake world cup was so slippery for the qualifiers was
it was baking in the sun and so in theory hot rubber on like a hot surface gets a lot of friction
but because the shoes on rubbers like deteriorate and get slippery when they get too hot it's like
better to cool them off because you're putting it on a hot surface and like i've tested everything
before and so then i was like guys we need to cool off our shoes and then like some athletes were
like flaming me they're like that's stupid hot rubber like they heat up formula one tires on hot
i was like yeah but we're not formula one cars we're not like a one ton car we're like very light
and so like the rubber is completely different i was like and then later on apparently i overheard
that like somebody brought up is like hey i have a great idea we should cool down our shoes and i was
like wait that was my idea that y'all were flaming me for but like i like had thought of so many like
solutions and now one of the recent things to prepare the athletes is like we went to home
depot and me and grace actually and he found a bunch of surfaces that are slippery so we're
just going to put it there on the wall do the tomo skip if you can do it on plexiglass you can
do it anywhere you want oh you would do it on glass yeah like plex uh yeah plastic plexiglass
oh yeah yeah yeah i just i can't imagine i i mean i guess it was just wishful thinking that all of
the walls would feel exactly the same because it should be the same route every time um yeah i can't
imagine how hard it would be to just be feeling something different on a route that you've practiced
so many times that should be the same thing because it kind of it's kind of it kind of reminds me of
that thing with stairs where people say like oh if there's like a third a quarter inch difference
in a stair you can like feel it and you'll like trip so yeah that must be really hard if it's
different at different world cups yeah i don't know have you by chance ever played like instruments
yeah yeah yeah like if you have your violin versus someone else's violin it's just tell i'm a violin
player oh no i was a pure guess i was just that was an absolute pure guess but no it's like a guess
right like because like it just feels slightly off and it's like oh it's the same size violin if
it was like okay like a half-size violin versus full-size yeah okay there's a difference there
but like it's it's a violin it should be the same and it is so different it is a world different
it is almost the same concept in speed climbing yeah even like because when they pour the holds
of course there's going to be a level of tolerance of incongruencies so even some
holds on the same route poured from the same manufacturer during the same day are different
and we can tell that and so i guess when there's like more grip it helps quite a lot i think at one
of the speed world cups this year there were like a lot of records getting broken um was that in
korea or yeah korea that wall is like a god-tier wall like the texture is amazing the holds were
good and so of course vedrik just like destroyed it went 490 and then every comp after that kind
of like went down a little bit but then people got better so they went back up so yeah you got
to see some trends yeah yeah that's interesting um and i guess speaking of vedrik um why are some
countries like indonesia so good at speed climbing but maybe not other disciplines
i recently made like a very niche in group meme so there's a photo of the beijing uh team for speed
climbing and they have like eight lane wall they have like four trainers on hand they have a lead
wall they have weightlifting they live in a hotel together they do everything everything's paid for
and i like showed this photo to people it's like hey what do you what team do you think this is for
and they're like uh that seems that's like the chinese national team right i was like yeah yeah
i was like yeah yeah yeah but just take one more guess and they're like this is their development
team the development team has an eight lane speed wall that is like enclosed no distractions
the development team in the united states america you get a discounted day pass at momentum mill
creek so that is the level of resources put into the sport by the federation and the nation and so
in indonesia and china they live together eat together breathe together they train together
they're always together so like you always have somebody pushing you that day over here for the
last like two weeks sam has been racing me and i'm a full second and a half slower than him i'm
never going to push him as much as like somebody who could and the the biggest thing and i think
this goes across anything in any discipline is like having that strong community you see the italian
like who's the best boulders france slovenia for like lead climbing they like always climb together
they always live together in japan i'm sure you've heard the stories of like we just session together
at b pump we don't train we just like try really hard exactly like if you have the community where
everyone is on board and just trying really hard naturally the whole country gets better so yeah
you must do a lot of analysis of other speed climbers as well um can you think of any like
intricacies of certain athletes that you find interesting oh man like speed climbing is the
easiest way to see if somebody's deficient in a muscle group or not and it is like to maybe
like the untrained eye it's like oh yeah it just looks like they're going fast but like i can
immediately tell which athlete is like upper arm heavy uh leg heavy are their arms long i can tell
that i can tell what height they probably are based on the way that they move um and so this
kind of goes back to like the whole 1980s and like 1990s world cup bouldering because the holds were
very like basic and that's how you could determine how the person was moving because speed climbing
is like that like there's probably more stylistic differences at a minute level than at first
someone like sam you can very like easily categorize him as a very accurate climber
he may not be like the strongest climber upper body wise but when you see reza it's like oh clearly
this guy does like pull-ups every day with like 200 pounds on his back and he's just like ripping
holds off the wall and it looks very clunky but it is still very fast and vedrik it's like okay
this guy is like clearly every single muscle in his body was designed to speed climb and that was
it's just like yeah his legs and arms are perfect there's no deficiency he has just like really good
really good skill um there are some climbers that like on speed that are running very fast times but
it looks like a wild ride it looks like they have no control of what's happening but they still get
to the top very fast there's climbers like ludovico who often people are like oh he doesn't look that
fast and then you look at the time he like ran a 5.0 it's like oh no that was very fast he's tall
and he's very graceful and elegant so it looks very smooth um i think with especially on the female
side you see bigger differences in styles because uh the the center of gravity of them uh it varies
a lot big more than on the men and so it is so like beautiful to i wish like i could motion capture
every single speed athlete and just have that like just playing over and over again to see like
how they move and the biomechanics of it but yeah i don't know i i think you would if you could try
speed probably understand a lot more about yourself as well as a climber than at first glance seems
yeah is uh is taller better
arguably no um there's probably like a you are too tall for this ride kind of height
um i'd say like if you're six two six three that's like you're reaching limit
uh but maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm wrong there could be better betas out there for taller people um
so luda you have at the highest end ludovico who's always making finals and the low end where you
have like vidri i believe it's like five four five five he's like tiny in standards like he's like
what yeah like half a foot if not more shorter than ludovico and he's speeding it i'd say like
from just the biomechanics standpoint you see the fastest sprinters in the world for the first 60
meters are all very short and then the tall guys take over after that usain bolt he was criticized
oh you start slow but he's always going to beat you later on and so since it's such a short race
you don't have time to build up speed um so being taller is probably worse but then you just have
people making it work so who knows we don't have enough data and there's not enough tall climbers
out there to even just like make that assumption but i'm gonna say like five ten and unders like
that nice ratio yeah going back to um like intricacies of certain athletes uh i'm a very
casual speed viewer um so yeah i don't have uh i guess all the information on um what makes a
better speed climber um and of course uh alexander mireslaw is always um up there except at the world
champs which was kind of a shame crazy yeah um but i feel like the only thing i've noticed is that
at the top of her run she just kind of like blasts off i don't know what it is what is that her beta
is very in tune with somebody who's a shorter height um there are more foot movements than somebody
taller betas would do and because of that it's like hard to do because you need to be a more
accurate per percentage of footholds and then b you have to move your feet really fast but if
you can accomplish that she just like overpowers it and this is gonna be a crazy statement but like
alexander mireslaw is not even close to like technically perfect she has like she could still
probably go like a full 0.4 0.5 faster than she's already going she is so strong she kind of gets
away with things that like a weaker climber wouldn't be able to get away with technically
um but yeah i'd be i would love one day if she was like if i if i was honored bestowed honored
enough to like help her technical wise because like she's not even close to limit like and that's
like the insane part like she could go even faster so i i'm honestly like terrified for the rest of
the athletes i was like yo she's gonna run 5.8 and you're not gonna know what's coming and it's just
a matter of time until either she figures it out or adapts to that exciting i hope uh i hope she'll
see this one day and uh you know call you up but yeah i mean she's an insane climber regardless
she's faster than me by a mile so i got work to do yeah um and huge upset for her at the world
champs um i mean i'm sure she'll make it in eventually um but yeah thinking about the
olympics now that it's its own separate category um do you know what that format is gonna be like
like same as the world cups or something different i like don't know off the top of my head which is
kind of bad just because like i always forget because it's very convoluted it's since there's
14 athletes it's like they do some seating round and then they do a bracket format to determine
like eight climbers and then there's like a lucky loser that goes in and then do it they do a bracket
of eight it is so weird and i have to like double check because like i might even be saying half of
this wrong but i think the format is going to be very volatile because like anybody could make
finals and anybody could go to the end still um initially i heard rumors that they were proposing
like uh um like a loser's bracket and then like uh third fourth place first second was the best two
out of three which i would have loved personally uh because there was like a mathematical breakdown
that if somebody lost and crawled their way to the finish they could have ran like some 20 odd runs
in one day and just be like an absolute zero to hero uh which would have been a cool storyline
but i don't know i'm very curious to see how the format works and i'm going to try to uh set up
some in-house tournaments that follow that format and we'll see how that works but um i like that
they have a medal of their own but i'm obviously going to want more and i wish we could have a full
bracket of 16 and we could have like 48 athletes uh going to the comps yeah why did they choose 14
instead of 16 i believe i don't forget the exact reason but it was like a a quota per country
uh that they could fill and like they definitely gave more spots to lead in boulder which is fair
like that's like the original but um just the the random speed enthusiasts like me are begging for
more i mean still not even that many spots i guess i don't know how many athletes go to other sports
but i felt like 20 and 14 is kind of not that many yeah like i know there's sports out there with like
80 athletes registered i'm like dang when's that gonna be us yeah maybe one day i mean i hope they're
i hope they're fighting for it with with enough uh memes and content like this you know maybe
speed will get on the radar yeah enough interest in competition climbing that would be great i don't
know what meme i'll make after the olympic speed climbing but like i have to make sure it goes
viral enough that they like consider it next year yeah yeah yeah and then maybe they'll let you
commentate there oh that'd be a dream oh man olympic commentary would just i'll probably cry
well i guess the channels have their own commentary don't they uh i don't know i don't know that
process is too much for me yeah um but yeah back to coaching um so you do speed coaching did you
and you said that when you were in school you also coached like bouldering and leadings so i coached
like uh the feeder team as well as like some of the uh athletes for team texas um and so that's
kind of where like oh man i may maybe i do have like a knack for like helping coaching or like
maybe it's not so much i felt like i had a knack or edge over anyone else which is like i enjoyed
it a lot more um it was very fun it was really cool to see progress in athletes that had the
gifts and abilities that i've never had um and so one of the bigger things that i've been doing
recently is trying to band together all the athletes to salt lake which has been slowly
working more athletes are moving here especially collegiate athletes who are moving here for the
u of u but like yeah as i was saying like earlier china and indonesia they live eat and breathe and
sleep together they train together all the time we don't have that so like what like that's my job
now and so i went all the way from like bandying some little kids that are running around to climb
their first b1 to sort of finding this weird niche place in salt lake city that i didn't expect
myself to do um one of the things i said as i left colorado was like i need to go change the world i
just don't know how i don't even know if this is how it's going to happen but i feel like this is
like the purpose of life for me for at least time being like that may change even tomorrow or next
year or whenever but at least for now it's like this is sort of it like this is kind of what i
have to do and like i love it and it's a duty and it is a duty bestowed to myself by myself
so i'll just keep doing it until somebody tells me to stop or i decide to stop
well i mean that's a very noble pursuit um you mentioned that you want to i guess
give other athletes this opportunity that you never had um but you are still trying to make
national team yourself aren't you and it's been a very difficult juggling effort because
during the session i can't help myself i'm like okay i can clearly see the athletes struggling
i should go say something i should go sit but i like no focus yourself and like it's always
like an internal struggle and now uh since my handle is professor oak which also i i don't know
wait did you get do you get my handle on instagram um i've never thought about it that hard to be
honest well okay so there's something to get yeah um no it's like pretty easy i can't say i do
it's just like from pokemon that's it that's all oh okay so i never watch pokemon so that would be
why i don't understand ironically me neither i've never seen a single episode but i just
thought like okay professor oak from pokemon that's like okay my last name is oak okay i'll take this
handle oh is that like a is that a character yeah he's like one of the major characters in the thing
and like i don't know i just like picked it randomly so people thought like professor oak meant
like i'm like trying to be a professor i'm like no no no it's like a pokemon reference it's like
yeah i kind of thought the other thing as well yeah it's like it's definitely way dumber than
people like want to give me credit for like i don't know if i should change it but like i can't anymore
but so uh i i don't know it's like i want to train for myself but like at the same time
i need to block off office hours for myself to like get my own work done and so now um probably
like starting tomorrow uh i'll let the athletes climb from like 10 a.m until 2 p.m and then i'll
rest and then i'm gonna start training at night by myself because like uh i need myself to focus on
myself and and that is a difficult endeavor and it's been like two years now since i've been trying
to get on the team and it is so unbelievably hard people have no clue how hard it is to get on team
yeah well so like what are you doing to make it happen like do you have your own coach or
are you still more coaching yourself just kind of myself um i've if there was honestly like i kind
of know what i need to do every time i just the what i really need is somebody just like hey you're
not doing this stop being lazy just do it stop bad like i need somebody to like tell like read what
i'm telling other people um that'll be probably the biggest help um and so this year's cut off for
even having a comp start is 6.02 and if you want to be on team you need to run 5.63 or 62
so it's very very very difficult now so like i'm not even making the time cut off right now so i
got so much work to do so off the wall training uh on the wall training um i prioritize on the
wall training because i lack volume right now um but yeah you got to lift heavy you got to jump
hard you got to try everything and just over and over and over and just be obsessive over the details
um yeah i don't know how you structure your bouldering training but it's not that serious
unfortunately yeah yeah um but yeah so with i guess how fast like speed records are evolving i
don't know if that's just because of the wall texture that one time um i mean there's also just
a lot of like young people coming up who like have this specific goal already in mind um do you feel
like you can keep up um you know bosa malwem is the hero of everybody because dude's 38 with two
kids and he's making every final so i'm like ah man i have over 10 years to like say that i can't
keep up like i have no excuse right so technically i know more than the kids but they're gonna excel
at make making the adjustments faster than me but it is just so hard like every week there's some
new sub six climber in the world and i'm like dude y'all need to stop it's getting a little out of
hand and somebody's breaking a pr somebody's getting close to sub five and it gets hard to
keep up but i feel like that's kind of what makes it more fun because um yeah if everybody was bad
and you got to be the best would that be something you want in your life i don't i don't know
like i want a challenge yeah and so i get to be from the bottom crawling my way up to there i
don't think i would ever be at the level where i would win a world cup ever um that's being brutally
honest with the amount of time i have and like the mental fortitude and strength and health um but
to be at the level where it's like very competitive i think it's possible um i just need some time
yeah fair yeah you have some time um and yeah you brought up basa mawem um he also had a really bad
injury that he came back from um so it's good to see him competing again that's nice and i guess
speaking of injuries you've also had your fair share of injuries i'm uh the poster child of getting
in the hospital and just dying yeah how yeah so what kind of injuries have you dealt with um just
like from childhood to now let's let's start from toe to head so i've uh my left pinky toe is
permanently dislocated and i can like pop it in and out anytime i want i fully ruptured all the
ligaments in my left foot because i did a flip onto a sprinkler head and it just like collapsed
into me uh i've partially damaged uh ruptured my left meniscus and fully root cap meniscus on my
right ACL MCL LCL full tear surgery um twice twice twice um and then i've had shoulder surgery where
i tore three out of four rotator cuff muscles like slap tear bank heart lesion like full
labral tear like full nine yards and then very recently i had a septic elbow bursitis that like
put me in the hospital so fast and i am the most stubborn guy i'm like oh i don't need the hospital
i'm better than that but yeah um are all these climbing related or none of these the crazy thing
is like almost none of them are climbing related it's just like by proxy life things or it's like
there is no way i got that unlucky especially with the septic bursitis i was like i didn't do
anything abnormal that day um and then how did that happen again i i don't know like i definitely
bumped my elbow but i do that every session i'm sure every climber does and then about two hours
later i was like oh my elbow's kind of fat huh swollen huh that's not that's not normal and then
six hours later i was like shivering my like organs were collapsing i was like guys i think
this is not good i was stubborn and i held out going to the hospital for about like three days
and i uh holy crap three days it's it was not cold it was like hot in salt lake it's like 90 degrees
i had two pairs of like sweaters on jeans two blankets and i was shivering like she's shaking
like and i'm pretty sure my organs like my organs were collapsing at that point like
they were failing they were proper failing i get to the hospital they're like huh
you're not doing too hot are you i'm like no i'm fine um i'll be good and at this time i was
hosting like sort of a mini speed boot camp for a lot of the athletes before uh vilaris and shemini
and so like they're video calling me when they're at the gym and i'm like yeah that looks that looks
good okay cool bye i just like went back to passing out oh my goodness uh that's not great
yeah i can use my elbow a little bit more than i used to um not 100 yet but i have a poster
behind me a whiteboard that says post hospital personal best so i reset the counter to like
every attempt after going to the hospital i've counted as like a new personal best so that's been
motivational yeah i mean that's a good way to think of it i think it's always hard coming back
after an injury um do you feel like mentally that's been difficult for you or have you have
you been able to push through that i think i am probably the best person for all of this stuff to
happen to because i am more resilient than i know so many people are um my friend tore his acl and
he was like wait six months later you were like running and you didn't stop at all how did you do
it like i gained like 80 pounds and i like hate my life i'm like i i don't know i i think i'm
blessed that i'm like very psyched at all times i'm like okay i'm injured now it's a setback i'll
figure it out um but this last injury was the first breaking point i think i've ever experienced
because i was scared um normally after 72 hours i've gotten over anything like i like i know i'll
be fine at least i've got to the point this is the first time i was like oh this is bad i like
messaged some people like guys i think i'm like legitimately scared this time this is not good
and then the last day that i was taking antibiotics and they sort of said like if it doesn't get better
you need to get back to the hospital the last possible day i was like hallucinating crazy
vivid hallucinations it was terrifying i thought there were black widows all over me it was like
nightmare state and then like i went i finally passed out sweating and like woke up and i felt
a lot better i was like oh i got over the hump but i was very scared oh so you didn't go back to the
hospital i saw i didn't go back to the hospital and then like the antibiotics finally worked their
course but yeah and then recently like because the antibiotics like just these this like military
grade like will kill anything antibiotics like i'm so fatigued uh i was saying before i took a nap
before this interview because i just crash and mentally for me that's more hard because
i'm known as like all right this guy's definitely on crack he's the crack head like at the gym just
going 24 7 but i don't have that energy anymore and it's kind of hard to accept that
because that not only takes away from myself but my ability to help others and i think that gets me
more frustrated yeah totally fair do how long do you think it'll take for you to get that energy back
some days i have six out of ten days most days it's like four at best maybe six months maybe a year
that's pretty much what everything online says and what other doctor professionals have told me and
they're like yeah it takes a long time with that antibiotic specifically because yeah that's
because yeah this antibiotic is like nothing like this one of the most serious antibiotics
could ever be prescribed so it's like yeah you're in it for the long haul good luck just take caffeine
and so that's what i've been doing oh my gosh yeah i mean for sepsis that's like that's not good
yeah i mean hopefully you'll get better soon get that energy back um i think yeah that's uh
uh that's crazy but i guess maybe once you actually get that energy back maybe it's like that uh that
training deficit energy thing that you're talking about so in six months you'll you'll get those
gains yeah so like you and sam may be in strength cycle jail but like i've been dying of fatigue
jail and then once i'm unleashed it's over everyone better be scared yeah yeah yeah like the team and
everything yeah okay well um i don't want to keep you too long i do have a few more discord questions
hopefully you have the energy um yeah first one uh what do you feel stops more people from getting
into speed climbing um lack of introduction events training walls is that the main thing
or do you think it's also like interest um i i feel like a lot more people are interested in like
man when i'm at the gym i see so many people like watching and like i can kind of tell that they
want to try it but like they're intimidated uh intimidation is probably the biggest one but the
access is just hard and that's kind of just going to be an america thing like in europe they're not
clipped up at all like you can just walk up and use it because like they trust people will clip in
and be smart so it is a very much america thing so i'm assuming most of the viewers are american
um but like yeah that is that is a very america problem that like personally i can't do much to
fix um i have my class on thursday so like is open for anyone because the instructor is present but
like legally it is so hard i think the best thing is if you're interested and you can't get access
is to either a message me and i'll try to talk to like the gym manager because i probably have
know somebody that knows them that can like give a pass or something or just like be really nice and
talk to the gym managers like hey i'm very interested but i'm not a professional we'll see
where it goes yeah all right um yeah hopefully i don't know i mean so few gyms have it too just
like wall height and everything yeah yeah um okay uh did the 2020 olympic competition format with
the combined medals undermine the development or acceptance of speed climbing in your opinion
oh i think it accelerated the development of speed as well as um did for the average viewer
create better acceptance for speed and i say uh the accelerated development because
tamoa narasaki literally he's a boulder and so like he's not thinking about the speed wall like
speed climbers speed climbers back then were very like stagnant in their ways is the only way to do
it you have to do it this way or it's bad and he came up to most skip everyone does that nowadays
except for maybe five athletes who are very tall and can do a different start and then you saw
different top betas because of development so like starting to see speed climbing more as climbing
as a speed climber was a huge benefit like tomorrow narasaki will always be the biggest
greatest influence to speed climbing that ever existed and then yeah so like the average viewer
loves speed climbing now they were like oh it's really cool we get to see jacob schubert speed
climb it's funny to watch adamantra speed climb he's so bad haha so it's like you get some like
funny jokes out of it as well so obviously the traditionalists like were disgruntled but i
thought it was great and it was nice to see athletes challenged in a new way yeah definitely
i mean i wouldn't say a lot of people uh i guess except speed climbing um still but yeah it was
it was yeah it was a lot of fun watching other athletes do it um and they were a lot faster than
i was expecting them to be actually yeah like i think all the guys were in the sixes minimum
if not faster so i was like yeah yeah no one was bad like they were all pretty good at it
yeah that was exciting to see um but i guess no more of that unfortunately yeah it was kind of fun
um do you know what the outcome of the athletes commission election will be if a polish or
indonesian will be representing speed and what that would mean for speed in the future
oh i don't think a polish representative would be surprisingly um because but but there's a good
potential that indonesian uh actually i don't know i wouldn't even think about that either
if anything it might be an italian or a french climber i guess what are the implications i don't
actually know what the implications would mean if someone different was representing speed or i
don't even know who's representing speed right now yeah like it should probably be indonesian
or or a polish climber on paper i just don't think that's what's going to happen mainly most
of the indonesian climbers they don't speak very strong english and then the polish climbers they're
like uh there's like one and a half guys that are like climbing hard in poland marsyn zienski and
this other youth climber and then yeah the polish female team is like insanely stacked but then it's
like a little off-balance so like there's probably a bigger chance than an italian or french climber
because of like the language barrier as well so yeah that's that's a very tough question like
my money would be on a polish or indonesian climber but like i don't i'm not sure if that
would actually end up happening is it like they would be making different decisions for speed
climbing's future or like what would be like what would change if it was like a polish climber an
indonesian climber like a french climber honestly in terms of like the actual speed itself like i
don't think many i think most of the speed climbers are very happy with the format and
the way it works now just making sure that like certain warm-up procedures are followed as well
as like certain timing procedures are followed is more important but like the actual legitimate
form like we could probably run any format and people would be happy like around robin or like
a double eland bracket like the more races we're gonna enjoy more but we're not like dissatisfied
with the format that much right now it's volatile it's fun you get to make upsets but yeah i don't
think there would be that any crazy changes and like everyone probably once a week somebody asked
me oh what oh do you do are you forward against the change of the speed route i think lots of
people would enjoy that i'm like okay none of you all have actually speed climbed yet we we have yet
to reach the potential of the speed route like you wouldn't change the 100 meter route yeah
there'll be a place for that eventually but not now yeah i think when i talked to grace a couple
weeks ago they were saying that it's like something they have talked about but yeah not sure if they've
made any progress with it they played with like every four year kind of format and i'm like that'd
be interesting but i think we haven't untapped this current speed route at all so it's like
yeah we just keep it for a bit a little bit longer um that sort of leads into the next one about
future development of speed climbing um i think relay races once mentioned you mentioned some
other formats like brown albin or other formats um yeah what are your thoughts on those it's
it's really cool because in like russia china and indonesia they do relay races and they keep speed
classic which is a randomized route route that they get to race on and so they still like have
old versions and like fun events like that um it would be cool to see at a comp where it's like
all right the speed climbers get their own comp and they have like variations it's like okay the
10 meter who's the fastest 10 meter um who's like relay race would be really fun um it would be more
of like uh in um in gymnastics you have like each individual event and then the all-around or like
uh decathlon you have each individual event you have the all-around winner that could be something
something kind of interesting to play with like who's the best true speed climber at everything
maybe they have an a route and b route um who knows like i would love to see it i don't know
where my place in any of those decisions would be but if i have any influence i will try to make my
voice loud and clear um with being in favor of those changes how does relay work with like
clipping in and stuff it is crazy it is so scary because um they normally so you have like one
person uh run the route and then they have to do it on normal like hand belay oh it's just the
first person and the first person gets like lowered insanely fast because the second they
finish the second person goes and then the next person is on auto belay and then they go up again
oh that's terrible it's so scary they gotta get lowered within five seconds basically
is there like video of this anywhere like i gotta see that i'll have to send you to you it's it
looks terrifying they just get like thrown down and like they get stopped at the last second
and then the yeah it's usually three versus three so the second person finishes their route and when
they hit the buzzer the third person could finally go yeah i can't wait to see that um i mean even
just like like top rope belaying someone up a speed route you must just be like pulling the rope like
crazy yeah there's been like crazy deck stories when it used to be top roping like all the time
so like this is like one of the wildest things you'll see especially like yeah everyone's going
five seconds it's not it's not just anything normal yeah oh my gosh that's insane yeah i can't
wait to see that um all right last one and it's a bit of a different one what was it like to rock
climb with a kiyo naguchi i didn't know you did that but oh someone knew this is one of the most
nearest and dearest moments of my entire life so i we went to joe's valley as like sort of a big
group and then later on we i took her to a little cottonwood canyon she is is better than everyone
first off just like absolutely clans perfectly destroyed this v12 like third go or something
that was it's pretty hard to flash like every v8 we touched and she's always just sitting down and
watching the climbs and like just learning and just like looking at the rock and just staring
and staring and staring she's always like you can tell she's like the gears are turning but the most
important moment that came out of all that was on the drive down to little from little cottonwood
canyon back to the city it is gorgeous and there's a certain turn that like opens up and you see like
the whole city and it is the most gorgeous valley and i have a sunroof and then i was like hey
akio let's play a song and then she uh we ended up picking uh uh dancing queen by abba i opened the
sunroof and like i think she kind of just like understood the assignment she like got out of the
sunroof and just like did this in the wind and like i'm slowing down and she sees the beautiful valley
and she i think she even put it at the very end of one of her vlogs uh that very scene and i knew
what that scene meant like i don't think other people knew the context but i was like that was
kind of beautiful because in japan you aren't allowed to climb outdoors if you're on the team
during the season because legal liability or insurance liability because you can get hurt
and so she's gone to all these world cups this is the first one she's gone as a spectator and could
go outdoors and i don't know i like to think in my mind that like that was like the culmination but
like you know she's the dancing queen and she got the dance one last time uh and spread her wings
and it was really wholesome and beautiful and i was like ah i will remember this for the rest of my
life oh that's really sweet how did you um i guess how did you like get in contact with her anyway
i uh it was like definitely a friend of a friend kind of thing uh and they like contacted me to
contact her and then she contacted me through them and then it like worked out because like
i know a little japanese and like i know the area well and communicate and i was somebody that like
she could trust and it all worked out well and apparently tomo said he liked my photos and i'm
no photographer so i was like yo good job thanks i pressed the button i had no clue what i was
doing i don't know any of these settings and so it was a dream come true okay well that's really
nice um yeah good note to end on um yeah well i think that was all the questions then thank you
so much for joining me um anything you want to shout out or let people know where they can find
you uh there's this podcast called that's not real climbing podcast that um no i mean i have an
instagram and a youtube channel but follow me don't follow me i don't really care i'm not so much
i just like making memes and making content whenever i can so if you need speed coaching
though then message me absolutely follow me for that do you have the bandwidth for that right now
probably not but you know i'm gonna still save regardless well yeah reach out and see what
happens um i'll leave your links below um yeah thank you again it was so amazing to talk to you
thank you thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast if you're watching on youtube
i would love to hear your discussion and thoughts in the comments below and don't forget to like
and subscribe if you enjoyed if you're listening through a podcasting platform i'd appreciate if
you rate it five stars and you can continue the discussion through my competition climbing discord
um linked in all the descriptions through all the platforms thanks again for listening