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my first World Cup, and I was the only one from the organization present. I didn't really have

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a coach there, we didn't have our federation president there, or we didn't have any other

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athletes, it was just me representing Guam. Besides the coach, the lead specialist, Vicki,

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who is our female lead specialist, and me, everyone else has been climbing for less than a year.

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He told us that Akiyo Noguchi started climbing because she visited Guam.

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If you feel like you started too late, I mean, ideally you want to start early,

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but it's never too late to try and become something bigger.

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Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast. I'm your host Jinni,

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and I'm excited to introduce my first in-person guest, Allen Lacktaoen. I know Allen from our

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climbing training class in San Diego, but he is also a boulder for a brand new IFSC federation,

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Team Guam. In this episode, we'll learn about what it's like competing on the World Cup circuit as an

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average climber who only started climbing at 23 years old and works a full-time engineering job.

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We'll also hear about what it's like as a new competitor competing in Innsbruck, including the

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after-parties, and we'll learn all about the Guam climbing scene. If you're watching this on YouTube,

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you might notice some strange cuts to help the podcast flow better for audio only,

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but hopefully the appearances made by the cat will help make up for it.

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I hope you enjoy this episode with Allen. How was the climbing session? Good. You're talking about

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today's session? Yeah. Climbing session today was good. Since I'm still recovering from a

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finger injury, slight, like a minor finger injury, it felt pretty nice. In the main bouldering area,

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I was able to kind of climb without the tape on. So I've been slowly, progressively overloading it

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with tape and then without tape. It's been getting better. So the session today was good.

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Yeah. And you? How was your session? It was, I was happy to do most of the b-boulders on this

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slab. Did you try the other b-boulders on the overhang? I did one that Darren recommended to me

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and then another one that was a little hard. My fingers are kind of hurting today. So for those

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who don't know, I think a lot of people probably don't know you super well. No, I wouldn't expect

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people to know me already, but I'm still new to the circuit. Maybe people who watch who like know

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you in person. Yeah. So how did you get into climbing? So I picked up climbing back in

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2018 while I was in college. Fairly recent. Yeah, fairly recent. Only been six years,

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almost six years. I'm going on six. But yeah, it was my best friend in college, his sister climbed.

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And so when I went to their place for Thanksgiving, it was, they brought me to one of the climbing

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gyms up there and it's in Santa Rosa. And so then I picked up it there and then I started climbing

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at school. We had a climbing wall on campus and then at the local climbing gym that everyone went

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to. So that's where I picked it up. And then yeah, since then I've been mainly training for outdoors.

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So a lot of my training started focused on outdoors, especially later on as I got better

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in climbing. Like I think my first outdoor trip was maybe six months into climbing,

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five, five or six months into climbing outdoors. And then I got strong pretty quick, then got injured.

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Oh, that's a classic. The classic got too strong too fast, then got injured. Then you don't,

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if you're not still new climbing, trying to figure out a good protocol to heal faster and like get

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stronger as you're still injured was not in my mindset yet. So then I kind of went back in strength.

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But I got in that time, I got better at slopers than I was in crimps. So then now that's why now

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I, I would say my favorite is the sloper. Yeah. And then got back up to speed

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right before COVID, then COVID hit. And then during that time in COVID, I just recently

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moved down here to San Diego and then started working as a full-time engineer. So then in that

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time frame, it was hard to train because the gyms were closed. And if the gyms were open,

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you would have to schedule maybe like only a one hour period of training. And, and that was only,

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you're only allowed one hour training twice a week. So then you'd only train two hours a week.

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And that was hard, especially if you didn't have a home wall, like everyone started building

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home walls. I, as I was like living in a house that my roommate's parents owned,

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you know, I didn't really want to build in their backyard. Yeah. And I didn't want to take up their

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space. And plus, you know, knowing that I might have to move in the future, I didn't want to

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have to deal with that. So it's like, oh, so then most of my training was delayed at that point and

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then picked up speed again in like 2021. And then slowly got better. Or is this? Yeah. Yeah. And

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then I remember those days. Yeah. And then I had to schedule, but I don't think we had a limit in

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terms of how many sessions you had. Oh, really? The gyms. An hour? Yeah. Hour, an hour and a half.

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It was pretty, it was pretty bad. It was like, yeah. I mean, before it was like, you'd only,

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you'd warm up for like five minutes on like easy problems and a new project for the next 45.

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Huh. To like an hour and a half. And it's just like, ah, it was tough during those times.

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So then I would try and climb outside, but then I was, I was still new to my full-time job. So

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it was hard to balance that. And so then there's still some like hardships in my whole climbing

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career, but then I'm glad that I was able to pick up, pick it up again recently. And then switched

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to comp climbing once the Guam team was made. And like, once I found out that the Guam, that Guam

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created a team and recently got accepted into the IFSC, which was last year. So technically I've only

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been comp climbing for like the last nine months. Okay. So you pretty much link Boulder. Have you

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ever considered doing league competition? I have. Yeah. I mean, when, when the Guam team went for

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the Oceania qualifiers for the Olympics, it's, it was a combined format. So then I had to train a

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little bit of lead and kind of get back up to speed. I didn't like, by preference, I don't usually

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train lead. But I thought about it to supplement my bouldering. Yeah. As in like, because I don't

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have a lot of endurance in climbing, like normally like, you know, the typical bouldering, I don't

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really like, you know, the typical boulder saying it's like, you go up three clips and you're already

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pumped. Yeah. That's me. I've definitely, when I started out climbing, I was thinking I would

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end up being a lead specialist, which is, I mean, I bought like a whole bunch of like

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carabiners, quick draws, and I bought a rope to climb in the gym. And then, you know, I liked it.

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I didn't do it all the time, but I would occasionally hop on ropes when I wouldn't like oppose it when

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friends would offer to, you know, climb on ropes. And I mean, I enjoyed it back then. Now it's like,

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I prefer just bouldering. Yeah. Because it's easier access. That's true. In terms of like,

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having to find a partner, you know, scheduling with someone else to even,

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that I'm scheduling with someone else that you know, you trust, the way you, you know, it's hard

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to do that rather than, I mean, people still trust other people to believe them when you do with the

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open signup sheets in some gyms. It's like, okay. But I mean, like I like to climb with other people

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that I know that can take care of me and stuff like that. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, that's that.

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I mean, that's one main reason why I ended up just leaning more toward bouldering. And I mean,

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also it's just, I feel like I'm more of like a powerful style movement versus like long endurance

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climbs. And even in general, I've noticed that in other sports too. And that's why I've always,

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I recently, I thought about maybe I should try speed. Yeah. But I mean, maybe, I mean, I used to

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play volleyball in high school and I have strong legs and maybe I can implement that in speed

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climbing, but we'll see. Yeah. That's still in the thought process. If I want to ever try it out.

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Yeah. Well, I guess I also wonder because it seems like lead competitors tend to have a little bit

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more longevity in this sport. Right. At lead. That makes, yeah. And how old are you? You're like.

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29. I just turned 29 this year. Yeah. I thought you were 28. No, I, yeah. Don't rely on me.

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So like you're getting pretty like super old. Like, ah, I mean, I don't like to think.

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You're about to die. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, I don't like to think of that. I like,

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like, I don't like to think about the age. I mean, it's a nice little fallback of an excuse to,

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yeah, I'm not having a good day because of my age. So, you know, or like I'm having a bad session

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because like, you know, for my age, I'm pretty tired for the session. So I have some friends

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that are like younger than me or older than me too. Like they are just one, they always wonder

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or ask me and say, how do you, how do you have the, like the, the stamina to, or the energy to like

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JV's three hour sessions, three to four hour sessions, five, four to five days a week. And like, you know,

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it's a lot of training, but you know, I mean, it's the, I mean, the, the matter of fact is like,

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I'm enjoying it, you know, like I, yes, I'm tired, but that's the fun part about it. It's like,

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I enjoy it a lot. And that's the reason why I picked up the comp climbing is because I know that

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it's like something that I want. And it's like, I've always had this in the back of my mind that I

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wanted to somehow represent Guam in a way that could bring climbing, like grow with the climbing

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community back home. I mean, during COVID, I already had thoughts of like, oh, I want to try

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and open a gym back home. And then the first time I went back home during COVID, I recently

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found out that they had like a whole climbing community that I didn't know about. And it's been

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around since like, I think it's the eighties, but, and I was like, has this been my whole life?

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I could have, I would have picked up climbing way earlier, but I guess it wasn't like well

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advertising, advertise, or it was, it was like a Facebook group. So then it was Saoche, Word of

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Mao. You know, you have to ask the right people, come across the right people that knew about the

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community. And then when they finally opened up the gym, I was like, oh, someone did it before me,

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but I wonder who it was. And then they started like picking up. And I mean, that's another fact

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that is like the Guam climbing community is very, very new. Like the gym only opened up a year and

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a half ago. They just recently had their first year anniversary. Wait, so that's like the first,

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the first gym? The first like, well, I guess, advertised gym, I guess, like, because like

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there, apparently there was an older gym that was open before the new gym opened up. It's like one

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of those like garage style bouldering gyms that someone owned. Maybe it was, I can't remember

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if it was like at a, in a empty tenant space or if it was at someone's house. I can't remember

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what the correct fact of that is, but I've, I just recently found out that too. And I didn't even

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know that, but yeah, it, it, when they opened up the gym, it was like a small section of the, so

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the owner of the gym is, he plays badminton. And so part of the gym is half badminton, half climbing.

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And so there was a small section of, of the badminton courts where it's just like a small,

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maybe, I don't know how many meters, but it was, it's just like a small section of boulders.

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And then this year, right after the Oceania qualifier, last year, right after the Oceania

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qualifiers, they expanded all, like they basically closed off half of the badminton courts.

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Half the gym is now fully half badminton, half climbing. And I mean, and the gym is pretty big.

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It's like a warehouse. So it's, it's growing and like a lot more people have been

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drawing attention to it. And, you know, and that's why like, I, like, I really want this is because

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like, I really want this is because I want to help be part of the history and like help grow

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the climbing community back home. While there is still a small community out here that people from

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Guam in the mainland US that do climb. Yeah. And they reached out to me and some of them I've

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went to high school with, some of them I haven't. And they reached out to me through the, through the

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climbing Guam Instagram. And they're like, cause they've been posting about me about going to the

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Inspirit World Cup and stuff like that. So then I've been getting reached out to about that and be

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like, how can I be part of the team? And then like even the Guam coach, he's like, dude, ever since

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like you, like we've been posting about you, like people have been reaching out to us, you know,

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how can we be part of the team or how can we like help out the team? And that's, and that's, that's

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kind of what I want. It's like, I want people to like notice it a little bit more so that eventually

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the next generation of climbers that are coming from Guam don't have to worry about it so much.

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Like, you know, it's already like, it, you know, we take small steps and that's, and that's as a

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team, that's what we want is we want to grow the whole community. And I mean, it'd be, it would

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have been nice to have that growing up as well. And so it's just like, oh, okay. I want this for

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the future. I'm in Guam. I mean, there is a community there. And the hard part about that is

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I'm here training. I'm here training basically to kind of gain, I don't know how to say it, but like

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just to like better myself, to get the experience out here so that I can like maybe go back there

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and maybe in the future, I'll probably want to coach the team or, you know, or said I can be

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an engineer back home too. And then coach in the after hours, you know, I mean, because I have that

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passion for climbing. It's something that I want for Guam. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Because I

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mean, if that experience and like, like the people who are experienced don't eventually go back

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to build it up, it's never gonna grow. It's almost like, I don't want to say it's a wasted effort,

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but that's what it would feel like. Yeah. Well, we'll get into Guam more in a bit, but first.

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One of the things to me that was most interesting about your story is that unlike most athletes on

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the circuit, you didn't start out as a youth climber. You started when you were 23, I guess,

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22. 23, I would say 23. Yeah. Yeah. Which is quite late. Actually, that's later than me,

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because I think I started when I was 20. So do you feel like you missed out on much starting as an

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adult? Or how, well, of course you did. How much do you feel like you missed out on starting as an adult?

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Yes, I have missed out on a lot as if like that, I mean, that's why I mentioned wanting this for

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Guam is to kind of start the youth gathering for the climbing, because I mean, most of the climbing

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team right now is all adults and I'm not even the oldest one. Whoa, really? Yeah. I'm not even the

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oldest one. Well, we need to get into that later. Okay, we'll get into that later. Yeah. But yeah,

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I'm not even the oldest one, but yeah, I mean, it definitely feels like it seems like it's a little

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too late a little bit. Like I started late, but I personally, I don't like to think about age as like

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a, I don't want it like as an excuse to be like, oh, you know, I'm not good enough because, you know,

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I started too late, you know. I mean, it used to be like that kind of excuse before when I was,

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when I got injured and, you know, started climbing, I was like, ah, you know, I feel like I might be

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too old, like get stronger. And maybe yes, it does play a factor, but having that excuse is not part

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of my mindset. Cause I like to think of like, it's never too late to, you know, if you, if you believe

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in something that you want to do, you know, age shouldn't stop you being starting too late,

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shouldn't stop you. I do think I started too late, but I don't think it's too late to

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succeed in something that to this level. And I think similar to a lot of people who started

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climbing late and probably a lot of people who are like watching or listening right now,

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you also mentioned that you have a full-time job. So you're kind of like the weekend warrior.

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I think that's the term for it. I think there are a lot of like weekend warriors who manage to climb

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hard in the outdoor scene, but you don't hear of that so much in competition, partially because

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they're young, but also partially because it's like very time consuming to be, I guess like in

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competition, you kind of have to be good at everything instead of just projecting like one

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specific boulder for a long time. So how do you balance work and training?

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Balancing work and training is kind of difficult. I guess it would say, I would say it's a difficult

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topic to even like delve into because normally the balance is by feel. Like I like, like I'll go into

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work, like do my engineering job and then I'll have to reset my mind and then go to the gym

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and then kind of try and lock in, you know, which is why I kind of like take the training class that

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we take because it's kind of nice to have someone tell you what to do in training versus like

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training on your own. So I kind of have more days, I try to have more days where I'm training with

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someone rather than training with someone else. That way I don't have, I have to think a little

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bit West where I can just balance back and forth, change ideas, stuff like that. And then in the

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training class, I just have someone telling me like the workouts, what to do. But like balancing

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work and climbing is very, I would say the hard part of it is having energy every day to try and

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to try and balance everything because I mean by the end of the day of like, because I mean

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realistically, I mean I've worked a nine to five, but realistically I only worked six hours mainly

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because two of those hours-

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Are you sure you want that going out on the internet?

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No, I mean, no, I mean like in like locked in, like I'm at work for eight hours, but like I'm

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locked in for six, like the first hour is like me trying to like call myself, like get into the

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mindset of getting into work. And at the last hour of the day, I'm trying to like ease down and like

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get ready for training, right? So that's six hours of work, hour in between, and then I have the hour

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lunch. So the nine hour day, but like six hours of mainly working.

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Yeah.

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Right. I mean, and that's, you try to break it down into that so that you can kind of like

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get into different cycles of phases in the day to like when to train yourself to like

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when to lock into work and then when to log out of work. And then trying to make sure you stay

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log out of work so you don't have to think about whatever you're working on and you just worry

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about that tomorrow. And then you kind of lock in the training. And then when you're in training,

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kind of like say like, oh, I should have sent something. I'm like working on a project. Oh,

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I should have sent it. Well, I try to like leave that out of my mind and just kind of be present

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a little bit. Cause if I don't, then I'm going to have a bad session. And it's, and I mean,

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and that's the hard part too in training. It's like sometimes coming from being an outside climber

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to becoming a competition climber. The transition was a little bit difficult for me because in

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competition climbing, you want to flash all the, you want to flash the problem ideally. And then

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in outdoor setting, it's more of like enjoying the process of projecting. You know, I mean,

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yeah, sure. It'd be nice to flash it, flash a boulder outside or whatever. But what makes outdoor

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climbing very fun is the process of projecting, being able to tweak data and sit there and just

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admire the boulder, a little boulder route, and then just kind of climb it once you go for the

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red point and enjoy that. But in comp climbing, you either try it within that session, like in a

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competition setting, especially in a World Cup setting, it's like you either do it or you don't

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because it's going to be gone in the next few hours. Or it's going to be gone the next day.

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And you kind of have to like, what you have to learn how to let go of the things that you

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didn't send and just kind of take what you learned from that experience. And then after that,

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then kind of going back and reflecting off of it, but don't dwell on it and see what you can improve

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on. And I mean, yeah, and I mean, that's like the same thing with balancing work and training. It's

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like you kind of have to go in and out of those phases and then kind of forgetting what you,

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like the mistakes you made prior and kind of moving forward and see how you can improve.

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Okay, so what does your training look like right now with your work schedule?

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Coming up to Innsbruck, it's like three days on straight, one day rest, two days on then rest.

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So I'll do a three to week basically, Mondays rest days, Fridays rest days, and then all

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the days in between our workout days. How tired do you feel third day on? Because

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I never told you this, but my benchmark for my climbing was that I wanted to climb harder than

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you if you were third day on. That's a weird benchmark to say. I need some kind of like

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comparison, otherwise I have no motivation. I mean, that's fair because I mean, I sometimes

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I'll compare myself to Darren. Yeah, exactly. Darren is one of our strong friends in the class.

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I mean, it depends on how well I slept the day, the day's prayer or how well I eat in a week. I

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mean, that's another hard thing about balancing the life and work and training is trying to

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find a way to fit in cooking and or like, you know, cooking. It's hard. Because after a session,

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session ends at nine, I'll get home at like nine, 15, and 30, cook. Oh, you eat after.

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Yeah, I eat after. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, I eat after. Yeah, it starts early because six

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is like right after work. Yeah, six is right after work. I mean, I'm not gonna have it.

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No wonder you always eat a snack during class. Yeah, I always buy a snack during class.

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If I don't buy a snack during class, then I'm just hungry the whole time. Or I'll just eat

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like a late lunch. Yeah. Like I'll eat at like three, two or three and then I'll just, because

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you know, I just, I'm locked in at work and I just like, I can't find the time to eat. I'm just like,

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I'll wait till like later. Yeah. I'll eat my lunch then. And I'll be like, okay, I'll strategically

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place my lunch right before class so that I'm not as hungry during class. And then eat dinner late.

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But yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, that's the, that's what would dictate how tired I would

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be on the third day. I mean, it's different from when I started training out at the beginning of

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the year. I was doing six days on. Yeah. And that was a bad idea. Thinking that like my mindset was

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like, oh, more timing, I can do this. More training means I'm going to get better faster. But that,

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don't ever do that. Yeah. Like don't ever, like, I don't know why I thought that. I mean,

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I did help a little bit, but it started doing a lot of overuse injuries, not injuries, but like,

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I started aches. I started having aches. Yeah. And then like, as I slowly got out of that and started

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doing just five days on, but doing of quality training, but then having good rest in between,

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I started feeling a little bit better. And that's, I mean, that's key things like warm up properly.

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If I don't warm up properly, then I'm going to have a bad session. If I warm up properly,

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it doesn't matter how tired I am. I'm just going to have a decent session if I warm up.

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And I use my warm up as a gauge of how well I'm going to be, how well I feel I'm going to be doing

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that day. And then, and I just accordingly where it's like, Oh, I feel really great. I'm going to

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try really, really hard. It doesn't matter how hard the problem is or how hard these moves are

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going to be or whatever workout we're going to do. It's just going to, I'm going to be like,

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I'm going to try hard. Okay. Yeah. And then if I'm feeling, feeling pretty crappy during warm up,

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then I'm just like, okay, I'm just going to dial down a little bit, still try hard, but

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don't overdo it. Otherwise I'm just going to force and force an injury. Yeah. You know, try hard

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enough that you don't force, you don't get, you don't get injured. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think these

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are like old people thoughts though, because a lot of the pros do six days and like double sessions.

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I mean, I recently, I've been thinking about the five days on with double sessions on some days,

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like just to just split up the time. Yeah. Like, cause I don't want to do a three hour session

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session, but then half of that session is a strength training workout. You know, I want to

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do like three hours, like maybe three hours of quality climbing session and then maybe do like

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the workout in the morning, you know, feel fresh. I like do the workout, rest a little bit during

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the day during work and then go into the climbing session like full on. And that's something that

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I've been thinking of recently. I'm still trying to find that out. And I mean, I have a training

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journal. I don't really write into it. I just like, all I, all I write into it is this is the days I'm

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going to go to climb. This is the workouts I'm going to do. That's it. And then I close the book

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and then remember everything. Forget about the book. Okay. I'll go back to it once in a while and be

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like, okay, I'll write my PRs. Okay. Yeah. Like max pull ups, how much weight I'm using the train

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and how I want to increase that over time. I mean, this is just me as like starting out, like,

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you know, I'm, I'm experimenting with myself because like, I mean, we have coach Amico helping

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us like train and I get ideas of workouts from him, but a lot of the training that I do is,

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is basically kind of, I'm personally putting it together for myself because I know myself,

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I know my body pretty well and I know how to adjust, um, pro, uh, accordingly whenever

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I'm feeling something's not working out. Yeah. So in terms of coaching,

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did you ever have a coach or like currently have a coach? I mean, I considered coach Rico as a

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coach. Okay. Well, like, you know, it's like very, it's different when it's kind of as a group versus

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like a personal. Oh yeah. I mean, I don't think I, no, I don't, I don't think I've ever had like a

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personal coach, like, uh, like tell me specifically, this is what you're going to do. I mean, eventually

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I kind of want to go into that because I just, you know, once I get to a certain point, it's like,

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if I feel like I'm plateauing, I might just like kind of like get coaching, like full coaching,

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like invest in full time coaching. Like this is like one-on-one coaching. Yeah. It's hard to,

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it's hard to, it's kind of hard to find what I prefer one-on-one coaching, but it's hard to,

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it's, it's hard to find that because a lot of the training plans that people put together today,

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it's usually just given to athletes, especially like for people climbing outside, you know.

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Oh sure. Yeah. But like, I don't know, like for climbing for, for competitions, I,

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I don't know where the outlets to look for. Like I, I normally, I just like kind of like start

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Googling things. But then by that, at that point, it's like, I'm ready. It's planning for myself.

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Uh, sure. I mean, I guess when I'm thinking of coaching, I'm not necessarily thinking like,

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oh, someone who just writes a training plan for you, but someone who's like watching you climb

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and giving you feedback on your climbing and what you're doing wrong for like a full hour instead

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of like. Eventually I might want to do it one-on-one, but not, but I still like the group setting

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because in the group setting, it feels nice because you have other people training you on,

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you know, you have a sense of, and I, I mean, that's why I like climbing. It's like the sense

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of community, kind of bouncing off ideas off of each other, even though maybe some data might not

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work for you, but at least you know, uh, based on like, you know, based on their body structure,

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I guess, and like playing height, stuff like that is it, it helps later down the line. If I ever want

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to coach, it's like, oh, maybe I know a certain data for a certain person because this is like

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your side that fits your box. Well, you know, if it doesn't fix your box, fit, fit your box, then

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let's adjust that accordingly based because I, I've talked to other climbers and what their

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thoughts are, their thought processes. And that's why I like the group setting, but it'd be nice to

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just have this one-on-one. Yeah, you should try one. I mean, Enrico does one-on-ones. Yeah, yeah,

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yeah. I still have to ask him, but I'm just always having fun in the class. I never really,

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I always forget. I always forget. Not one day, one day, eventually. So getting to your IFSC

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experience, um, I've been waiting forever to hear about this because it, I mean,

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Innsbruck was a little while ago. Please excuse this brief intermission, but I've gotten a few

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requests for this. So I just wanted to announce that if you're interested in helping support the

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show, my Patreon page is now live. Some perks include ad free, interruption free episodes,

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If you'd like to support the podcast non-monetarily, liking, commenting, and sharing

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helps a great deal as well. Back to the show. So yeah, you just recently went to your first

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ever World Cup for bouldering in Innsbruck, um, which is also kind of like a crazy first

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venue because I think there are more approachable ones or like Salt Lake is like closer at least.

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Salt Lake is closer. I was supposed to go to that, but I think the funding for the organization,

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that for the Guam organization was out there yet. So then they were trying to figure out how to fund

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uh, the athletes and stuff like that. So then I just had to wait for the time, the right time to go.

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And I think Innsbruck was a nice experience to go to, even though talking to some of the climbers

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there, they're like, they're like, oh, it's quite the choice to start at Innsbruck. And even like

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people outside the circuit are like setters that I like Jesse at Flux. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Jesse at

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Flux, he was like, yeah, Innsbruck was quite the choice because I've heard this from a lot of

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climbers that Innsbruck is supposed to be one of the hardest World Cups out of the whole circuit.

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Apparently, uh, not the minor, I didn't know that, but yeah, I was just like, oh, Innsbruck is like

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a nice place to be. Yeah. And a lot of people like to go to that World Cup. It'd be a nice

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opportunity to meet other climbers in the circuit and just kind of learn from that experience. Plus

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it'd be, sometimes you just gotta start hard. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's totally fine. Yeah.

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It's yeah. I just thought, you know, Salt Lake might make more sense. Yeah. It would just be

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easier. It would have been easier to go to. But yeah. So since you're brand new to the circuit,

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I guess take me through the entire process of the comp because like I've interviewed more season

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athletes, but they're like so used to it that they don't really, they're just, they know what

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it's like. So for you not having been to any before, like, what was it like? Did anything like surprise

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you? Um, yeah, I guess like the timing, uh, of when you want to go to, um, the country or city that

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you're, that the World Cup is going to be in because like, you know, you have to need some time

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to acclimate to the time zone, get used to the, you know, get into the groove again after doing

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a long flight. I mean, from, from here, yeah. I mean, like from here to Europe, it's like a

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10 hour flight, depending on where you go. And then, you know, you have to kind of acclimate

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after that, like sitting down the whole time, you know, eating, if you don't bring food with

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you or snacks with you, airport food, trying to react from a getting used to the surroundings,

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you know, learning your way towards the gym, stuff like that. It gets a little stressful.

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See the timing of when we get to the country or city, uh, kind of plays a little bit into how

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well you lean into the competition. How early did you go? Uh, I would say I got there maybe

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five, six days before. Oh, that's so not early enough. A lot of the athletes that I saw there,

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I met there, some of them were there for like maybe a week and a half to two weeks before.

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I mean, some of them train there regularly. So they're either there a month before, you know,

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so it depends on who that depends on the athletes and what fits their budget. And so I think

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that's on what fits their budget and stuff like that or what fits their timeframe. I mean, for me

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working as an engineer, I kind of have the time at where, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to leave

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after a full week of work. So I'll probably leave on a Friday or Saturday and then get there and

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then acclimate. And then, you know, and like, you know, if I'm there like a week or two before,

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I'm still going to be working remote. Oh, you still worked? Yeah. Oh, I know. I don't know.

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Okay. No, because, well, because this was my first one, my first World Cup and I was the only one

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from the organization present. Yeah. It was no, I didn't really have a coach there. We didn't have

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our federation president there or I didn't, we didn't have any other athletes. It was just me

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representing Guam. So I wanted my full attention for the whole thing, like the whole event.

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Yeah. So basically the whole two weeks I was in Innsbruck, I just took, but I regularly,

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like whenever I go, when I travel a lot to other countries or, you know, when I'm on like training,

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sometimes I'll go to visit family in Europe. Oh, sure. Yeah. Or like, you know, or, or like if I'm

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going on a climbing trip to like either train in another gym or, you know, go home to Guam,

362
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:14,240
I will normally work remote. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, somehow got to pay for travel.

363
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:22,080
But I mean, that, that was, yeah. So then timing it was one of it. And then

364
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:30,160
getting, because it was my first time, it's like, sometimes it does suck when you're in a new setting

365
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:38,560
like that for the first time, trying to know someone is key a little bit. Like trying to get to know

366
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:45,200
either people on the circuit or if you're training at the gym before, you know, before the event,

367
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:51,760
try to make maybe like a friend. Yeah. I mean, going alone is crazy. Yeah. It's like you're in a

368
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:57,600
new setting. You don't know anyone at the gym and you know, obviously it's your first time on the

369
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:04,800
circuit and like me not being part of the youth circuit or anything like that. No one really knows

370
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:10,000
me. So then it's just like, it does become a little bit nerve wracking. That's like one thing

371
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,640
I kind of focused on once I got there is to kind of get into a group, get to know people. Well,

372
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:19,840
get to know at least someone. But I mean, luckily I have a friend that lives in Innsbruck. So then

373
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:25,520
I, I did have some sessions with him prior to the event. So then it kind of eased the nerves. But

374
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:30,960
yeah, like the first session I had at the gym, I was like, my heart was racing. It's like, oh my

375
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:36,640
God, it's sinking in. And by the second day I had the session with my friend and then it was like,

376
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:43,040
oh, okay. Everything's relaxed slowly, slowly. Like I'm starting to relax a little bit. And by

377
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:48,800
the time I got into ISO, I made some friends that who are from other countries that are on the

378
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:54,080
circuit. Also they're fighting, it's their debut or they've been on the circuit for like maybe once

379
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:59,840
or one or two World Cups. They've been to one or two World Cups and got to know them a little bit

380
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:05,600
more. Got to learn some, maybe some of their struggles or struggles within their organization

381
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:11,920
in terms of like other stuff. And so it was like kind of nice to have those kinds of conversations

382
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:18,880
with other countries. And then that kind of like, by the time I was in ISO, I didn't think of

383
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:26,640
anything. Like everything was kind of relaxed. It was very nice to see all of the big names in ISO

384
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:33,360
and during training sessions that like in the gym that are like also like training for the World Cup.

385
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:37,040
Kind of, it was definitely a little bit nerve wracking, but it's like after you see them once,

386
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:45,680
it's like, cool. We're just all climbers. It takes some time to sink in, but once it sinks in, it's

387
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:52,960
like you're kind of starting to slowly lock, you're slowly locking in. So like when you saw

388
00:40:52,960 --> 00:41:02,400
the big names like warming up, did that mess with your mind at all? Days prior, sort of, but not on

389
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:08,560
ISO day. Oh really? Yeah. I mean, you already know the skill level and you know the skill gap, but

390
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:13,200
it's like, you know, you're there. Like to me personally, it was like, I'm there to learn

391
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:19,600
from the experience and I'm there to also just try hard and see how much my training has been

392
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:26,960
for the past six months prior has been doing compared to because I mean, I used Innsbruck

393
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:33,440
as a benchmark to see how my training has been doing, working, has been working throughout the

394
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:40,240
six months after, six, seven months after the Oceania qualifiers. Because I did okay at the

395
00:41:40,240 --> 00:41:44,160
Oceania qualifiers and then coming into Innsbruck where it's the hardest, one of the hardest world

396
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:51,280
cups, I think I did okay. Yeah. I could have done better, but because it was my first competition,

397
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:57,760
it was a, I mean, the thing, the key points that I, you know, that people normally would look for,

398
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:04,080
it's like never crossed my mind, but after doing it, it's like, oh, you know, when you're on the

399
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:10,640
floor, like switching beta up something like you kind of, a lot of, I've talked to this about with

400
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:18,720
Enrico where it's like, you, that's somehow, that's how you can tell from the elite and advanced

401
00:42:18,720 --> 00:42:27,440
climbers where sometimes the elite climbers can change beta mid-move, you know, or like even in

402
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:34,480
the, in a dyno movement, they can probably change their beta mid-air. Potentially. I mean, I don't

403
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:43,360
know for sure, but that's like an idea to think about it. Like, you know, but like me, I'm like

404
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:48,080
changing beta while I'm on the floor. Sure. Yeah. Not while I'm on the wall. Cause like, I'm, I'm

405
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:53,520
not searching for the right, I mean, I was, but in some of the movements that you're doing during

406
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:58,240
comps, you're doing a dyno or you're doing like, it's hard to make those micro adjustments in the

407
00:42:58,240 --> 00:43:03,760
air and think about it once you're on the ground, because you tend to be like, oh, that works. And

408
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:09,760
you get stuck in a loop of like, okay, I'm going to keep trying it and, you know, almost works one

409
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:14,800
time. So then you keep, you get stuck into that group. I mean, you, you've competed, you know how

410
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:19,760
that feels. You know how that feels. Well, I don't really have as much, so much time pressure, but

411
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:28,400
yeah. I mean, we had five minutes on the wall in qualifications. I mean, five minutes is, is a rough

412
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:35,200
time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's not enough time to like try and set the, but I mean, it's,

413
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:41,600
you had some time to just have it. It's, it's, it's like the time to like try and like

414
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:47,120
put, give it your all. And I mean, definitely after my qualification round, I felt like I ran her.

415
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:53,760
I ran like five miles. I was like out of breath. I was gassing for air. I mean, cause a lot, like

416
00:43:53,760 --> 00:44:00,640
a lot of it was, a lot of it was just fighting on the wall. And my friend that was in Innsbruck,

417
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,640
that was in the crowd cheering me on. He was like, dude, what is it? He was like, what is it? How

418
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:09,760
does it feel to be up there on the stage? And it's like, honestly, like I, like once you're standing

419
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:18,240
on the stage, like, like when I was up there, for me, it was like, I'm seeing the boulder that I'm

420
00:44:18,240 --> 00:44:25,280
going to climb, but then I'm also seeing someone top next to me, someone trying and falling next

421
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:32,160
to my right and someone topping to my left. And so like, I tried to funnel that out. And then

422
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:37,520
he was like, do you hear the crowd? Like, do you ever like feel like the presence of the crowd?

423
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:44,880
And I'm like, yeah, I do. But once I'm like focused on the climb, every, I like, I, the audio of the

424
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:50,320
crowd, like just tunes out. Like I don't, I don't hear it. All I hear is like, if someone says my

425
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:57,600
name, sure. I mean, obviously like someone's cheering my name or, you know, the announcer,

426
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:03,920
that's it. But I mean, like even that, the announcer would be tuned out already because I'm so focused

427
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:09,200
on the climb. And I think that's just either that's a me thing or if it's something that other

428
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:14,800
athletes may also have, but that personally, that's, that's what happened. Like that's how it felt

429
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:19,840
during the climbs. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's what you want. You don't want to be thinking

430
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:23,280
about everything. You kind of only want to be thinking about the boulder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

431
00:45:24,240 --> 00:45:29,600
But yeah, going back to ISO, since it was your first time, you're not ranked, you must have been

432
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:38,000
in ISO for like ever. Oh, well, so I thought I would, I would have been, well, I'm not ranked,

433
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:43,200
but then because I think I, because I did the oceanic wall fire, I sort of was like a little

434
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:50,480
bit bumped up into the cycle. So I was like, not at the end, but I was near the end. And then some

435
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:58,080
people that would never did youth worlds, youth world cups or, you know, like, you know,

436
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:05,200
world cups or that didn't do the youth circuit. And it's the first time they were on like the

437
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:12,560
end of the list. Oh, okay. Yeah. So how long were you in ISO for? I would say we got into ISO like

438
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:22,720
around noon, noon or like one o'clock in the afternoon. And I didn't get on till eight.

439
00:46:22,720 --> 00:46:28,480
What? Yeah. I mean, I was supposed to get on at seven, but then the rain, the rain,

440
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:36,000
I mean, whatever. Sure. Yeah. It rained, it rained in the middle of ISO. So then people who were

441
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:43,520
halfway through their, their climbs had to stop because it rained. I mean, we could have continued

442
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:51,440
climbing, but then the venue was fully covered. It would have been nice to have were they're out

443
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:58,240
because the mats were not, the mats were wet, which is why they stopped it. The boulders weren't wet,

444
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:11,360
but yeah. So then I had, we, everyone that was like maybe from six PM to eight got pushed back

445
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:17,040
an hour and a half. Wow. Yeah. That is so long though. That's actually longer than I thought.

446
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:22,960
You have people like, I mean, it's funny to think about it, but people who are at the,

447
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:30,960
who start later in the, in the qualification rounds, a lot of them take naps.

448
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:36,400
A lot of them take naps, but sometimes it's nerve wracking to take a nap because you might

449
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:45,920
oversleep. Yeah. Like one of the, one of the guys I met from the Indian team, from the Indian team,

450
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:53,280
they, he took a nap and then he woke, he heard someone fall on the warmup wall next to him.

451
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:57,200
And he thought it was someone trying to wake him up that he was, he didn't make this time.

452
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,640
But he woke up, came back to us and he was like, we were joking around and I was like,

453
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:08,560
yeah, you should have just kept sleeping because it's raining. You know? And you know, we don't,

454
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:13,920
we're delayed by, we don't know how much longer. And we were hoping that it would only be 30

455
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:19,680
minutes, but it turned out to be an hour and a half. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, like a lot of people

456
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:28,400
are, if they're later in, later on the qualification round, they either take a nap and you, or they,

457
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:35,680
and they, or they start warming up like maybe an hour before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What did you do?

458
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:42,640
Did you take a nap? Well, I, to get my like energy going up, I warmed up all the guys that were

459
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:48,560
warming up, ready to go. You warmed up early? I warmed up, well, so I warmed up early, but I

460
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:55,440
didn't like, it was like a half, half ass warmup. Like I'm just like doing a band workout, a band

461
00:48:55,440 --> 00:49:03,520
workout, but like a band warmup and then hanging on the hangboard. It was, I mean, like once I'm

462
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:10,320
warmed up, it's quicker for me to warm up prior to, you know, game time, prior to game time.

463
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:16,560
Yeah. Cause like I've warmed up maybe like a good 15 minutes at the beginning and then rested for

464
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:23,440
the next eight hours. Oh my God. Okay. Rested for the next eight hours, well seven hours,

465
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:30,240
and then I warmed up again prior. Yeah. So, I mean, it definitely sucks to be later in the time

466
00:49:30,240 --> 00:49:35,920
slot, but I mean, it is what it is. Well, you also didn't have your phone. So yeah, we don't have

467
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:41,760
our phones. That's sad around. I guess you talk to people. Yeah. You know, we get to talk to people.

468
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:49,040
Some people are playing like football, soccer, soccer in the warmup areas. Yeah. Or like we're

469
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:56,560
playing like, we're getting to know each other. You know, know some of the climbers. Like I've met

470
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:06,080
the Thailand team are, I think that's how you say his name. And then I met some like people from

471
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:13,040
Cyprus, from the India team. And then, you know, at least I got to know people. Like I met,

472
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:19,520
it's actually the first time I met Al from the US team, the coach for C5. That's the first, I've

473
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:25,920
seen him at the gym coaching C5, but then like, it's the first time I met him. And then I met

474
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:31,600
him and like actually introduced myself. Yeah. I met him there and it's like, you know, it's, you

475
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:37,200
learn how to spend your time in ISO. A lot of the time, like, oh, I actually talked to like some of

476
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:42,240
the Japanese coaches there too, because they, they saw my shirt and Japan's pretty close to Guam.

477
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:49,520
Oh, yeah. So then like, they're like, oh, Guam. Yeah. Like how many of you guys are here? And so

478
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:54,480
they're like, oh, where's the rest of your team? Got to know them. ISO is pretty, it's an interesting,

479
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:59,440
and I think it's different. It's a different experience for everybody. That was just my

480
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:05,600
experience. Like, because I, I want to make friends with other countries and get to know them.

481
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:13,040
That way I have, that way the next time I go to the World Cup, I wouldn't feel so lonely.

482
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:19,600
Yeah. Okay. And so then going out into the first boulder, what was that like

483
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:27,520
first ever World Cup qualification boulder? First boulder was actually, it was interesting

484
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:32,720
because I looked at it, read it as a coordination boulder and like, I was throwing myself at the

485
00:51:32,720 --> 00:51:39,920
boulder. Cause that's, I mean, that's something that I struggled in, in the ocean and qualifiers is that

486
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:48,320
my coach, I mean, the Guam coach noticed that when I'm trying a boulder, I'm not going 100%.

487
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:54,400
I'm like maybe giving like 80%, you know, so that I gave it 100% on the first boulder. I'm like

488
00:51:54,400 --> 00:52:04,960
throwing myself on the Cordo, the Cronician Dino, flying on the mats, but I'm like looking at the

489
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:13,120
boulder and you know, I'm a little bit stumped for the first, like for the first boulders,

490
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:19,440
for the first boulder, because it's like first actual boulder of the World Cup. And so I'm like

491
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:25,120
sitting there stumped and like, I'm trying to read the beta. I'm like, ah, shoot. It's slowly

492
00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:31,120
sinking in. Like I got to read this pretty quick. I give it full, like full 100%. So then I'm like

493
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:38,320
throwing myself at it. Didn't get it, but I felt close. And then, you know, after doing the whole

494
00:52:38,320 --> 00:52:45,760
qualification round, I talked to one of the Australian coaches and he was like, and I was

495
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:51,360
like, exchange your beta with him. I was like, how did the others do it? Like, it was, did I read it

496
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:56,640
correctly? I mean, because I didn't have the Guam coach there, but yeah. And then I was like,

497
00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:02,480
I was definitely reading it wrong. Oh, yeah. Because I mean, I read it right the first attempt

498
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:08,000
and it didn't feel right for me. So then I tried a different way and I stuck it stuck to that beta

499
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:13,520
than I, the second beta that I picked. Do you have videos of your qualification attempts?

500
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:21,440
Yes, but I don't have them saved now. I fall. I will eventually put that together in a video.

501
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:27,440
Okay. Well, I want the videos. So, yeah. It's just going to be a video of videos of me falling.

502
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:33,360
I mean, but we also like can't see the qualification. Yeah, that's true. So it's just, yeah.

503
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:39,600
Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah. I forgot. They should feel like they should air the qualification boulders

504
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:46,800
or at least do, I don't know, highlights, do better highlights of all the athletes versus,

505
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:52,640
yeah, I don't know. Cause you want to be on TV. Yeah. Yeah. I used to get the exposure, especially

506
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:59,520
for the people, for the countries that also have the same situation as Guam, you know, they're

507
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:03,520
small. They want to get the exposure, but it's hard to get that exposure if you're not,

508
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:09,440
you're not higher up on the circuit or something like that. You know, it's hard to get that

509
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:15,520
exposure. So now going into, let's get, let's get your least favorite moment from the comp first.

510
00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:22,240
Uh, like I, you know, I mean the, the after competition feel like you feel like you could

511
00:54:22,240 --> 00:54:28,240
have just done better if you read the beta correctly, stuff like that. Yeah. Um, you know,

512
00:54:28,240 --> 00:54:37,760
because, you know, I, I basically placed last place. I was, I was placed 98, I think 97. I

513
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:46,080
don't remember, but I mean, that, that was like already beyond me, but, um, I guess at the moment

514
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:52,800
it felt pretty bad. Yeah. How did you feel about your performance compared to like yourself?

515
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:58,720
I felt like it did pretty well. Like I was, I think it came down to like reading data properly

516
00:54:58,720 --> 00:55:05,120
and adjusting data properly. And then, um, I don't know, I think I did pretty well. I, I almost saw

517
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:13,280
the zone three of the two, three or three of the problems. I think two, two of the problems. Um,

518
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:19,120
I was hoping there's only the, the, the two slam problem. Those were the two really close

519
00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:25,600
ones where I thought I was going to snag the zone and maybe top it. But, um, I ended up reading the

520
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:32,720
beta completely wrong because I went back, watched my video and then watched how like, I don't know,

521
00:55:32,720 --> 00:55:38,880
but the people who have been posting the sends on Instagram and watching their beta, I was like,

522
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:44,960
man, I knew I did it slightly wrong, but it was, cause a lot of the boulders, they're like,

523
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:50,320
they kept the hand on while I was trying to coordinate, do a coordination, coordination

524
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:54,160
dynamo on a slab when it wasn't really intended, but you could do it that way. It just definitely

525
00:55:54,160 --> 00:56:01,840
makes it harder. Um, some of them kept the hand on. Um, I was doing a shuffle on one of the other

526
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:06,640
slabs where I kind of got this like a little scar on my face. Cause I, okay. Yeah, I saw that.

527
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:12,160
A lot of, so if you, like a lot of the athletes that, like even the females,

528
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:18,400
they're like, always has something on her face. Yeah. Well, like everyone, like all like, you know,

529
00:56:18,400 --> 00:56:26,240
who like fought on slab. Yeah. You even like, uh, like Jesse pills had, like, had the, had the cut,

530
00:56:26,240 --> 00:56:32,880
uh, scuff on her face and like a bunch of the, like, I think, uh, John Wan Chun's little brother,

531
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:37,840
for everything, but yeah, he, it was his debut too. And he had scuff on his face. Like I was like,

532
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:43,840
oh, and the Cyprus team guy, him and I were talking about it. Everyone has the little scar on their

533
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:49,440
face. Yeah. And I was like, oh yeah, I was fighting hard on that slab because I was trying to shuffle

534
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:55,200
and I kept scratching my face on it, but there was a static beta to it. I didn't think of doing

535
00:56:55,200 --> 00:57:03,920
that. So it's like, I think reflecting off of it, I think the least favorite part is like me just

536
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:09,440
not reading the data. Preferably. So then favorite part, I mean, sitting in the athletes box, sitting

537
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:15,760
at the throw off with all the, with all the other world cup athletes, kind of nice, like watching

538
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:20,960
other, like watching the semis, watching the finals, stuff like that. And then there's the

539
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:28,800
the after party. Oh yeah. And the after party. Yeah. Give me the dirt there. Uh, I mean, it was,

540
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:35,520
it was fun. Like I got to know, uh, I got to know better, like the, some of the other, the

541
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:42,880
Thailand guy, I mean, yeah, the guy from Thailand, um, some of the Australian team too, that I didn't

542
00:57:42,880 --> 00:57:48,000
really get, make friends with back in the ocean, ocean qualifiers, got to hang out, hang out with

543
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:55,600
them. Um, met some fans of the Australian team, hung out with, hung out with me. And then like,

544
00:57:57,120 --> 00:58:01,280
you know, everyone was drinking, everyone was having a nice time. And then sharing the dance

545
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:06,080
floor with everyone else was pretty interesting because I have a background in dancing. So then.

546
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:10,240
So you could beat them in some time. I don't know. I mean, I did like,

547
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:15,440
I used to like, cause I used to compete in break dancing. And so then I, when I told

548
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:20,000
some of the Australian guys that I did do that, they're like, Oh, you better, I'm not, I'm not

549
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:23,760
leaving the dance floor unless you bust a move. And so I mean, I did that. It was kind of nice.

550
00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:29,440
There was like different dance circles going on. And so it was kind of cool. And then everyone

551
00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:35,120
were just like getting to know each other. Got to see like, I don't know, like Simon Lorenzi

552
00:58:35,120 --> 00:58:43,440
dancing on the dance floor. Oh, like all the big names like Amish, uh, animal, um,

553
00:58:43,440 --> 00:58:48,720
uh, who else is there? I can't remember. Um, oh, like a bunch of the Austrian team.

554
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:53,440
I think, yeah, a bunch of the German team and stuff like that were there.

555
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:56,560
So it was kind of cool to share the best moves.

556
00:58:58,640 --> 00:59:01,360
Okay. Fair.

557
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:03,360
Yeah.

558
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:08,240
I don't know. I mean, I was the only one that did some break dance moves on the floor,

559
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:10,000
but everyone had some good moves.

560
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:15,920
Yeah. Okay. I don't know how to, I don't know how to go deeper into that, but yeah,

561
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:21,520
that was kind of, it was fun. I guess that was the most memorable cause I got the kind of,

562
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:26,640
it's a different experience, especially in that setting when everyone's so focused

563
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:32,400
and during the, during the competition, when everyone can just like relax during,

564
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:38,240
you know, the after party. It's kind of nice. Okay. And then the, the, the, the, the, the,

565
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:42,800
it's kind of nice. Okay. And, um, favorite moment during the comp.

566
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:54,800
I mean, being there, being, like being, knowing, like go do going through every single boulder,

567
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:03,840
was great. And then knowing that I basically gave it my all was like,

568
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:08,880
that's like the most memorable and my most favorite. Um, I mean, being there is already

569
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:14,800
like an honor. Yeah. So it's, I mean, yeah, I don't know what else to say.

570
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:22,480
Yeah, that's my favorite part. Like being able to try those boulders and have a crowd watch is nice.

571
01:00:22,720 --> 01:00:29,920
And then having a friend in the crowd and the Australian team coaches cheer on, you know,

572
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:35,680
at least having someone cheering your name during, during the comp is also nice too. Yeah.

573
01:00:35,680 --> 01:00:40,640
I mean, it's, it feels, it feels in the moment kind of thing. It's hard to describe.

574
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:44,400
Yeah. It's like a, I made it here moment.

575
01:00:44,400 --> 01:00:50,000
Yeah. It's like, I made it here moment, you know, like I'm like, it shows that like, you know,

576
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:56,240
hard work does pay off, you know, and it, it encourages you to try harder, you know, and,

577
01:00:56,240 --> 01:01:00,640
and, you know, and that's what I wanted to gain from the experience. Yeah.

578
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:06,400
I wish I could have that moment. It's, I mean, it's, it's, it's hard. I mean,

579
01:01:06,400 --> 01:01:12,720
a lot of people are like, and it's, it's, that's the, that's the crazy thing too, because going,

580
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:20,720
be living here in San Diego and meeting people who are like way stronger than me or like,

581
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:25,440
you know, climbing with people who are way stronger than me, you know, and I mean, they sometimes,

582
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:30,960
you know, some people just choose not to compete and, you know, like to just climb outside, but

583
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:39,120
like, it's crazy to think that I myself is representing Guam and, you know, and I, you know,

584
01:01:39,120 --> 01:01:45,600
and climbing with people who are as strong as I am, or like stronger. And it's, it's crazy to think

585
01:01:45,600 --> 01:01:52,960
that, that like, not everyone gets that opportunity. And I feel, I feel very honored and I don't know if

586
01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:58,480
I could say, would say lucky, but like, you know, like it kind of, it's, it's, it's just crazy to

587
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:07,360
think about, like the timing of it all too, like, you know, I just like having, like seeing Guam

588
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:13,600
slowly building up to me, like, you know, being part of the circuit with this. Great.

589
01:02:13,600 --> 01:02:18,480
Yeah. I guess, do you ever feel kind of like weird that you,

590
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:24,880
I don't know, like that you're able to like be on the world cup circuit, even though when you climb

591
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:32,080
here, sometimes you like lose the comps. I don't know how to phrase that any better. You know what

592
01:02:32,080 --> 01:02:38,480
I mean. I know what you mean. And it definitely feels odd. But I mean,

593
01:02:40,080 --> 01:02:43,920
Take what you can get, I guess. Yeah, take what you can get, but like you take every opportunity

594
01:02:43,920 --> 01:02:52,320
that you can, if you have it available to you, because, you know, you have nothing to lose

595
01:02:52,320 --> 01:03:00,880
realistically. Like you're, you're, you're going in for the experience to become a better climber,

596
01:03:00,880 --> 01:03:08,160
right? And, and to build it up for Guam. And to build it up. And, you know,

597
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:14,560
I mean, like a lot of the guys here, a lot of my friends here are like, don't like think,

598
01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:19,600
don't have the imposter syndrome, you know, don't think that you don't deserve you there,

599
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:25,040
because, hey, you're one of the strong, your climbers, one of the stronger climbers from Guam,

600
01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:31,600
you know, they want you to represent Guam, you know, then, you know, all this stuff. And I'm like,

601
01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:36,080
okay, yeah, it's nice to think of that, you know, even though, you know, there's definitely other

602
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:42,480
people that could be on the world circuit, but, you know, but then the, the pool within their

603
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:48,880
country or whatever, you know, is stacked. And, you know, it's, it's crazy. But I mean, like, you

604
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:55,120
know, Guam is still new to climbing. So, you know, you take every opportunity that you can get,

605
01:03:55,120 --> 01:04:00,720
so that you can build it to be even stronger. You know, so I mean, sure, I have those thoughts in

606
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:06,640
my head, like, why am I even here? But I mean, like, it's for the greater good for, you know,

607
01:04:06,640 --> 01:04:12,880
it's for something even bigger, like, think, I think it's there's a bigger picture to it. And I'm

608
01:04:12,880 --> 01:04:20,000
like a small piece of it. Yeah. So, yeah. And I guess it's also like, you know, like, I think

609
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:27,120
and I'm like a small piece of it. Yeah. So, yeah. And I guess it's also like, sort of based on

610
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:34,240
the opportunities that you grew up with, because you didn't have climbing there. Yeah. And then,

611
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:38,880
obviously, like here in the US, it's already a lot more established. So, yeah, you've kind of always

612
01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:45,280
had those opportunities. Yeah. And it's, it's sort of like makes me hungry for more climbing. Like,

613
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:51,600
it's like, it, I feel like it's, it's weird to say it like this, but it's like, it feels like it's

614
01:04:51,600 --> 01:05:00,880
supplementing my, like, my drive to climb even harder. I used to think like, oh, V10 is impossible,

615
01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:05,280
or like, you know, oh, yeah, you know, or I used to think that, you know, anything past like,

616
01:05:06,240 --> 01:05:12,000
V10 is going to be so unreachable for me. And like, you know, recently, I like I've gotten so much

617
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:18,720
better, like I'm slowly reaching higher grades and stuff like that outside. And, you know, I'm slowly

618
01:05:18,720 --> 01:05:25,280
like executing my moves in comp style stuff. And you know, it's like, there's no, you can visualize

619
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:30,320
the ceiling, but you know, you could still go past it, you know, and, and, and that's, that's my

620
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:36,400
thought process on that. If you can take the opportunity, you can break past your ceiling

621
01:05:36,400 --> 01:05:43,200
that you're seeing that, you know, maybe you can be better. Okay. Yeah. That's a good statement.

622
01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:48,960
Yeah. Okay. Do you want to talk about the Climbing Gems Chalk Bag that you received?

623
01:05:48,960 --> 01:05:58,560
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this is a chalk bag from Climbing Gems. The owner of Climbing Gems,

624
01:05:58,560 --> 01:06:07,920
her name's Anne and she's from Australia. I'm, the Guam team met her during the Oceania Qualifiers.

625
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:16,480
And then, so that's kind of, that's where the friendship started. And so, yeah, so she, we've,

626
01:06:16,480 --> 01:06:23,200
we followed each other on Instagram. We shared back and forth stuff like, oh, you know, like talk bag,

627
01:06:23,200 --> 01:06:29,200
talk and like climbing talk and stuff like that. And then when I posted that I was heading towards

628
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:35,120
Innsbruck, she messaged me and it's like, ah, man, it would have been great to have someone,

629
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:42,240
you know, test out my chalk bucket. Cause she has the Paraclimber, I forgot the Paraclimber from the

630
01:06:42,240 --> 01:06:55,360
great GV team. Oh yeah, Anita. Yeah. She sent her to test it out on the Paraclimbing Elite. And so

631
01:06:55,360 --> 01:07:01,600
she was like, oh, I wish someone would test out my bouldering bag. Right. Okay. Or, you know,

632
01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:07,360
the chalk bucket. And I was like, I can test it out, but I think it might be too late for you to

633
01:07:07,360 --> 01:07:13,040
ship it. I'm literally on my flight to Innsbruck. And she's like, don't worry, I'll think about,

634
01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:22,160
I'll figure something out. So she literally makes this while I'm on the flight. Whoa. Express shifts

635
01:07:22,160 --> 01:07:31,440
it to my Airbnb in Innsbruck. And she was like, hopefully it gets to you on time. Cause you were

636
01:07:31,440 --> 01:07:36,160
only there five days in advance. Yeah. I was like, wait, five days in advance. And she was like,

637
01:07:36,160 --> 01:07:40,560
yeah, I was like, wait, five days, well, five, six days in advance. And I was like, oh, I don't

638
01:07:40,560 --> 01:07:47,040
think it's going to make it. And so she sends it and literally the day before it got to the door.

639
01:07:47,760 --> 01:07:52,480
And I was like, oh, it's meant to be. And so I get to test it out. It's really nice. I like the,

640
01:07:52,480 --> 01:07:57,840
it's very different because I mean, a lot of companies do the magnetic enclosure,

641
01:07:58,640 --> 01:08:02,640
but because it's still like a, I guess you could say prototype model.

642
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:09,200
I got to test it out and there's definitely things to change on it, but you know, that's part of the,

643
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:15,200
that was part of the conversation is that I was supposed to test it out and give her feedback,

644
01:08:15,200 --> 01:08:19,280
you know, and stuff like that. And it was really nice because the material of the shirt that she

645
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:26,080
used, I mean, this is the logo, the brand, the logo of the brand. And the shirt is like

646
01:08:26,080 --> 01:08:32,000
really high, it's like heavy duty. And a lot of people, I've been getting a lot of comments

647
01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:38,320
on it of people wondering, is it Tyvek or not? I was like, no, it's a t-shirt.

648
01:08:38,320 --> 01:08:39,600
What is Tyvek?

649
01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:43,520
Tyvek is the fabric you underlay your tent with.

650
01:08:43,520 --> 01:08:44,560
Oh yeah, yeah, okay.

651
01:08:44,560 --> 01:08:51,360
Yeah. Yeah. And so I was like, no, no, no, it's a t-shirt. So that, I mean, like at least the fabric

652
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:57,440
that she uses for her t-shirts are very high quality. And then the magnetic enclosure is

653
01:08:57,440 --> 01:09:01,920
pretty strong, not too strong that you can't, it's a hard time opening it.

654
01:09:02,800 --> 01:09:05,600
Yeah. Maybe after a long session.

655
01:09:05,600 --> 01:09:11,520
Yeah, I mean, after a long session, but at least like most of the time, like when I throw my bag

656
01:09:11,520 --> 01:09:16,480
down and it closes, it's kind of nice, especially if you're worried about chalk falling out. It has

657
01:09:16,480 --> 01:09:22,240
like this nice little feature of the jeans at the bottom. She ran out of t-shirt materials, so then

658
01:09:22,240 --> 01:09:29,760
she used like an old denim. And I guess that's also another great thing about it is she uses

659
01:09:29,760 --> 01:09:41,200
recycled, you know, recycled fabric, basically stuff like old t-shirts, old pants. Or like if you

660
01:09:41,200 --> 01:09:48,320
have a worn out team t-shirt, she can also, you know, do that. It's sort of like a memento

661
01:09:48,320 --> 01:09:54,080
kind of thing if you want to have some sentimental value in chocolate. And so she does that. She does

662
01:09:54,080 --> 01:09:59,840
like the little custom orders and stuff like that. And I think she has a website, but if you message

663
01:09:59,840 --> 01:10:08,320
her on her Instagram, she'll lead you in the right direction to kind of get, get the right

664
01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:14,320
to maybe eventually get one of these. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I will link her Instagram in the description

665
01:10:14,320 --> 01:10:22,320
so people can check that out. So moving on to the Guam team, a lot of people don't know about,

666
01:10:23,200 --> 01:10:29,600
watch about Guam, like what's the vibe there? Where is it? What the climbing scene is like there?

667
01:10:29,600 --> 01:10:39,680
Yeah. I mean, so Guam is in the Oceania region, basically. It is, I would say, a four and a half

668
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:46,080
hour flight in Japan. So if you're looking at the world map, if you're looking at Japan and you're

669
01:10:46,080 --> 01:10:53,840
looking at the Philippines, you basically draw a line from Japan south, south, southeast, and then

670
01:10:53,840 --> 01:11:01,040
directly east of the Philippines. It's, it's a small island. It's about 15 miles wide, 32 north to

671
01:11:01,040 --> 01:11:06,560
south. Oh, it's pretty small. Wow. Yeah. It's pretty small. Speed limit is like 35 miles per hour.

672
01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:10,880
Okay. So like if you wanted to do like around the island trip, you could do it in a day.

673
01:11:10,880 --> 01:11:16,960
Oh yeah. It's a US territory. So it does do miles. Yes. Yes. It's a US territory. So yeah. And a lot

674
01:11:16,960 --> 01:11:23,760
of people mistake that, that, you know, when we, a lot of people that move from Guam to the United

675
01:11:23,760 --> 01:11:29,200
States, mainland, or like to other countries, a lot of them, a lot of us are complimented about our

676
01:11:29,200 --> 01:11:34,240
English. Oh, okay. Your English is very well. And I was like, nah, I mean, English is our first

677
01:11:34,240 --> 01:11:42,320
language. The local language though, and the local people are known as Chamorro. So, so we're like,

678
01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:48,960
you know, the Chamorro people and it's, it's, it's an Austronesian descent, I guess you could say.

679
01:11:48,960 --> 01:11:55,920
It, we, we like, like most of the Oceania region, it's like Austronesian, Polynesian kind of,

680
01:11:56,640 --> 01:12:02,400
the set. So then mostly I believe it, if I remember correctly, sorry if I'm wrong,

681
01:12:03,200 --> 01:12:07,680
I believe it. I remember learning in my, when I was in college in Guam, I remember

682
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:13,680
in my Guam history class, it was Austronesia. So we're in the Pacific, we're US territory.

683
01:12:14,720 --> 01:12:19,280
You know, we have a naval base, we have an air force base. So we're basically a tactical

684
01:12:20,320 --> 01:12:25,280
region. We're a tactical island, I guess. I mean, it was, yeah. And that's, that's how we gain US

685
01:12:25,280 --> 01:12:29,920
citizenship. And, you know, there's a lot of political aspects to it that I don't really want

686
01:12:29,920 --> 01:12:35,840
to go into. But I mean, yeah, Guam, so there's a lot of political aspects to it. So I think

687
01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:49,280
that's where Guam is located. It's a nice island, very high tourist scene. And used to have a lot of

688
01:12:49,280 --> 01:12:57,040
Japanese tourists recently been getting a lot of Korean tourists, stuff like that, from other

689
01:12:57,040 --> 01:13:03,280
Asian countries come visit Guam for like vacation. It's like the Hawaii of Asia, sort of.

690
01:13:03,280 --> 01:13:04,480
Oh, okay.

691
01:13:04,480 --> 01:13:10,480
Sort of. I guess you could say it like that. Yeah. And then like the climbing community started

692
01:13:10,480 --> 01:13:15,840
recent, the climbing community has been there for a bit. But it's very, very hush hush down low a

693
01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:22,560
little bit for a while. And then when they opened up the commercial gym, it blew up.

694
01:13:23,520 --> 01:13:26,160
So is there like an outdoor climbing scene too?

695
01:13:26,160 --> 01:13:33,520
Oh, yeah. So that's how the old climbing community was. It was word of mouth. And it was like,

696
01:13:33,520 --> 01:13:39,840
if people wanted to climb outdoors. But there's not a lot of boulders and it's a lot of

697
01:13:40,640 --> 01:13:47,600
lean roots. But there's a lot of established lead roots. And sometimes even like cave roots,

698
01:13:47,600 --> 01:13:53,280
like you go into a cave and you climb. It's a little weird, but a lot of the,

699
01:13:53,840 --> 01:13:57,680
we're slowly developing. We're hoping to develop eventually.

700
01:13:57,680 --> 01:14:06,640
There are the t-nuts, the t-nuts, the anchors that were used in the established roots were all steel.

701
01:14:06,640 --> 01:14:09,040
So all they're, they're all rusted out.

702
01:14:09,040 --> 01:14:11,040
Oh, what do people usually use?

703
01:14:11,040 --> 01:14:16,320
No, they're normally it's steel, but if you're by the ocean and it's very salty,

704
01:14:16,320 --> 01:14:17,200
Oh, gotcha.

705
01:14:17,200 --> 01:14:24,320
you want to use titanium bolts and titanium gear. So then it doesn't wear out in a corrosive

706
01:14:24,320 --> 01:14:38,320
environment. So then the Guam coach and some other people are planning, slowly planning on

707
01:14:38,320 --> 01:14:46,560
re-establishing those roots and putting up new ones. It's just finding the money to buy all of

708
01:14:46,560 --> 01:14:55,840
the titanium bolts and then finding the time to go and put those roots up. And which is why

709
01:14:55,840 --> 01:15:01,600
like the Guam coach is always like, we need you here. We need you here. We need someone to start

710
01:15:01,600 --> 01:15:06,640
FA-ing everything. And I was like, ah, I mean, I could, but it's all weed. I have a boulder.

711
01:15:06,640 --> 01:15:13,600
I mean, and we do have some boulders, but a lot of them are like the top outs are like,

712
01:15:13,600 --> 01:15:21,200
have heavy shrubs. It has like trees on top of the boulders, mosques and stuff like that.

713
01:15:21,200 --> 01:15:27,680
And, and, oh, and for people who are curious, the rock type is limestone. It's like the very sharp,

714
01:15:28,960 --> 01:15:34,160
sharp limestone. Yeah. People who like to scramble. Some people like to scramble on top of the

715
01:15:34,160 --> 01:15:40,160
limestone hillsides by the, by the ocean. And a lot of them usually come back down.

716
01:15:40,160 --> 01:15:44,800
From those heights with a lot of cuts on their legs because it's very sharp. And like,

717
01:15:45,520 --> 01:15:50,320
I feel like you can slice your hand off some of the limestone. I don't know what to compare it

718
01:15:50,320 --> 01:15:56,960
to though, cause it's, it's basically coral limestone. I don't know if it's similar to

719
01:15:59,040 --> 01:16:03,600
like, like Spanish limestone. I'm not sure. I mean, you don't,

720
01:16:03,600 --> 01:16:06,400
I don't even know what limestone is.

721
01:16:06,400 --> 01:16:10,640
Maybe your disperse could probably, your disperse could probably give some insight on that.

722
01:16:12,160 --> 01:16:18,560
Yeah. I mean, like the, there's, there's slowly establishing some, there's like a lot of the

723
01:16:18,560 --> 01:16:25,680
boulders that they have currently are like, maybe I think the max grade that they have right now is

724
01:16:25,680 --> 01:16:31,520
like, I can't remember, but then Mike, the coach there was like saying that there's a potential

725
01:16:31,520 --> 01:16:37,040
V10 and we don't know who can FA it. And they're asking me to do it. But whenever I'm there,

726
01:16:37,040 --> 01:16:43,440
I'm working and I usually work California time. So then it's, so I'm like very tired by the time

727
01:16:44,640 --> 01:16:50,240
they want me to, they want to go outside and, but maybe the next time around when I go back home,

728
01:16:50,240 --> 01:16:54,480
I think try and FA it. We'll see. We'll see. Try it. Yeah.

729
01:16:54,480 --> 01:17:00,640
Okay. So, so I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

730
01:17:00,640 --> 01:17:06,160
yeah. So then, well, maybe Guam can just be like a, a very comp focused.

731
01:17:06,800 --> 01:17:12,880
Yeah. I mean that, yeah, I think they started out that way because actually a fun fact for the,

732
01:17:14,080 --> 01:17:25,760
from the, of the team is that the, so me go living here in SD and then one of the female climbers

733
01:17:25,760 --> 01:17:30,720
used to live in the Bay area and climb over there. So she's like sort of our lead specialist.

734
01:17:30,720 --> 01:17:33,760
Oh cool. Yeah. She mainly likes to climb lead and she's,

735
01:17:33,760 --> 01:17:37,920
we watched her during the Oceania qualifiers and I was like, she's way better than me at lead.

736
01:17:37,920 --> 01:17:43,680
Okay. Yeah. She's crazy strong at lead, but yeah, but, and you know, and so she's like very strong

737
01:17:43,680 --> 01:17:50,720
at lead. So she's like our female lead specialist. And so she can, she trains the other people on the

738
01:17:50,720 --> 01:17:58,880
team on lead and, and in the comp style stuff, our coach and the Guam team, he's actually from

739
01:17:58,880 --> 01:18:04,240
Santa Barbara and he knows a lot of my friends from college. So it's, it's, it's pretty small world

740
01:18:05,680 --> 01:18:10,960
in terms of the climbing world. Cause it's like when I first met the team or like when I first

741
01:18:10,960 --> 01:18:19,280
met the crew back home, I was like, oh, I was like, I didn't even know that you guys were here.

742
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:22,880
Yeah. I wish I knew that before the last time I was here. So that I kind of like

743
01:18:22,880 --> 01:18:26,640
met you guys. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, that's like nice little fun fact that

744
01:18:27,200 --> 01:18:32,960
some, so there's some people that have climbed here and brought, you know, the style, like the

745
01:18:32,960 --> 01:18:38,800
comp style too. Cause our head coach likes comp style. Nice. Yeah. At least they have that.

746
01:18:38,800 --> 01:18:45,120
Yeah. That's good. Okay. And you mentioned that some people on the team are still really new.

747
01:18:45,120 --> 01:18:54,320
Yeah. I would say besides the coach, the lead specialist, Vicki, who is our female lead specialist

748
01:18:55,200 --> 01:19:04,480
and then me, everyone else has been climbing for less than a year. That's crazy. I think there's

749
01:19:04,480 --> 01:19:09,280
some people that may have like picked up climbing a little bit earlier before it opened up. Cause

750
01:19:09,280 --> 01:19:13,040
we have, Oh yeah. Cause the gym is there. Oh actually no, we have one more guy. He's like

751
01:19:13,040 --> 01:19:19,520
the oldest guy in our team. He used to live here in San Diego. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. Is this like the

752
01:19:19,520 --> 01:19:28,080
spot? Well, cause he's a, he's a, he's like a, I think he works for the coast guard, but he does

753
01:19:28,080 --> 01:19:34,240
a lot. He's actually, so one of the guys on our team was the oldest on our team. He competes in

754
01:19:34,240 --> 01:19:41,600
Ninja warrior. Oh yeah. And he actually has a Ninja warrior gym back home. Oh fun. Yeah. And so

755
01:19:41,600 --> 01:19:48,080
I remember seeing him here. He used to, I think he used to climb at the old Grotto G1.

756
01:19:48,800 --> 01:19:55,120
Well, I just the original Grotto, not G1. And so that's when I first saw him and I saw him

757
01:19:55,120 --> 01:20:00,880
wearing a long shirt and that was, this was like back in like 2019. And so, you know, and he moved

758
01:20:00,880 --> 01:20:07,040
back and I noticed, and then he opened up in Georgia and stuff like that. And so there's,

759
01:20:07,040 --> 01:20:12,800
so he's like, he's been climbing for a bit. And then there's another guy on our team, Mike. He,

760
01:20:14,400 --> 01:20:22,000
uh, he lived in Japan for like college, I think for, for school a little bit for maybe like a year

761
01:20:22,000 --> 01:20:28,000
and he picked up climbing there. And so there's a handful of us that have been climbing for maybe

762
01:20:28,000 --> 01:20:33,840
a little bit more than a year, me being six years and then maybe Vicky being like four or five years

763
01:20:33,840 --> 01:20:41,440
also. And then our head coach Noah, he's been climbing just as maybe longer than me. And then

764
01:20:41,440 --> 01:20:47,360
everyone else is less than eight when the gym opened. Yeah. Yeah. So it's crazy. And then, but

765
01:20:48,560 --> 01:20:57,920
a lot of the, like, I've noticed a lot of the newer climbers that are coming from Guam, they pick it

766
01:20:57,920 --> 01:21:04,960
up very easily. It's, it's crazy to see it. Like a lot of the newer guys, they're just like,

767
01:21:06,000 --> 01:21:11,840
very curious, like comp kids. And they're, well, they're young, but not like not comp kid,

768
01:21:11,840 --> 01:21:17,120
but not, not youth young, but they're very curious and they're just getting really, really good,

769
01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:22,880
really fast. So hopefully we'll get to see something happen in the next few years. Yeah. Uh,

770
01:21:22,880 --> 01:21:31,680
in terms of like excelling and comp. Hopefully, well, we'll see. Uh, I have high hopes, but yeah.

771
01:21:31,680 --> 01:21:37,120
And I mean, it'll take some time. It'll take time, but we need that. The thing is that we need that

772
01:21:37,120 --> 01:21:44,080
exposure. And so a lot of us are going out of the way and like, you know, going to comps or like,

773
01:21:44,800 --> 01:21:50,000
maybe going to a comp and not competing, but just like observe, you know, or going to other gyms

774
01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:55,360
outside the Guam gym where maybe the setting is a little bit different and they can train a little

775
01:21:55,360 --> 01:22:00,880
bit harder. Yeah. And it helps to have someone to look up to. So yeah, you gotta get out there.

776
01:22:00,880 --> 01:22:06,800
Yeah. I mean, a lot of them asked me for advice. Uh, like, I mean, I'll bounce off Noah, the coach,

777
01:22:06,800 --> 01:22:12,240
and it's just like, you know, it's at least that's why he's like, we need you here so that they have

778
01:22:12,240 --> 01:22:16,960
someone to bounce off of usually, but not like occasionally when you messaging us and stuff like

779
01:22:16,960 --> 01:22:23,760
that. Yeah. I mean, like it's, it's sometimes I feel like I have like, uh, FOMO where it's like,

780
01:22:23,760 --> 01:22:27,680
ah, I'm missing out so much. And it's like, this is all experienced with the team, but I mean, like

781
01:22:28,240 --> 01:22:33,120
sometimes like the sacrifice of living out here and like, well, also working as an engineer,

782
01:22:33,120 --> 01:22:38,960
but also training out here, getting experience here and trying to bring it back. It's, it's,

783
01:22:38,960 --> 01:22:44,720
it's all worth it in the end. Yeah. Oh, and a little piece of, I guess, I mean, I'm going off

784
01:22:44,720 --> 01:22:52,320
a tangent, a little piece of climbing history of Guam. Uh, we heard this from the vice president

785
01:22:52,320 --> 01:22:59,680
of the, of IFSC. I think the vice president of IFSC is from Japan. I think so. I could be wrong,

786
01:22:59,680 --> 01:23:06,720
but well, we met him at the ocean and qualifiers, but he told us that Akio Noguchi started climbing

787
01:23:06,720 --> 01:23:13,200
because she visited Guam. What? Yeah. Well, cause she, uh, yeah, that's the best little piece of

788
01:23:13,200 --> 01:23:22,720
history. Um, he, like when she was a kid, she, her and her family visited Guam. She climbed the tree.

789
01:23:23,440 --> 01:23:28,560
Oh, okay. She climbed like a coconut tree, got obsessed with climbing and picked up climbing,

790
01:23:28,560 --> 01:23:32,160
I guess. I guess that's how the story went. I could be wrong, but that's what I heard.

791
01:23:32,800 --> 01:23:39,360
So that's a little climbing history from Guam. Yeah. I don't know how long ago that was when

792
01:23:39,360 --> 01:23:44,640
Akio Noguchi was a little kid. Okay. So she didn't get on any of like the actual

793
01:23:44,640 --> 01:23:50,080
limestone icons. Yeah. I don't know, but she, they said that she was climbing a coconut tree and she

794
01:23:50,080 --> 01:23:54,960
was obsessed with climbing. That's good to know. And I think that was the last question I had.

795
01:23:54,960 --> 01:24:00,480
So we'll just move on to the couple of discord questions that we got. Um, what made you decide

796
01:24:00,480 --> 01:24:07,360
to take part in world cups? Um, if you're an average climber, is there anything in it other

797
01:24:07,360 --> 01:24:14,640
than the experience? I imagine it's a costly affair. Yeah. I mean, I mean, not just, I mean,

798
01:24:14,640 --> 01:24:21,680
sure. It's for the experience, but it's, it's putting your foot through the door. Like you,

799
01:24:21,680 --> 01:24:28,960
basically you're, you're, I know, like I'm stepping into like a domain of like bleak climbers and like,

800
01:24:28,960 --> 01:24:39,840
I know I'm not at that level, but just that alone will help expose, um, a lot. I mean, there's,

801
01:24:40,480 --> 01:24:45,440
I mean, I don't know the political aspect to it, but it's like, the more exposure you get,

802
01:24:46,160 --> 01:24:52,320
the more the, whatever organization is in charge of funding all these sporting,

803
01:24:52,320 --> 01:24:59,600
uh, funding these athletes, you know, you want that exposure, even though you know,

804
01:25:00,160 --> 01:25:08,800
where you're standing is compared to the rest of the circuit, because it shows to whatever head

805
01:25:08,800 --> 01:25:16,080
organization that, um, you know, we have, we're putting our foot through the door. We're getting

806
01:25:16,080 --> 01:25:23,120
that experience, you know, it's, and then it starts building, building up. Cause I mean, you know,

807
01:25:23,840 --> 01:25:30,640
there's a history of athletes not being paid enough, you know, um, and then it's not in,

808
01:25:30,640 --> 01:25:38,240
not just in climbing, you know, like looking into the Olympics right now, right? Women's rugby hasn't

809
01:25:38,240 --> 01:25:46,160
been well known, but because of the Olympics and them winning bronze, you know, you never know the

810
01:25:46,160 --> 01:25:52,000
outcome, you know, you, I could just be, have, I could be an average, I could be having a good day

811
01:25:52,000 --> 01:25:58,640
that day and I could just maybe go from place 98 to like halfway through this halfway through the

812
01:25:58,640 --> 01:26:06,400
state, you know, that big step is, is huge, you know, compared like sure, like I can be average,

813
01:26:06,400 --> 01:26:14,160
but compared to when you see that gain in experience, people will catch eye to that. You

814
01:26:14,160 --> 01:26:20,320
know, people are going to notice that it may not be to the normal person. It could be to like an

815
01:26:20,320 --> 01:26:28,880
organization that pays attention to the climbing, to, to whatever sport that you have, um, uh, you

816
01:26:28,880 --> 01:26:34,160
know, representing whatever country you have. And so then it kind of helps build and it goes back to

817
01:26:34,160 --> 01:26:42,160
building the community and building the sport back home is because, you know, if we can somehow

818
01:26:43,120 --> 01:26:51,040
catch on the eyes of more people, either from the island of Guam or people who pay attention to

819
01:26:51,040 --> 01:26:59,280
sports, then we can somehow get funding and get better programs for the youth team. And then maybe

820
01:26:59,280 --> 01:27:04,880
the youth team and then maybe we can build a stronger team, you know, that that's, and that's

821
01:27:04,880 --> 01:27:12,720
my perspective on it. Um, and, you know, and I'm using this opportunity to also just grow. I mean,

822
01:27:13,440 --> 01:27:17,760
I don't know, maybe I will eventually become stronger and maybe climb better at these both.

823
01:27:19,360 --> 01:27:25,920
Um, we'll see eventually in the next four, four years, if I still continue competing, but at

824
01:27:25,920 --> 01:27:33,200
least there's some kind of foundation that the, that the team back home can build on, you know,

825
01:27:33,200 --> 01:27:38,560
and there's the saying that the, that the team likes to say, there's the motto of the gym,

826
01:27:38,560 --> 01:27:44,720
which is from the ground up. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's like

827
01:27:44,720 --> 01:27:51,680
the motto of our gym is from the ground up because, you know, we start from nothing and we're just

828
01:27:51,680 --> 01:27:57,120
going to build up from there. And you know, when you build something coming from an engineer that

829
01:27:57,120 --> 01:28:03,600
works on structures, you want to build the strong foundation, you know, the, you know, you may not

830
01:28:03,600 --> 01:28:09,040
have the strongest climbers in that foundation, but at least they're laying the lines, they're laying

831
01:28:09,840 --> 01:28:17,520
the, you know, the re the reinforcement and all that stuff to help build the team for future

832
01:28:17,520 --> 01:28:22,160
generations. Yeah. I mean, certainly if I were you, I would take every opportunity. Yeah. Cause

833
01:28:22,160 --> 01:28:27,920
it's just, it's just cool. Yeah. And it's really cool. I mean, I've definitely like second guessed

834
01:28:27,920 --> 01:28:32,800
it when they first made the team. I was like, Oh my God, it's not, it's a lot of money for traveling.

835
01:28:33,520 --> 01:28:39,920
I'm going to have to dip into my savings a little bit. You know, I have to, you know, I mean, I,

836
01:28:39,920 --> 01:28:46,720
I mean, sure. I, I mean, I, to make things fair, I also tried out for the team. I had to fly back

837
01:28:46,720 --> 01:28:53,600
home and that's a lot of money to fly back home. Yeah. It's pretty far. And so I, I definitely

838
01:28:53,600 --> 01:29:00,960
second guessed it. I talked to my friends at the gym, my friends from college who also climb and,

839
01:29:00,960 --> 01:29:08,320
you know, and they were like, yeah, I mean, what's there to lose other than money, other than, you

840
01:29:08,320 --> 01:29:16,160
know, spending the money, but at least you're doing something for the future of climbing in Guam. And

841
01:29:16,160 --> 01:29:23,360
I was like, yeah, I mean, that's, and I, and that's at least like one of my climbing goals is to,

842
01:29:24,480 --> 01:29:30,560
it's always been one of my climbing goals. Once I started climbing was to build the community. Like

843
01:29:30,560 --> 01:29:37,040
I mentioned earlier, it was to build a community in Guam. And you know, since there's already a gym,

844
01:29:37,040 --> 01:29:42,560
maybe I can open a training center, you know, that's, you know, that caters to the team.

845
01:29:42,560 --> 01:29:49,200
Yeah. I think that makes sense. I mean, to me at least, because I've also obviously spent a lot of

846
01:29:49,200 --> 01:29:55,840
time and money getting involved in this climbing scene, either through like competitions or like

847
01:29:55,840 --> 01:30:03,760
going to see, just like see the world cups. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's definitely an investment

848
01:30:03,760 --> 01:30:11,760
and investment, a personal investment to do all this stuff. But you know, sometimes you kind of

849
01:30:11,760 --> 01:30:16,960
look at the big picture and sometimes you just kind of, you look at the big picture and you just

850
01:30:16,960 --> 01:30:25,440
kind of brush it over and say, it's for something bigger. Yeah. Okay. And so then what is your plan

851
01:30:25,440 --> 01:30:32,080
for the future? Are you going to go to all bouldering world cups? Eventually slowly depends on how

852
01:30:32,080 --> 01:30:42,160
funding will go for the team and you know, whoever gets better in the team. Because we ideally,

853
01:30:42,160 --> 01:30:48,400
we want to send each and every one of our athletes so that everyone gets the same experience that I

854
01:30:48,400 --> 01:30:56,240
had. And you know, because I mean, we only like, we only have our local comps. And you know, we

855
01:30:56,240 --> 01:31:02,240
don't have other setters from other countries or you know, other gyms, we only have the one gym and

856
01:31:02,240 --> 01:31:08,000
we only have the one's head setter. So then, you know, we don't have that much exposure. So a lot

857
01:31:08,000 --> 01:31:17,840
of them are going to be competing in the world cups. And then for me personally, I would like to

858
01:31:17,840 --> 01:31:24,720
go do a full circuit of bouldering world cup and then maybe eventually add in league.

859
01:31:24,720 --> 01:31:34,800
Eventually, we'll see, we'll see how that goes. But as for now, it's going to be periodically.

860
01:31:35,760 --> 01:31:43,040
I know some of us will be going not to Prague, because we have a local comp happening back home

861
01:31:43,040 --> 01:31:52,000
in September, which I'll be attending. But a lot of a handful of us will be going to World Cup Seoul

862
01:31:52,000 --> 01:32:00,800
and Korea. So yeah, I mean, I guess expect me to be there. But I mean, they don't air the

863
01:32:01,760 --> 01:32:08,160
qualification round, so you won't really see me. I'll probably be posting if I, you know,

864
01:32:09,280 --> 01:32:14,240
while I'm there. And if I'm not competing, then I'm going to be there to support the team,

865
01:32:14,240 --> 01:32:18,320
because that's part of my travel route right now.

866
01:32:18,320 --> 01:32:22,160
Okay. So there's multiple people from Guam going to Seoul.

867
01:32:22,160 --> 01:32:30,800
Yeah, I think so Vicky, the female on our team is for sure. She will most likely do both boulder

868
01:32:30,800 --> 01:32:42,480
and lead. And then we're looking at potentially myself and two other guys, maybe three, because

869
01:32:42,480 --> 01:32:52,400
we have eight allotted slots. Oh, wow. Yeah, eight. Well, it's two for each category. So two for

870
01:32:52,400 --> 01:33:00,000
bouldering, two for lead, but then it's male female. So then four, four. And then if you have

871
01:33:00,800 --> 01:33:09,520
one person doing both, that takes two spots. So max eight, minimum four, I guess, if you have,

872
01:33:09,520 --> 01:33:15,840
am I doing, I don't know if I'm doing that, but yeah. So, because there's another guy on our team,

873
01:33:15,840 --> 01:33:23,920
his name's Don, and he's pretty strong. And then we have another guy who's gotten strong at lead.

874
01:33:23,920 --> 01:33:29,680
We don't have a lead wall, but he's got the endurance for it. So we're literally training

875
01:33:29,680 --> 01:33:37,680
from nothing and trying to build some, you know, because it's hard to build tall walls in Guam.

876
01:33:37,680 --> 01:33:47,120
Because we have a height restriction for buildings because we have high seismic zone earthquakes

877
01:33:47,120 --> 01:33:54,240
in Guam. And, you know, and that's the only building type that you can build taller than 30 feet

878
01:33:54,800 --> 01:34:03,520
is a hotel. Oh, yeah. And I mean, we can try and do a climbing hotel. But that'd be interesting to do.

879
01:34:03,520 --> 01:34:11,840
There's been suggestions of digging into the ground and like digging down maybe 10 feet and then doing

880
01:34:11,840 --> 01:34:19,600
a 40 foot tall building, but it's at 30 in terms of, I mean, I think that's what they did. I think

881
01:34:19,600 --> 01:34:24,880
that's what Enrico said. That's one of the gyms in Japan did that because they also have the same

882
01:34:24,880 --> 01:34:30,320
height. They have the same height restriction. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because they don't have any lead walls.

883
01:34:30,320 --> 01:34:36,880
No, a lot of them are boulder. But I mean, like you can still train lead on boulder. So you just

884
01:34:36,880 --> 01:34:43,120
have to make sure you learn how to clip. Yeah. Yeah. And or and train. Oh, well actually, yeah.

885
01:34:43,120 --> 01:34:50,720
And train for your head game for the height. Yeah. And just like the one shot. Yeah. And so

886
01:34:51,680 --> 01:34:56,960
a lot, there's a couple of people on the team that have been training on the outdoor boulders

887
01:34:56,960 --> 01:35:02,720
with the sketchy bolts, but they're doing it on top rope, but learning to clip. And you know,

888
01:35:03,360 --> 01:35:09,280
they're clipping at the same time and you know, gaining that endurance and head game,

889
01:35:09,280 --> 01:35:14,240
even though they're on top rope, but moth leading. So I mean, that's how I learned how to lead

890
01:35:14,240 --> 01:35:23,440
actually basically. It's the same. Yeah. I mean, you work with what you have. Yeah. Okay. Well,

891
01:35:23,440 --> 01:35:29,040
well, good luck in Seoul. Yeah. Thank you. It's cool to see. Okay, I think that's all the questions

892
01:35:29,040 --> 01:35:37,600
I had. Any final thoughts or final statements? I mean, going back to what I said previously,

893
01:35:37,600 --> 01:35:43,680
I guess to reflect back on a conversation we had and if you know, if you feel like you've started

894
01:35:43,680 --> 01:35:51,040
too late and it's never, I mean, ideally you want to start early, but it's never too late to try

895
01:35:51,040 --> 01:35:58,880
and become something bigger and be part of a bigger picture. And if something feels like,

896
01:36:00,320 --> 01:36:08,320
like if something feels like it is impossible to make it feel possible is to see the final outcome,

897
01:36:09,120 --> 01:36:13,520
to visualize the final outcome far into the future and be like, okay, this is why.

898
01:36:13,520 --> 01:36:20,160
And I mean, if you have high passions for climbing or in anything in general, and you want to make

899
01:36:20,160 --> 01:36:29,040
that thing bigger or like build a community for it and establish something, then hey, we can go for

900
01:36:29,040 --> 01:36:37,680
it. You know, it's like, if you want it so that much, then do whatever it takes. Yeah. So I guess

901
01:36:37,680 --> 01:36:45,200
that's one that, yeah, that's my final statement, I guess. Okay. No, it's good. Good. Anything you

902
01:36:45,200 --> 01:36:51,600
want to shout out or let people know where they can find you? You can find me, I mean, the only

903
01:36:51,600 --> 01:36:59,120
socials I have is Instagram. Okay. And I'll link that. Yeah. It is A-G-B-O-I, which is,

904
01:36:59,120 --> 01:37:05,600
it's just A-G-Boy. A-G is my initial, my first name initials and then boy. It is, it's just,

905
01:37:05,600 --> 01:37:12,560
and I mean, backstory to that is it was my alias growing up as a break dancer and I stuck with it.

906
01:37:12,560 --> 01:37:19,040
So that's why. Wait, A-G-Boy is not your initials? No, A-G is my initials. Boy is just other. How is

907
01:37:19,040 --> 01:37:28,560
that your initials? Oh, my full name is Alan Gregory. What do you mean? Yeah. So my full name is

908
01:37:28,560 --> 01:37:35,680
Alan Gregory. Your first name? Yeah. Like legally, like my legal name is Alan Gregory. God damn,

909
01:37:35,680 --> 01:37:41,120
you never told me that. No one knows that. Now the world knows. Oh, now the climbing community

910
01:37:41,120 --> 01:37:46,880
knows that. Yeah. I mean, I don't really say much on it. A lot of people always wonder like,

911
01:37:46,880 --> 01:37:52,000
where did the G come from? Yeah. I was like, oh, it's my second name. Like my legal name is

912
01:37:52,000 --> 01:37:59,520
Alan Gregory. Okay. Gotcha. But you can just call me. And like, I mean, like to back on the,

913
01:37:59,520 --> 01:38:05,600
my Instagram name, it's just everyone back from high school, they don't know me as Alan.

914
01:38:05,600 --> 01:38:10,880
They only know me as A-G-Boy. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's me doing that. I mean, that's because

915
01:38:10,880 --> 01:38:16,560
everyone you meet from dancing and that was my alias in dancing. Oh, alias. Gotcha.

916
01:38:16,560 --> 01:38:22,720
Yeah. So you can find me on at A-G-Boy on Instagram. Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you for

917
01:38:22,720 --> 01:38:29,360
joining me today. This was fun and best luck to you in Seoul. Thank you. Thank you so much for making

918
01:38:29,360 --> 01:38:34,320
it to the end of the podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. Otherwise, you are

919
01:38:34,320 --> 01:38:40,320
a super fake climber. If you're listening on a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rated

920
01:38:40,320 --> 01:38:46,480
five stars and you can continue the discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in

921
01:38:46,480 --> 01:39:14,480
the description. Thanks again for listening.