my first World Cup, and I was the only one from the organization present. I didn't really have
a coach there, we didn't have our federation president there, or we didn't have any other
athletes, it was just me representing Guam. Besides the coach, the lead specialist, Vicki,
who is our female lead specialist, and me, everyone else has been climbing for less than a year.
He told us that Akiyo Noguchi started climbing because she visited Guam.
If you feel like you started too late, I mean, ideally you want to start early,
but it's never too late to try and become something bigger.
Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast. I'm your host Jinni,
and I'm excited to introduce my first in-person guest, Allen Lacktaoen. I know Allen from our
climbing training class in San Diego, but he is also a boulder for a brand new IFSC federation,
Team Guam. In this episode, we'll learn about what it's like competing on the World Cup circuit as an
average climber who only started climbing at 23 years old and works a full-time engineering job.
We'll also hear about what it's like as a new competitor competing in Innsbruck, including the
after-parties, and we'll learn all about the Guam climbing scene. If you're watching this on YouTube,
you might notice some strange cuts to help the podcast flow better for audio only,
but hopefully the appearances made by the cat will help make up for it.
I hope you enjoy this episode with Allen. How was the climbing session? Good. You're talking about
today's session? Yeah. Climbing session today was good. Since I'm still recovering from a
finger injury, slight, like a minor finger injury, it felt pretty nice. In the main bouldering area,
I was able to kind of climb without the tape on. So I've been slowly, progressively overloading it
with tape and then without tape. It's been getting better. So the session today was good.
Yeah. And you? How was your session? It was, I was happy to do most of the b-boulders on this
slab. Did you try the other b-boulders on the overhang? I did one that Darren recommended to me
and then another one that was a little hard. My fingers are kind of hurting today. So for those
who don't know, I think a lot of people probably don't know you super well. No, I wouldn't expect
people to know me already, but I'm still new to the circuit. Maybe people who watch who like know
you in person. Yeah. So how did you get into climbing? So I picked up climbing back in
2018 while I was in college. Fairly recent. Yeah, fairly recent. Only been six years,
almost six years. I'm going on six. But yeah, it was my best friend in college, his sister climbed.
And so when I went to their place for Thanksgiving, it was, they brought me to one of the climbing
gyms up there and it's in Santa Rosa. And so then I picked up it there and then I started climbing
at school. We had a climbing wall on campus and then at the local climbing gym that everyone went
to. So that's where I picked it up. And then yeah, since then I've been mainly training for outdoors.
So a lot of my training started focused on outdoors, especially later on as I got better
in climbing. Like I think my first outdoor trip was maybe six months into climbing,
five, five or six months into climbing outdoors. And then I got strong pretty quick, then got injured.
Oh, that's a classic. The classic got too strong too fast, then got injured. Then you don't,
if you're not still new climbing, trying to figure out a good protocol to heal faster and like get
stronger as you're still injured was not in my mindset yet. So then I kind of went back in strength.
But I got in that time, I got better at slopers than I was in crimps. So then now that's why now
I, I would say my favorite is the sloper. Yeah. And then got back up to speed
right before COVID, then COVID hit. And then during that time in COVID, I just recently
moved down here to San Diego and then started working as a full-time engineer. So then in that
time frame, it was hard to train because the gyms were closed. And if the gyms were open,
you would have to schedule maybe like only a one hour period of training. And, and that was only,
you're only allowed one hour training twice a week. So then you'd only train two hours a week.
And that was hard, especially if you didn't have a home wall, like everyone started building
home walls. I, as I was like living in a house that my roommate's parents owned,
you know, I didn't really want to build in their backyard. Yeah. And I didn't want to take up their
space. And plus, you know, knowing that I might have to move in the future, I didn't want to
have to deal with that. So it's like, oh, so then most of my training was delayed at that point and
then picked up speed again in like 2021. And then slowly got better. Or is this? Yeah. Yeah. And
then I remember those days. Yeah. And then I had to schedule, but I don't think we had a limit in
terms of how many sessions you had. Oh, really? The gyms. An hour? Yeah. Hour, an hour and a half.
It was pretty, it was pretty bad. It was like, yeah. I mean, before it was like, you'd only,
you'd warm up for like five minutes on like easy problems and a new project for the next 45.
Huh. To like an hour and a half. And it's just like, ah, it was tough during those times.
So then I would try and climb outside, but then I was, I was still new to my full-time job. So
it was hard to balance that. And so then there's still some like hardships in my whole climbing
career, but then I'm glad that I was able to pick up, pick it up again recently. And then switched
to comp climbing once the Guam team was made. And like, once I found out that the Guam, that Guam
created a team and recently got accepted into the IFSC, which was last year. So technically I've only
been comp climbing for like the last nine months. Okay. So you pretty much link Boulder. Have you
ever considered doing league competition? I have. Yeah. I mean, when, when the Guam team went for
the Oceania qualifiers for the Olympics, it's, it was a combined format. So then I had to train a
little bit of lead and kind of get back up to speed. I didn't like, by preference, I don't usually
train lead. But I thought about it to supplement my bouldering. Yeah. As in like, because I don't
have a lot of endurance in climbing, like normally like, you know, the typical bouldering, I don't
really like, you know, the typical boulder saying it's like, you go up three clips and you're already
pumped. Yeah. That's me. I've definitely, when I started out climbing, I was thinking I would
end up being a lead specialist, which is, I mean, I bought like a whole bunch of like
carabiners, quick draws, and I bought a rope to climb in the gym. And then, you know, I liked it.
I didn't do it all the time, but I would occasionally hop on ropes when I wouldn't like oppose it when
friends would offer to, you know, climb on ropes. And I mean, I enjoyed it back then. Now it's like,
I prefer just bouldering. Yeah. Because it's easier access. That's true. In terms of like,
having to find a partner, you know, scheduling with someone else to even,
that I'm scheduling with someone else that you know, you trust, the way you, you know, it's hard
to do that rather than, I mean, people still trust other people to believe them when you do with the
open signup sheets in some gyms. It's like, okay. But I mean, like I like to climb with other people
that I know that can take care of me and stuff like that. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, that's that.
I mean, that's one main reason why I ended up just leaning more toward bouldering. And I mean,
also it's just, I feel like I'm more of like a powerful style movement versus like long endurance
climbs. And even in general, I've noticed that in other sports too. And that's why I've always,
I recently, I thought about maybe I should try speed. Yeah. But I mean, maybe, I mean, I used to
play volleyball in high school and I have strong legs and maybe I can implement that in speed
climbing, but we'll see. Yeah. That's still in the thought process. If I want to ever try it out.
Yeah. Well, I guess I also wonder because it seems like lead competitors tend to have a little bit
more longevity in this sport. Right. At lead. That makes, yeah. And how old are you? You're like.
29. I just turned 29 this year. Yeah. I thought you were 28. No, I, yeah. Don't rely on me.
So like you're getting pretty like super old. Like, ah, I mean, I don't like to think.
You're about to die. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, I don't like to think of that. I like,
like, I don't like to think about the age. I mean, it's a nice little fallback of an excuse to,
yeah, I'm not having a good day because of my age. So, you know, or like I'm having a bad session
because like, you know, for my age, I'm pretty tired for the session. So I have some friends
that are like younger than me or older than me too. Like they are just one, they always wonder
or ask me and say, how do you, how do you have the, like the, the stamina to, or the energy to like
JV's three hour sessions, three to four hour sessions, five, four to five days a week. And like, you know,
it's a lot of training, but you know, I mean, it's the, I mean, the, the matter of fact is like,
I'm enjoying it, you know, like I, yes, I'm tired, but that's the fun part about it. It's like,
I enjoy it a lot. And that's the reason why I picked up the comp climbing is because I know that
it's like something that I want. And it's like, I've always had this in the back of my mind that I
wanted to somehow represent Guam in a way that could bring climbing, like grow with the climbing
community back home. I mean, during COVID, I already had thoughts of like, oh, I want to try
and open a gym back home. And then the first time I went back home during COVID, I recently
found out that they had like a whole climbing community that I didn't know about. And it's been
around since like, I think it's the eighties, but, and I was like, has this been my whole life?
I could have, I would have picked up climbing way earlier, but I guess it wasn't like well
advertising, advertise, or it was, it was like a Facebook group. So then it was Saoche, Word of
Mao. You know, you have to ask the right people, come across the right people that knew about the
community. And then when they finally opened up the gym, I was like, oh, someone did it before me,
but I wonder who it was. And then they started like picking up. And I mean, that's another fact
that is like the Guam climbing community is very, very new. Like the gym only opened up a year and
a half ago. They just recently had their first year anniversary. Wait, so that's like the first,
the first gym? The first like, well, I guess, advertised gym, I guess, like, because like
there, apparently there was an older gym that was open before the new gym opened up. It's like one
of those like garage style bouldering gyms that someone owned. Maybe it was, I can't remember
if it was like at a, in a empty tenant space or if it was at someone's house. I can't remember
what the correct fact of that is, but I've, I just recently found out that too. And I didn't even
know that, but yeah, it, it, when they opened up the gym, it was like a small section of the, so
the owner of the gym is, he plays badminton. And so part of the gym is half badminton, half climbing.
And so there was a small section of, of the badminton courts where it's just like a small,
maybe, I don't know how many meters, but it was, it's just like a small section of boulders.
And then this year, right after the Oceania qualifier, last year, right after the Oceania
qualifiers, they expanded all, like they basically closed off half of the badminton courts.
Half the gym is now fully half badminton, half climbing. And I mean, and the gym is pretty big.
It's like a warehouse. So it's, it's growing and like a lot more people have been
drawing attention to it. And, you know, and that's why like, I, like, I really want this is because
like, I really want this is because I want to help be part of the history and like help grow
the climbing community back home. While there is still a small community out here that people from
Guam in the mainland US that do climb. Yeah. And they reached out to me and some of them I've
went to high school with, some of them I haven't. And they reached out to me through the, through the
climbing Guam Instagram. And they're like, cause they've been posting about me about going to the
Inspirit World Cup and stuff like that. So then I've been getting reached out to about that and be
like, how can I be part of the team? And then like even the Guam coach, he's like, dude, ever since
like you, like we've been posting about you, like people have been reaching out to us, you know,
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
kind of what I want. It's like, I want people to like notice it a little bit more so that eventually
the next generation of climbers that are coming from Guam don't have to worry about it so much.
Like, you know, it's already like, it, you know, we take small steps and that's, and that's as a
team, that's what we want is we want to grow the whole community. And I mean, it'd be, it would
have been nice to have that growing up as well. And so it's just like, oh, okay. I want this for
the future. I'm in Guam. I mean, there is a community there. And the hard part about that is
I'm here training. I'm here training basically to kind of gain, I don't know how to say it, but like
just to like better myself, to get the experience out here so that I can like maybe go back there
and maybe in the future, I'll probably want to coach the team or, you know, or said I can be
an engineer back home too. And then coach in the after hours, you know, I mean, because I have that
passion for climbing. It's something that I want for Guam. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Because I
mean, if that experience and like, like the people who are experienced don't eventually go back
to build it up, it's never gonna grow. It's almost like, I don't want to say it's a wasted effort,
but that's what it would feel like. Yeah. Well, we'll get into Guam more in a bit, but first.
One of the things to me that was most interesting about your story is that unlike most athletes on
the circuit, you didn't start out as a youth climber. You started when you were 23, I guess,
22. 23, I would say 23. Yeah. Yeah. Which is quite late. Actually, that's later than me,
because I think I started when I was 20. So do you feel like you missed out on much starting as an
adult? Or how, well, of course you did. How much do you feel like you missed out on starting as an adult?
Yes, I have missed out on a lot as if like that, I mean, that's why I mentioned wanting this for
Guam is to kind of start the youth gathering for the climbing, because I mean, most of the climbing
team right now is all adults and I'm not even the oldest one. Whoa, really? Yeah. I'm not even the
oldest one. Well, we need to get into that later. Okay, we'll get into that later. Yeah. But yeah,
I'm not even the oldest one, but yeah, I mean, it definitely feels like it seems like it's a little
too late a little bit. Like I started late, but I personally, I don't like to think about age as like
a, I don't want it like as an excuse to be like, oh, you know, I'm not good enough because, you know,
I started too late, you know. I mean, it used to be like that kind of excuse before when I was,
when I got injured and, you know, started climbing, I was like, ah, you know, I feel like I might be
too old, like get stronger. And maybe yes, it does play a factor, but having that excuse is not part
of my mindset. Cause I like to think of like, it's never too late to, you know, if you, if you believe
in something that you want to do, you know, age shouldn't stop you being starting too late,
shouldn't stop you. I do think I started too late, but I don't think it's too late to
succeed in something that to this level. And I think similar to a lot of people who started
climbing late and probably a lot of people who are like watching or listening right now,
you also mentioned that you have a full-time job. So you're kind of like the weekend warrior.
I think that's the term for it. I think there are a lot of like weekend warriors who manage to climb
hard in the outdoor scene, but you don't hear of that so much in competition, partially because
they're young, but also partially because it's like very time consuming to be, I guess like in
competition, you kind of have to be good at everything instead of just projecting like one
specific boulder for a long time. So how do you balance work and training?
Balancing work and training is kind of difficult. I guess it would say, I would say it's a difficult
topic to even like delve into because normally the balance is by feel. Like I like, like I'll go into
work, like do my engineering job and then I'll have to reset my mind and then go to the gym
and then kind of try and lock in, you know, which is why I kind of like take the training class that
we take because it's kind of nice to have someone tell you what to do in training versus like
training on your own. So I kind of have more days, I try to have more days where I'm training with
someone rather than training with someone else. That way I don't have, I have to think a little
bit West where I can just balance back and forth, change ideas, stuff like that. And then in the
training class, I just have someone telling me like the workouts, what to do. But like balancing
work and climbing is very, I would say the hard part of it is having energy every day to try and
to try and balance everything because I mean by the end of the day of like, because I mean
realistically, I mean I've worked a nine to five, but realistically I only worked six hours mainly
because two of those hours-
Are you sure you want that going out on the internet?
No, I mean, no, I mean like in like locked in, like I'm at work for eight hours, but like I'm
locked in for six, like the first hour is like me trying to like call myself, like get into the
mindset of getting into work. And at the last hour of the day, I'm trying to like ease down and like
get ready for training, right? So that's six hours of work, hour in between, and then I have the hour
lunch. So the nine hour day, but like six hours of mainly working.
Yeah.
Right. I mean, and that's, you try to break it down into that so that you can kind of like
get into different cycles of phases in the day to like when to train yourself to like
when to lock into work and then when to log out of work. And then trying to make sure you stay
log out of work so you don't have to think about whatever you're working on and you just worry
about that tomorrow. And then you kind of lock in the training. And then when you're in training,
kind of like say like, oh, I should have sent something. I'm like working on a project. Oh,
I should have sent it. Well, I try to like leave that out of my mind and just kind of be present
a little bit. Cause if I don't, then I'm going to have a bad session. And it's, and I mean,
and that's the hard part too in training. It's like sometimes coming from being an outside climber
to becoming a competition climber. The transition was a little bit difficult for me because in
competition climbing, you want to flash all the, you want to flash the problem ideally. And then
in outdoor setting, it's more of like enjoying the process of projecting. You know, I mean,
yeah, sure. It'd be nice to flash it, flash a boulder outside or whatever. But what makes outdoor
climbing very fun is the process of projecting, being able to tweak data and sit there and just
admire the boulder, a little boulder route, and then just kind of climb it once you go for the
red point and enjoy that. But in comp climbing, you either try it within that session, like in a
competition setting, especially in a World Cup setting, it's like you either do it or you don't
because it's going to be gone in the next few hours. Or it's going to be gone the next day.
And you kind of have to like, what you have to learn how to let go of the things that you
didn't send and just kind of take what you learned from that experience. And then after that,
then kind of going back and reflecting off of it, but don't dwell on it and see what you can improve
on. And I mean, yeah, and I mean, that's like the same thing with balancing work and training. It's
like you kind of have to go in and out of those phases and then kind of forgetting what you,
like the mistakes you made prior and kind of moving forward and see how you can improve.
Okay, so what does your training look like right now with your work schedule?
Coming up to Innsbruck, it's like three days on straight, one day rest, two days on then rest.
So I'll do a three to week basically, Mondays rest days, Fridays rest days, and then all
the days in between our workout days. How tired do you feel third day on? Because
I never told you this, but my benchmark for my climbing was that I wanted to climb harder than
you if you were third day on. That's a weird benchmark to say. I need some kind of like
comparison, otherwise I have no motivation. I mean, that's fair because I mean, I sometimes
I'll compare myself to Darren. Yeah, exactly. Darren is one of our strong friends in the class.
I mean, it depends on how well I slept the day, the day's prayer or how well I eat in a week. I
mean, that's another hard thing about balancing the life and work and training is trying to
find a way to fit in cooking and or like, you know, cooking. It's hard. Because after a session,
session ends at nine, I'll get home at like nine, 15, and 30, cook. Oh, you eat after.
Yeah, I eat after. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, I eat after. Yeah, it starts early because six
is like right after work. Yeah, six is right after work. I mean, I'm not gonna have it.
No wonder you always eat a snack during class. Yeah, I always buy a snack during class.
If I don't buy a snack during class, then I'm just hungry the whole time. Or I'll just eat
like a late lunch. Yeah. Like I'll eat at like three, two or three and then I'll just, because
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,
I'll wait till like later. Yeah. I'll eat my lunch then. And I'll be like, okay, I'll strategically
place my lunch right before class so that I'm not as hungry during class. And then eat dinner late.
But yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, that's the, that's what would dictate how tired I would
be on the third day. I mean, it's different from when I started training out at the beginning of
the year. I was doing six days on. Yeah. And that was a bad idea. Thinking that like my mindset was
like, oh, more timing, I can do this. More training means I'm going to get better faster. But that,
don't ever do that. Yeah. Like don't ever, like, I don't know why I thought that. I mean,
I did help a little bit, but it started doing a lot of overuse injuries, not injuries, but like,
I started aches. I started having aches. Yeah. And then like, as I slowly got out of that and started
doing just five days on, but doing of quality training, but then having good rest in between,
I started feeling a little bit better. And that's, I mean, that's key things like warm up properly.
If I don't warm up properly, then I'm going to have a bad session. If I warm up properly,
it doesn't matter how tired I am. I'm just going to have a decent session if I warm up.
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
that day. And then, and I just accordingly where it's like, Oh, I feel really great. I'm going to
try really, really hard. It doesn't matter how hard the problem is or how hard these moves are
going to be or whatever workout we're going to do. It's just going to, I'm going to be like,
I'm going to try hard. Okay. Yeah. And then if I'm feeling, feeling pretty crappy during warm up,
then I'm just like, okay, I'm just going to dial down a little bit, still try hard, but
don't overdo it. Otherwise I'm just going to force and force an injury. Yeah. You know, try hard
enough that you don't force, you don't get, you don't get injured. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think these
are like old people thoughts though, because a lot of the pros do six days and like double sessions.
I mean, I recently, I've been thinking about the five days on with double sessions on some days,
like just to just split up the time. Yeah. Like, cause I don't want to do a three hour session
session, but then half of that session is a strength training workout. You know, I want to
do like three hours, like maybe three hours of quality climbing session and then maybe do like
the workout in the morning, you know, feel fresh. I like do the workout, rest a little bit during
the day during work and then go into the climbing session like full on. And that's something that
I've been thinking of recently. I'm still trying to find that out. And I mean, I have a training
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
going to go to climb. This is the workouts I'm going to do. That's it. And then I close the book
and then remember everything. Forget about the book. Okay. I'll go back to it once in a while and be
like, okay, I'll write my PRs. Okay. Yeah. Like max pull ups, how much weight I'm using the train
and how I want to increase that over time. I mean, this is just me as like starting out, like,
you know, I'm, I'm experimenting with myself because like, I mean, we have coach Amico helping
us like train and I get ideas of workouts from him, but a lot of the training that I do is,
is basically kind of, I'm personally putting it together for myself because I know myself,
I know my body pretty well and I know how to adjust, um, pro, uh, accordingly whenever
I'm feeling something's not working out. Yeah. So in terms of coaching,
did you ever have a coach or like currently have a coach? I mean, I considered coach Rico as a
coach. Okay. Well, like, you know, it's like very, it's different when it's kind of as a group versus
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
personal coach, like, uh, like tell me specifically, this is what you're going to do. I mean, eventually
I kind of want to go into that because I just, you know, once I get to a certain point, it's like,
if I feel like I'm plateauing, I might just like kind of like get coaching, like full coaching,
like invest in full time coaching. Like this is like one-on-one coaching. Yeah. It's hard to,
it's hard to, it's kind of hard to find what I prefer one-on-one coaching, but it's hard to,
it's, it's hard to find that because a lot of the training plans that people put together today,
it's usually just given to athletes, especially like for people climbing outside, you know.
Oh sure. Yeah. But like, I don't know, like for climbing for, for competitions, I,
I don't know where the outlets to look for. Like I, I normally, I just like kind of like start
Googling things. But then by that, at that point, it's like, I'm ready. It's planning for myself.
Uh, sure. I mean, I guess when I'm thinking of coaching, I'm not necessarily thinking like,
oh, someone who just writes a training plan for you, but someone who's like watching you climb
and giving you feedback on your climbing and what you're doing wrong for like a full hour instead
of like. Eventually I might want to do it one-on-one, but not, but I still like the group setting
because in the group setting, it feels nice because you have other people training you on,
you know, you have a sense of, and I, I mean, that's why I like climbing. It's like the sense
of community, kind of bouncing off ideas off of each other, even though maybe some data might not
work for you, but at least you know, uh, based on like, you know, based on their body structure,
I guess, and like playing height, stuff like that is it, it helps later down the line. If I ever want
to coach, it's like, oh, maybe I know a certain data for a certain person because this is like
your side that fits your box. Well, you know, if it doesn't fix your box, fit, fit your box, then
let's adjust that accordingly based because I, I've talked to other climbers and what their
thoughts are, their thought processes. And that's why I like the group setting, but it'd be nice to
just have this one-on-one. Yeah, you should try one. I mean, Enrico does one-on-ones. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. I still have to ask him, but I'm just always having fun in the class. I never really,
I always forget. I always forget. Not one day, one day, eventually. So getting to your IFSC
experience, um, I've been waiting forever to hear about this because it, I mean,
Innsbruck was a little while ago. Please excuse this brief intermission, but I've gotten a few
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If you'd like to support the podcast non-monetarily, liking, commenting, and sharing
helps a great deal as well. Back to the show. So yeah, you just recently went to your first
ever World Cup for bouldering in Innsbruck, um, which is also kind of like a crazy first
venue because I think there are more approachable ones or like Salt Lake is like closer at least.
Salt Lake is closer. I was supposed to go to that, but I think the funding for the organization,
that for the Guam organization was out there yet. So then they were trying to figure out how to fund
uh, the athletes and stuff like that. So then I just had to wait for the time, the right time to go.
And I think Innsbruck was a nice experience to go to, even though talking to some of the climbers
there, they're like, they're like, oh, it's quite the choice to start at Innsbruck. And even like
people outside the circuit are like setters that I like Jesse at Flux. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Jesse at
Flux, he was like, yeah, Innsbruck was quite the choice because I've heard this from a lot of
climbers that Innsbruck is supposed to be one of the hardest World Cups out of the whole circuit.
Apparently, uh, not the minor, I didn't know that, but yeah, I was just like, oh, Innsbruck is like
a nice place to be. Yeah. And a lot of people like to go to that World Cup. It'd be a nice
opportunity to meet other climbers in the circuit and just kind of learn from that experience. Plus
it'd be, sometimes you just gotta start hard. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's totally fine. Yeah.
It's yeah. I just thought, you know, Salt Lake might make more sense. Yeah. It would just be
easier. It would have been easier to go to. But yeah. So since you're brand new to the circuit,
I guess take me through the entire process of the comp because like I've interviewed more season
athletes, but they're like so used to it that they don't really, they're just, they know what
it's like. So for you not having been to any before, like, what was it like? Did anything like surprise
you? Um, yeah, I guess like the timing, uh, of when you want to go to, um, the country or city that
you're, that the World Cup is going to be in because like, you know, you have to need some time
to acclimate to the time zone, get used to the, you know, get into the groove again after doing
a long flight. I mean, from, from here, yeah. I mean, like from here to Europe, it's like a
10 hour flight, depending on where you go. And then, you know, you have to kind of acclimate
after that, like sitting down the whole time, you know, eating, if you don't bring food with
you or snacks with you, airport food, trying to react from a getting used to the surroundings,
you know, learning your way towards the gym, stuff like that. It gets a little stressful.
See the timing of when we get to the country or city, uh, kind of plays a little bit into how
well you lean into the competition. How early did you go? Uh, I would say I got there maybe
five, six days before. Oh, that's so not early enough. A lot of the athletes that I saw there,
I met there, some of them were there for like maybe a week and a half to two weeks before.
I mean, some of them train there regularly. So they're either there a month before, you know,
so it depends on who that depends on the athletes and what fits their budget. And so I think
that's on what fits their budget and stuff like that or what fits their timeframe. I mean, for me
working as an engineer, I kind of have the time at where, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to leave
after a full week of work. So I'll probably leave on a Friday or Saturday and then get there and
then acclimate. And then, you know, and like, you know, if I'm there like a week or two before,
I'm still going to be working remote. Oh, you still worked? Yeah. Oh, I know. I don't know.
Okay. No, because, well, because this was my first one, my first World Cup and I was the only one
from the organization present. Yeah. It was no, I didn't really have a coach there. We didn't have
our federation president there or I didn't, we didn't have any other athletes. It was just me
representing Guam. So I wanted my full attention for the whole thing, like the whole event.
Yeah. So basically the whole two weeks I was in Innsbruck, I just took, but I regularly,
like whenever I go, when I travel a lot to other countries or, you know, when I'm on like training,
sometimes I'll go to visit family in Europe. Oh, sure. Yeah. Or like, you know, or, or like if I'm
going on a climbing trip to like either train in another gym or, you know, go home to Guam,
I will normally work remote. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, somehow got to pay for travel.
But I mean, that, that was, yeah. So then timing it was one of it. And then
getting, because it was my first time, it's like, sometimes it does suck when you're in a new setting
like that for the first time, trying to know someone is key a little bit. Like trying to get to know
either people on the circuit or if you're training at the gym before, you know, before the event,
try to make maybe like a friend. Yeah. I mean, going alone is crazy. Yeah. It's like you're in a
new setting. You don't know anyone at the gym and you know, obviously it's your first time on the
circuit and like me not being part of the youth circuit or anything like that. No one really knows
me. So then it's just like, it does become a little bit nerve wracking. That's like one thing
I kind of focused on once I got there is to kind of get into a group, get to know people. Well,
get to know at least someone. But I mean, luckily I have a friend that lives in Innsbruck. So then
I, I did have some sessions with him prior to the event. So then it kind of eased the nerves. But
yeah, like the first session I had at the gym, I was like, my heart was racing. It's like, oh my
God, it's sinking in. And by the second day I had the session with my friend and then it was like,
oh, okay. Everything's relaxed slowly, slowly. Like I'm starting to relax a little bit. And by
the time I got into ISO, I made some friends that who are from other countries that are on the
circuit. Also they're fighting, it's their debut or they've been on the circuit for like maybe once
or one or two World Cups. They've been to one or two World Cups and got to know them a little bit
more. Got to learn some, maybe some of their struggles or struggles within their organization
in terms of like other stuff. And so it was like kind of nice to have those kinds of conversations
with other countries. And then that kind of like, by the time I was in ISO, I didn't think of
anything. Like everything was kind of relaxed. It was very nice to see all of the big names in ISO
and during training sessions that like in the gym that are like also like training for the World Cup.
Kind of, it was definitely a little bit nerve wracking, but it's like after you see them once,
it's like, cool. We're just all climbers. It takes some time to sink in, but once it sinks in, it's
like you're kind of starting to slowly lock, you're slowly locking in. So like when you saw
the big names like warming up, did that mess with your mind at all? Days prior, sort of, but not on
ISO day. Oh really? Yeah. I mean, you already know the skill level and you know the skill gap, but
it's like, you know, you're there. Like to me personally, it was like, I'm there to learn
from the experience and I'm there to also just try hard and see how much my training has been
for the past six months prior has been doing compared to because I mean, I used Innsbruck
as a benchmark to see how my training has been doing, working, has been working throughout the
six months after, six, seven months after the Oceania qualifiers. Because I did okay at the
Oceania qualifiers and then coming into Innsbruck where it's the hardest, one of the hardest world
cups, I think I did okay. Yeah. I could have done better, but because it was my first competition,
it was a, I mean, the thing, the key points that I, you know, that people normally would look for,
it's like never crossed my mind, but after doing it, it's like, oh, you know, when you're on the
floor, like switching beta up something like you kind of, a lot of, I've talked to this about with
Enrico where it's like, you, that's somehow, that's how you can tell from the elite and advanced
climbers where sometimes the elite climbers can change beta mid-move, you know, or like even in
the, in a dyno movement, they can probably change their beta mid-air. Potentially. I mean, I don't
know for sure, but that's like an idea to think about it. Like, you know, but like me, I'm like
changing beta while I'm on the floor. Sure. Yeah. Not while I'm on the wall. Cause like, I'm, I'm
not searching for the right, I mean, I was, but in some of the movements that you're doing during
comps, you're doing a dyno or you're doing like, it's hard to make those micro adjustments in the
air and think about it once you're on the ground, because you tend to be like, oh, that works. And
you get stuck in a loop of like, okay, I'm going to keep trying it and, you know, almost works one
time. So then you keep, you get stuck into that group. I mean, you, you've competed, you know how
that feels. You know how that feels. Well, I don't really have as much, so much time pressure, but
yeah. I mean, we had five minutes on the wall in qualifications. I mean, five minutes is, is a rough
time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's not enough time to like try and set the, but I mean, it's,
you had some time to just have it. It's, it's, it's like the time to like try and like
put, give it your all. And I mean, definitely after my qualification round, I felt like I ran her.
I ran like five miles. I was like out of breath. I was gassing for air. I mean, cause a lot, like
a lot of it was, a lot of it was just fighting on the wall. And my friend that was in Innsbruck,
that was in the crowd cheering me on. He was like, dude, what is it? He was like, what is it? How
does it feel to be up there on the stage? And it's like, honestly, like I, like once you're standing
on the stage, like, like when I was up there, for me, it was like, I'm seeing the boulder that I'm
going to climb, but then I'm also seeing someone top next to me, someone trying and falling next
to my right and someone topping to my left. And so like, I tried to funnel that out. And then
he was like, do you hear the crowd? Like, do you ever like feel like the presence of the crowd?
And I'm like, yeah, I do. But once I'm like focused on the climb, every, I like, I, the audio of the
crowd, like just tunes out. Like I don't, I don't hear it. All I hear is like, if someone says my
name, sure. I mean, obviously like someone's cheering my name or, you know, the announcer,
that's it. But I mean, like even that, the announcer would be tuned out already because I'm so focused
on the climb. And I think that's just either that's a me thing or if it's something that other
athletes may also have, but that personally, that's, that's what happened. Like that's how it felt
during the climbs. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's what you want. You don't want to be thinking
about everything. You kind of only want to be thinking about the boulder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
But yeah, going back to ISO, since it was your first time, you're not ranked, you must have been
in ISO for like ever. Oh, well, so I thought I would, I would have been, well, I'm not ranked,
but then because I think I, because I did the oceanic wall fire, I sort of was like a little
bit bumped up into the cycle. So I was like, not at the end, but I was near the end. And then some
people that would never did youth worlds, youth world cups or, you know, like, you know,
world cups or that didn't do the youth circuit. And it's the first time they were on like the
end of the list. Oh, okay. Yeah. So how long were you in ISO for? I would say we got into ISO like
around noon, noon or like one o'clock in the afternoon. And I didn't get on till eight.
What? Yeah. I mean, I was supposed to get on at seven, but then the rain, the rain,
I mean, whatever. Sure. Yeah. It rained, it rained in the middle of ISO. So then people who were
halfway through their, their climbs had to stop because it rained. I mean, we could have continued
climbing, but then the venue was fully covered. It would have been nice to have were they're out
because the mats were not, the mats were wet, which is why they stopped it. The boulders weren't wet,
but yeah. So then I had, we, everyone that was like maybe from six PM to eight got pushed back
an hour and a half. Wow. Yeah. That is so long though. That's actually longer than I thought.
You have people like, I mean, it's funny to think about it, but people who are at the,
who start later in the, in the qualification rounds, a lot of them take naps.
A lot of them take naps, but sometimes it's nerve wracking to take a nap because you might
oversleep. Yeah. Like one of the, one of the guys I met from the Indian team, from the Indian team,
they, he took a nap and then he woke, he heard someone fall on the warmup wall next to him.
And he thought it was someone trying to wake him up that he was, he didn't make this time.
But he woke up, came back to us and he was like, we were joking around and I was like,
yeah, you should have just kept sleeping because it's raining. You know? And you know, we don't,
we're delayed by, we don't know how much longer. And we were hoping that it would only be 30
minutes, but it turned out to be an hour and a half. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, like a lot of people
are, if they're later in, later on the qualification round, they either take a nap and you, or they,
and they, or they start warming up like maybe an hour before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What did you do?
Did you take a nap? Well, I, to get my like energy going up, I warmed up all the guys that were
warming up, ready to go. You warmed up early? I warmed up, well, so I warmed up early, but I
didn't like, it was like a half, half ass warmup. Like I'm just like doing a band workout, a band
workout, but like a band warmup and then hanging on the hangboard. It was, I mean, like once I'm
warmed up, it's quicker for me to warm up prior to, you know, game time, prior to game time.
Yeah. Cause like I've warmed up maybe like a good 15 minutes at the beginning and then rested for
the next eight hours. Oh my God. Okay. Rested for the next eight hours, well seven hours,
and then I warmed up again prior. Yeah. So, I mean, it definitely sucks to be later in the time
slot, but I mean, it is what it is. Well, you also didn't have your phone. So yeah, we don't have
our phones. That's sad around. I guess you talk to people. Yeah. You know, we get to talk to people.
Some people are playing like football, soccer, soccer in the warmup areas. Yeah. Or like we're
playing like, we're getting to know each other. You know, know some of the climbers. Like I've met
the Thailand team are, I think that's how you say his name. And then I met some like people from
Cyprus, from the India team. And then, you know, at least I got to know people. Like I met,
it's actually the first time I met Al from the US team, the coach for C5. That's the first, I've
seen him at the gym coaching C5, but then like, it's the first time I met him. And then I met
him and like actually introduced myself. Yeah. I met him there and it's like, you know, it's, you
learn how to spend your time in ISO. A lot of the time, like, oh, I actually talked to like some of
the Japanese coaches there too, because they, they saw my shirt and Japan's pretty close to Guam.
Oh, yeah. So then like, they're like, oh, Guam. Yeah. Like how many of you guys are here? And so
they're like, oh, where's the rest of your team? Got to know them. ISO is pretty, it's an interesting,
and I think it's different. It's a different experience for everybody. That was just my
experience. Like, because I, I want to make friends with other countries and get to know them.
That way I have, that way the next time I go to the World Cup, I wouldn't feel so lonely.
Yeah. Okay. And so then going out into the first boulder, what was that like
first ever World Cup qualification boulder? First boulder was actually, it was interesting
because I looked at it, read it as a coordination boulder and like, I was throwing myself at the
boulder. Cause that's, I mean, that's something that I struggled in, in the ocean and qualifiers is that
my coach, I mean, the Guam coach noticed that when I'm trying a boulder, I'm not going 100%.
I'm like maybe giving like 80%, you know, so that I gave it 100% on the first boulder. I'm like
throwing myself on the Cordo, the Cronician Dino, flying on the mats, but I'm like looking at the
boulder and you know, I'm a little bit stumped for the first, like for the first boulders,
for the first boulder, because it's like first actual boulder of the World Cup. And so I'm like
sitting there stumped and like, I'm trying to read the beta. I'm like, ah, shoot. It's slowly
sinking in. Like I got to read this pretty quick. I give it full, like full 100%. So then I'm like
throwing myself at it. Didn't get it, but I felt close. And then, you know, after doing the whole
qualification round, I talked to one of the Australian coaches and he was like, and I was
like, exchange your beta with him. I was like, how did the others do it? Like, it was, did I read it
correctly? I mean, because I didn't have the Guam coach there, but yeah. And then I was like,
I was definitely reading it wrong. Oh, yeah. Because I mean, I read it right the first attempt
and it didn't feel right for me. So then I tried a different way and I stuck it stuck to that beta
than I, the second beta that I picked. Do you have videos of your qualification attempts?
Yes, but I don't have them saved now. I fall. I will eventually put that together in a video.
Okay. Well, I want the videos. So, yeah. It's just going to be a video of videos of me falling.
I mean, but we also like can't see the qualification. Yeah, that's true. So it's just, yeah.
Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah. I forgot. They should feel like they should air the qualification boulders
or at least do, I don't know, highlights, do better highlights of all the athletes versus,
yeah, I don't know. Cause you want to be on TV. Yeah. Yeah. I used to get the exposure, especially
for the people, for the countries that also have the same situation as Guam, you know, they're
small. They want to get the exposure, but it's hard to get that exposure if you're not,
you're not higher up on the circuit or something like that. You know, it's hard to get that
exposure. So now going into, let's get, let's get your least favorite moment from the comp first.
Uh, like I, you know, I mean the, the after competition feel like you feel like you could
have just done better if you read the beta correctly, stuff like that. Yeah. Um, you know,
because, you know, I, I basically placed last place. I was, I was placed 98, I think 97. I
don't remember, but I mean, that, that was like already beyond me, but, um, I guess at the moment
it felt pretty bad. Yeah. How did you feel about your performance compared to like yourself?
I felt like it did pretty well. Like I was, I think it came down to like reading data properly
and adjusting data properly. And then, um, I don't know, I think I did pretty well. I, I almost saw
the zone three of the two, three or three of the problems. I think two, two of the problems. Um,
I was hoping there's only the, the, the two slam problem. Those were the two really close
ones where I thought I was going to snag the zone and maybe top it. But, um, I ended up reading the
beta completely wrong because I went back, watched my video and then watched how like, I don't know,
but the people who have been posting the sends on Instagram and watching their beta, I was like,
man, I knew I did it slightly wrong, but it was, cause a lot of the boulders, they're like,
they kept the hand on while I was trying to coordinate, do a coordination, coordination
dynamo on a slab when it wasn't really intended, but you could do it that way. It just definitely
makes it harder. Um, some of them kept the hand on. Um, I was doing a shuffle on one of the other
slabs where I kind of got this like a little scar on my face. Cause I, okay. Yeah, I saw that.
A lot of, so if you, like a lot of the athletes that, like even the females,
they're like, always has something on her face. Yeah. Well, like everyone, like all like, you know,
who like fought on slab. Yeah. You even like, uh, like Jesse pills had, like, had the, had the cut,
uh, scuff on her face and like a bunch of the, like, I think, uh, John Wan Chun's little brother,
for everything, but yeah, he, it was his debut too. And he had scuff on his face. Like I was like,
oh, and the Cyprus team guy, him and I were talking about it. Everyone has the little scar on their
face. Yeah. And I was like, oh yeah, I was fighting hard on that slab because I was trying to shuffle
and I kept scratching my face on it, but there was a static beta to it. I didn't think of doing
that. So it's like, I think reflecting off of it, I think the least favorite part is like me just
not reading the data. Preferably. So then favorite part, I mean, sitting in the athletes box, sitting
at the throw off with all the, with all the other world cup athletes, kind of nice, like watching
other, like watching the semis, watching the finals, stuff like that. And then there's the
the after party. Oh yeah. And the after party. Yeah. Give me the dirt there. Uh, I mean, it was,
it was fun. Like I got to know, uh, I got to know better, like the, some of the other, the
Thailand guy, I mean, yeah, the guy from Thailand, um, some of the Australian team too, that I didn't
really get, make friends with back in the ocean, ocean qualifiers, got to hang out, hang out with
them. Um, met some fans of the Australian team, hung out with, hung out with me. And then like,
you know, everyone was drinking, everyone was having a nice time. And then sharing the dance
floor with everyone else was pretty interesting because I have a background in dancing. So then.
So you could beat them in some time. I don't know. I mean, I did like,
I used to like, cause I used to compete in break dancing. And so then I, when I told
some of the Australian guys that I did do that, they're like, Oh, you better, I'm not, I'm not
leaving the dance floor unless you bust a move. And so I mean, I did that. It was kind of nice.
There was like different dance circles going on. And so it was kind of cool. And then everyone
were just like getting to know each other. Got to see like, I don't know, like Simon Lorenzi
dancing on the dance floor. Oh, like all the big names like Amish, uh, animal, um,
uh, who else is there? I can't remember. Um, oh, like a bunch of the Austrian team.
I think, yeah, a bunch of the German team and stuff like that were there.
So it was kind of cool to share the best moves.
Okay. Fair.
Yeah.
I don't know. I mean, I was the only one that did some break dance moves on the floor,
but everyone had some good moves.
Yeah. Okay. I don't know how to, I don't know how to go deeper into that, but yeah,
that was kind of, it was fun. I guess that was the most memorable cause I got the kind of,
it's a different experience, especially in that setting when everyone's so focused
and during the, during the competition, when everyone can just like relax during,
you know, the after party. It's kind of nice. Okay. And then the, the, the, the, the, the,
it's kind of nice. Okay. And, um, favorite moment during the comp.
I mean, being there, being, like being, knowing, like go do going through every single boulder,
was great. And then knowing that I basically gave it my all was like,
that's like the most memorable and my most favorite. Um, I mean, being there is already
like an honor. Yeah. So it's, I mean, yeah, I don't know what else to say.
Yeah, that's my favorite part. Like being able to try those boulders and have a crowd watch is nice.
And then having a friend in the crowd and the Australian team coaches cheer on, you know,
at least having someone cheering your name during, during the comp is also nice too. Yeah.
I mean, it's, it feels, it feels in the moment kind of thing. It's hard to describe.
Yeah. It's like a, I made it here moment.
Yeah. It's like, I made it here moment, you know, like I'm like, it shows that like, you know,
hard work does pay off, you know, and it, it encourages you to try harder, you know, and,
and, you know, and that's what I wanted to gain from the experience. Yeah.
I wish I could have that moment. It's, I mean, it's, it's, it's hard. I mean,
a lot of people are like, and it's, it's, that's the, that's the crazy thing too, because going,
be living here in San Diego and meeting people who are like way stronger than me or like,
you know, climbing with people who are way stronger than me, you know, and I mean, they sometimes,
you know, some people just choose not to compete and, you know, like to just climb outside, but
like, it's crazy to think that I myself is representing Guam and, you know, and I, you know,
and climbing with people who are as strong as I am, or like stronger. And it's, it's crazy to think
that, that like, not everyone gets that opportunity. And I feel, I feel very honored and I don't know if
I could say, would say lucky, but like, you know, like it kind of, it's, it's, it's just crazy to
think about, like the timing of it all too, like, you know, I just like having, like seeing Guam
slowly building up to me, like, you know, being part of the circuit with this. Great.
Yeah. I guess, do you ever feel kind of like weird that you,
I don't know, like that you're able to like be on the world cup circuit, even though when you climb
here, sometimes you like lose the comps. I don't know how to phrase that any better. You know what
I mean. I know what you mean. And it definitely feels odd. But I mean,
Take what you can get, I guess. Yeah, take what you can get, but like you take every opportunity
that you can, if you have it available to you, because, you know, you have nothing to lose
realistically. Like you're, you're, you're going in for the experience to become a better climber,
right? And, and to build it up for Guam. And to build it up. And, you know,
I mean, like a lot of the guys here, a lot of my friends here are like, don't like think,
don't have the imposter syndrome, you know, don't think that you don't deserve you there,
because, hey, you're one of the strong, your climbers, one of the stronger climbers from Guam,
you know, they want you to represent Guam, you know, then, you know, all this stuff. And I'm like,
okay, yeah, it's nice to think of that, you know, even though, you know, there's definitely other
people that could be on the world circuit, but, you know, but then the, the pool within their
country or whatever, you know, is stacked. And, you know, it's, it's crazy. But I mean, like, you
know, Guam is still new to climbing. So, you know, you take every opportunity that you can get,
so that you can build it to be even stronger. You know, so I mean, sure, I have those thoughts in
my head, like, why am I even here? But I mean, like, it's for the greater good for, you know,
it's for something even bigger, like, think, I think it's there's a bigger picture to it. And I'm
like a small piece of it. Yeah. So, yeah. And I guess it's also like, you know, like, I think
and I'm like a small piece of it. Yeah. So, yeah. And I guess it's also like, sort of based on
the opportunities that you grew up with, because you didn't have climbing there. Yeah. And then,
obviously, like here in the US, it's already a lot more established. So, yeah, you've kind of always
had those opportunities. Yeah. And it's, it's sort of like makes me hungry for more climbing. Like,
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
supplementing my, like, my drive to climb even harder. I used to think like, oh, V10 is impossible,
or like, you know, oh, yeah, you know, or I used to think that, you know, anything past like,
V10 is going to be so unreachable for me. And like, you know, recently, I like I've gotten so much
better, like I'm slowly reaching higher grades and stuff like that outside. And, you know, I'm slowly
like executing my moves in comp style stuff. And you know, it's like, there's no, you can visualize
the ceiling, but you know, you could still go past it, you know, and, and, and that's, that's my
thought process on that. If you can take the opportunity, you can break past your ceiling
that you're seeing that, you know, maybe you can be better. Okay. Yeah. That's a good statement.
Yeah. Okay. Do you want to talk about the Climbing Gems Chalk Bag that you received?
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this is a chalk bag from Climbing Gems. The owner of Climbing Gems,
her name's Anne and she's from Australia. I'm, the Guam team met her during the Oceania Qualifiers.
And then, so that's kind of, that's where the friendship started. And so, yeah, so she, we've,
we followed each other on Instagram. We shared back and forth stuff like, oh, you know, like talk bag,
talk and like climbing talk and stuff like that. And then when I posted that I was heading towards
Innsbruck, she messaged me and it's like, ah, man, it would have been great to have someone,
you know, test out my chalk bucket. Cause she has the Paraclimber, I forgot the Paraclimber from the
great GV team. Oh yeah, Anita. Yeah. She sent her to test it out on the Paraclimbing Elite. And so
she was like, oh, I wish someone would test out my bouldering bag. Right. Okay. Or, you know,
the chalk bucket. And I was like, I can test it out, but I think it might be too late for you to
ship it. I'm literally on my flight to Innsbruck. And she's like, don't worry, I'll think about,
I'll figure something out. So she literally makes this while I'm on the flight. Whoa. Express shifts
it to my Airbnb in Innsbruck. And she was like, hopefully it gets to you on time. Cause you were
only there five days in advance. Yeah. I was like, wait, five days in advance. And she was like,
yeah, I was like, wait, five days, well, five, six days in advance. And I was like, oh, I don't
think it's going to make it. And so she sends it and literally the day before it got to the door.
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,
it's very different because I mean, a lot of companies do the magnetic enclosure,
but because it's still like a, I guess you could say prototype model.
I got to test it out and there's definitely things to change on it, but you know, that's part of the,
that was part of the conversation is that I was supposed to test it out and give her feedback,
you know, and stuff like that. And it was really nice because the material of the shirt that she
used, I mean, this is the logo, the brand, the logo of the brand. And the shirt is like
really high, it's like heavy duty. And a lot of people, I've been getting a lot of comments
on it of people wondering, is it Tyvek or not? I was like, no, it's a t-shirt.
What is Tyvek?
Tyvek is the fabric you underlay your tent with.
Oh yeah, yeah, okay.
Yeah. Yeah. And so I was like, no, no, no, it's a t-shirt. So that, I mean, like at least the fabric
that she uses for her t-shirts are very high quality. And then the magnetic enclosure is
pretty strong, not too strong that you can't, it's a hard time opening it.
Yeah. Maybe after a long session.
Yeah, I mean, after a long session, but at least like most of the time, like when I throw my bag
down and it closes, it's kind of nice, especially if you're worried about chalk falling out. It has
like this nice little feature of the jeans at the bottom. She ran out of t-shirt materials, so then
she used like an old denim. And I guess that's also another great thing about it is she uses
recycled, you know, recycled fabric, basically stuff like old t-shirts, old pants. Or like if you
have a worn out team t-shirt, she can also, you know, do that. It's sort of like a memento
kind of thing if you want to have some sentimental value in chocolate. And so she does that. She does
like the little custom orders and stuff like that. And I think she has a website, but if you message
her on her Instagram, she'll lead you in the right direction to kind of get, get the right
to maybe eventually get one of these. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I will link her Instagram in the description
so people can check that out. So moving on to the Guam team, a lot of people don't know about,
watch about Guam, like what's the vibe there? Where is it? What the climbing scene is like there?
Yeah. I mean, so Guam is in the Oceania region, basically. It is, I would say, a four and a half
hour flight in Japan. So if you're looking at the world map, if you're looking at Japan and you're
looking at the Philippines, you basically draw a line from Japan south, south, southeast, and then
directly east of the Philippines. It's, it's a small island. It's about 15 miles wide, 32 north to
south. Oh, it's pretty small. Wow. Yeah. It's pretty small. Speed limit is like 35 miles per hour.
Okay. So like if you wanted to do like around the island trip, you could do it in a day.
Oh yeah. It's a US territory. So it does do miles. Yes. Yes. It's a US territory. So yeah. And a lot
of people mistake that, that, you know, when we, a lot of people that move from Guam to the United
States, mainland, or like to other countries, a lot of them, a lot of us are complimented about our
English. Oh, okay. Your English is very well. And I was like, nah, I mean, English is our first
language. The local language though, and the local people are known as Chamorro. So, so we're like,
you know, the Chamorro people and it's, it's, it's an Austronesian descent, I guess you could say.
It, we, we like, like most of the Oceania region, it's like Austronesian, Polynesian kind of,
the set. So then mostly I believe it, if I remember correctly, sorry if I'm wrong,
I believe it. I remember learning in my, when I was in college in Guam, I remember
in my Guam history class, it was Austronesia. So we're in the Pacific, we're US territory.
You know, we have a naval base, we have an air force base. So we're basically a tactical
region. We're a tactical island, I guess. I mean, it was, yeah. And that's, that's how we gain US
citizenship. And, you know, there's a lot of political aspects to it that I don't really want
to go into. But I mean, yeah, Guam, so there's a lot of political aspects to it. So I think
that's where Guam is located. It's a nice island, very high tourist scene. And used to have a lot of
Japanese tourists recently been getting a lot of Korean tourists, stuff like that, from other
Asian countries come visit Guam for like vacation. It's like the Hawaii of Asia, sort of.
Oh, okay.
Sort of. I guess you could say it like that. Yeah. And then like the climbing community started
recent, the climbing community has been there for a bit. But it's very, very hush hush down low a
little bit for a while. And then when they opened up the commercial gym, it blew up.
So is there like an outdoor climbing scene too?
Oh, yeah. So that's how the old climbing community was. It was word of mouth. And it was like,
if people wanted to climb outdoors. But there's not a lot of boulders and it's a lot of
lean roots. But there's a lot of established lead roots. And sometimes even like cave roots,
like you go into a cave and you climb. It's a little weird, but a lot of the,
we're slowly developing. We're hoping to develop eventually.
There are the t-nuts, the t-nuts, the anchors that were used in the established roots were all steel.
So all they're, they're all rusted out.
Oh, what do people usually use?
No, they're normally it's steel, but if you're by the ocean and it's very salty,
Oh, gotcha.
you want to use titanium bolts and titanium gear. So then it doesn't wear out in a corrosive
environment. So then the Guam coach and some other people are planning, slowly planning on
re-establishing those roots and putting up new ones. It's just finding the money to buy all of
the titanium bolts and then finding the time to go and put those roots up. And which is why
like the Guam coach is always like, we need you here. We need you here. We need someone to start
FA-ing everything. And I was like, ah, I mean, I could, but it's all weed. I have a boulder.
I mean, and we do have some boulders, but a lot of them are like the top outs are like,
have heavy shrubs. It has like trees on top of the boulders, mosques and stuff like that.
And, and, oh, and for people who are curious, the rock type is limestone. It's like the very sharp,
sharp limestone. Yeah. People who like to scramble. Some people like to scramble on top of the
limestone hillsides by the, by the ocean. And a lot of them usually come back down.
From those heights with a lot of cuts on their legs because it's very sharp. And like,
I feel like you can slice your hand off some of the limestone. I don't know what to compare it
to though, cause it's, it's basically coral limestone. I don't know if it's similar to
like, like Spanish limestone. I'm not sure. I mean, you don't,
I don't even know what limestone is.
Maybe your disperse could probably, your disperse could probably give some insight on that.
Yeah. I mean, like the, there's, there's slowly establishing some, there's like a lot of the
boulders that they have currently are like, maybe I think the max grade that they have right now is
like, I can't remember, but then Mike, the coach there was like saying that there's a potential
V10 and we don't know who can FA it. And they're asking me to do it. But whenever I'm there,
I'm working and I usually work California time. So then it's, so I'm like very tired by the time
they want me to, they want to go outside and, but maybe the next time around when I go back home,
I think try and FA it. We'll see. We'll see. Try it. Yeah.
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,
yeah. So then, well, maybe Guam can just be like a, a very comp focused.
Yeah. I mean that, yeah, I think they started out that way because actually a fun fact for the,
from the, of the team is that the, so me go living here in SD and then one of the female climbers
used to live in the Bay area and climb over there. So she's like sort of our lead specialist.
Oh cool. Yeah. She mainly likes to climb lead and she's,
we watched her during the Oceania qualifiers and I was like, she's way better than me at lead.
Okay. Yeah. She's crazy strong at lead, but yeah, but, and you know, and so she's like very strong
at lead. So she's like our female lead specialist. And so she can, she trains the other people on the
team on lead and, and in the comp style stuff, our coach and the Guam team, he's actually from
Santa Barbara and he knows a lot of my friends from college. So it's, it's, it's pretty small world
in terms of the climbing world. Cause it's like when I first met the team or like when I first
met the crew back home, I was like, oh, I was like, I didn't even know that you guys were here.
Yeah. I wish I knew that before the last time I was here. So that I kind of like
met you guys. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, that's like nice little fun fact that
some, so there's some people that have climbed here and brought, you know, the style, like the
comp style too. Cause our head coach likes comp style. Nice. Yeah. At least they have that.
Yeah. That's good. Okay. And you mentioned that some people on the team are still really new.
Yeah. I would say besides the coach, the lead specialist, Vicki, who is our female lead specialist
and then me, everyone else has been climbing for less than a year. That's crazy. I think there's
some people that may have like picked up climbing a little bit earlier before it opened up. Cause
we have, Oh yeah. Cause the gym is there. Oh actually no, we have one more guy. He's like
the oldest guy in our team. He used to live here in San Diego. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. Is this like the
spot? Well, cause he's a, he's a, he's like a, I think he works for the coast guard, but he does
a lot. He's actually, so one of the guys on our team was the oldest on our team. He competes in
Ninja warrior. Oh yeah. And he actually has a Ninja warrior gym back home. Oh fun. Yeah. And so
I remember seeing him here. He used to, I think he used to climb at the old Grotto G1.
Well, I just the original Grotto, not G1. And so that's when I first saw him and I saw him
wearing a long shirt and that was, this was like back in like 2019. And so, you know, and he moved
back and I noticed, and then he opened up in Georgia and stuff like that. And so there's,
so he's like, he's been climbing for a bit. And then there's another guy on our team, Mike. He,
uh, he lived in Japan for like college, I think for, for school a little bit for maybe like a year
and he picked up climbing there. And so there's a handful of us that have been climbing for maybe
a little bit more than a year, me being six years and then maybe Vicky being like four or five years
also. And then our head coach Noah, he's been climbing just as maybe longer than me. And then
everyone else is less than eight when the gym opened. Yeah. Yeah. So it's crazy. And then, but
a lot of the, like, I've noticed a lot of the newer climbers that are coming from Guam, they pick it
up very easily. It's, it's crazy to see it. Like a lot of the newer guys, they're just like,
very curious, like comp kids. And they're, well, they're young, but not like not comp kid,
but not, not youth young, but they're very curious and they're just getting really, really good,
really fast. So hopefully we'll get to see something happen in the next few years. Yeah. Uh,
in terms of like excelling and comp. Hopefully, well, we'll see. Uh, I have high hopes, but yeah.
And I mean, it'll take some time. It'll take time, but we need that. The thing is that we need that
exposure. And so a lot of us are going out of the way and like, you know, going to comps or like,
maybe going to a comp and not competing, but just like observe, you know, or going to other gyms
outside the Guam gym where maybe the setting is a little bit different and they can train a little
bit harder. Yeah. And it helps to have someone to look up to. So yeah, you gotta get out there.
Yeah. I mean, a lot of them asked me for advice. Uh, like, I mean, I'll bounce off Noah, the coach,
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
someone to bounce off of usually, but not like occasionally when you messaging us and stuff like
that. Yeah. I mean, like it's, it's sometimes I feel like I have like, uh, FOMO where it's like,
ah, I'm missing out so much. And it's like, this is all experienced with the team, but I mean, like
sometimes like the sacrifice of living out here and like, well, also working as an engineer,
but also training out here, getting experience here and trying to bring it back. It's, it's,
it's all worth it in the end. Yeah. Oh, and a little piece of, I guess, I mean, I'm going off
a tangent, a little piece of climbing history of Guam. Uh, we heard this from the vice president
of the, of IFSC. I think the vice president of IFSC is from Japan. I think so. I could be wrong,
but well, we met him at the ocean and qualifiers, but he told us that Akio Noguchi started climbing
because she visited Guam. What? Yeah. Well, cause she, uh, yeah, that's the best little piece of
history. Um, he, like when she was a kid, she, her and her family visited Guam. She climbed the tree.
Oh, okay. She climbed like a coconut tree, got obsessed with climbing and picked up climbing,
I guess. I guess that's how the story went. I could be wrong, but that's what I heard.
So that's a little climbing history from Guam. Yeah. I don't know how long ago that was when
Akio Noguchi was a little kid. Okay. So she didn't get on any of like the actual
limestone icons. Yeah. I don't know, but she, they said that she was climbing a coconut tree and she
was obsessed with climbing. That's good to know. And I think that was the last question I had.
So we'll just move on to the couple of discord questions that we got. Um, what made you decide
to take part in world cups? Um, if you're an average climber, is there anything in it other
than the experience? I imagine it's a costly affair. Yeah. I mean, I mean, not just, I mean,
sure. It's for the experience, but it's, it's putting your foot through the door. Like you,
basically you're, you're, I know, like I'm stepping into like a domain of like bleak climbers and like,
I know I'm not at that level, but just that alone will help expose, um, a lot. I mean, there's,
I mean, I don't know the political aspect to it, but it's like, the more exposure you get,
the more the, whatever organization is in charge of funding all these sporting,
uh, funding these athletes, you know, you want that exposure, even though you know,
where you're standing is compared to the rest of the circuit, because it shows to whatever head
organization that, um, you know, we have, we're putting our foot through the door. We're getting
that experience, you know, it's, and then it starts building, building up. Cause I mean, you know,
there's a history of athletes not being paid enough, you know, um, and then it's not in,
not just in climbing, you know, like looking into the Olympics right now, right? Women's rugby hasn't
been well known, but because of the Olympics and them winning bronze, you know, you never know the
outcome, you know, you, I could just be, have, I could be an average, I could be having a good day
that day and I could just maybe go from place 98 to like halfway through this halfway through the
state, you know, that big step is, is huge, you know, compared like sure, like I can be average,
but compared to when you see that gain in experience, people will catch eye to that. You
know, people are going to notice that it may not be to the normal person. It could be to like an
organization that pays attention to the climbing, to, to whatever sport that you have, um, uh, you
know, representing whatever country you have. And so then it kind of helps build and it goes back to
building the community and building the sport back home is because, you know, if we can somehow
catch on the eyes of more people, either from the island of Guam or people who pay attention to
sports, then we can somehow get funding and get better programs for the youth team. And then maybe
the youth team and then maybe we can build a stronger team, you know, that that's, and that's
my perspective on it. Um, and, you know, and I'm using this opportunity to also just grow. I mean,
I don't know, maybe I will eventually become stronger and maybe climb better at these both.
Um, we'll see eventually in the next four, four years, if I still continue competing, but at
least there's some kind of foundation that the, that the team back home can build on, you know,
and there's the saying that the, that the team likes to say, there's the motto of the gym,
which is from the ground up. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's like
the motto of our gym is from the ground up because, you know, we start from nothing and we're just
going to build up from there. And you know, when you build something coming from an engineer that
works on structures, you want to build the strong foundation, you know, the, you know, you may not
have the strongest climbers in that foundation, but at least they're laying the lines, they're laying
the, you know, the re the reinforcement and all that stuff to help build the team for future
generations. Yeah. I mean, certainly if I were you, I would take every opportunity. Yeah. Cause
it's just, it's just cool. Yeah. And it's really cool. I mean, I've definitely like second guessed
it when they first made the team. I was like, Oh my God, it's not, it's a lot of money for traveling.
I'm going to have to dip into my savings a little bit. You know, I have to, you know, I mean, I,
I mean, sure. I, I mean, I, to make things fair, I also tried out for the team. I had to fly back
home and that's a lot of money to fly back home. Yeah. It's pretty far. And so I, I definitely
second guessed it. I talked to my friends at the gym, my friends from college who also climb and,
you know, and they were like, yeah, I mean, what's there to lose other than money, other than, you
know, spending the money, but at least you're doing something for the future of climbing in Guam. And
I was like, yeah, I mean, that's, and I, and that's at least like one of my climbing goals is to,
it's always been one of my climbing goals. Once I started climbing was to build the community. Like
I mentioned earlier, it was to build a community in Guam. And you know, since there's already a gym,
maybe I can open a training center, you know, that's, you know, that caters to the team.
Yeah. I think that makes sense. I mean, to me at least, because I've also obviously spent a lot of
time and money getting involved in this climbing scene, either through like competitions or like
going to see, just like see the world cups. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's definitely an investment
and investment, a personal investment to do all this stuff. But you know, sometimes you kind of
look at the big picture and sometimes you just kind of, you look at the big picture and you just
kind of brush it over and say, it's for something bigger. Yeah. Okay. And so then what is your plan
for the future? Are you going to go to all bouldering world cups? Eventually slowly depends on how
funding will go for the team and you know, whoever gets better in the team. Because we ideally,
we want to send each and every one of our athletes so that everyone gets the same experience that I
had. And you know, because I mean, we only like, we only have our local comps. And you know, we
don't have other setters from other countries or you know, other gyms, we only have the one gym and
we only have the one's head setter. So then, you know, we don't have that much exposure. So a lot
of them are going to be competing in the world cups. And then for me personally, I would like to
go do a full circuit of bouldering world cup and then maybe eventually add in league.
Eventually, we'll see, we'll see how that goes. But as for now, it's going to be periodically.
I know some of us will be going not to Prague, because we have a local comp happening back home
in September, which I'll be attending. But a lot of a handful of us will be going to World Cup Seoul
and Korea. So yeah, I mean, I guess expect me to be there. But I mean, they don't air the
qualification round, so you won't really see me. I'll probably be posting if I, you know,
while I'm there. And if I'm not competing, then I'm going to be there to support the team,
because that's part of my travel route right now.
Okay. So there's multiple people from Guam going to Seoul.
Yeah, I think so Vicky, the female on our team is for sure. She will most likely do both boulder
and lead. And then we're looking at potentially myself and two other guys, maybe three, because
we have eight allotted slots. Oh, wow. Yeah, eight. Well, it's two for each category. So two for
bouldering, two for lead, but then it's male female. So then four, four. And then if you have
one person doing both, that takes two spots. So max eight, minimum four, I guess, if you have,
am I doing, I don't know if I'm doing that, but yeah. So, because there's another guy on our team,
his name's Don, and he's pretty strong. And then we have another guy who's gotten strong at lead.
We don't have a lead wall, but he's got the endurance for it. So we're literally training
from nothing and trying to build some, you know, because it's hard to build tall walls in Guam.
Because we have a height restriction for buildings because we have high seismic zone earthquakes
in Guam. And, you know, and that's the only building type that you can build taller than 30 feet
is a hotel. Oh, yeah. And I mean, we can try and do a climbing hotel. But that'd be interesting to do.
There's been suggestions of digging into the ground and like digging down maybe 10 feet and then doing
a 40 foot tall building, but it's at 30 in terms of, I mean, I think that's what they did. I think
that's what Enrico said. That's one of the gyms in Japan did that because they also have the same
height. They have the same height restriction. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because they don't have any lead walls.
No, a lot of them are boulder. But I mean, like you can still train lead on boulder. So you just
have to make sure you learn how to clip. Yeah. Yeah. And or and train. Oh, well actually, yeah.
And train for your head game for the height. Yeah. And just like the one shot. Yeah. And so
a lot, there's a couple of people on the team that have been training on the outdoor boulders
with the sketchy bolts, but they're doing it on top rope, but learning to clip. And you know,
they're clipping at the same time and you know, gaining that endurance and head game,
even though they're on top rope, but moth leading. So I mean, that's how I learned how to lead
actually basically. It's the same. Yeah. I mean, you work with what you have. Yeah. Okay. Well,
well, good luck in Seoul. Yeah. Thank you. It's cool to see. Okay, I think that's all the questions
I had. Any final thoughts or final statements? I mean, going back to what I said previously,
I guess to reflect back on a conversation we had and if you know, if you feel like you've started
too late and it's never, I mean, ideally you want to start early, but it's never too late to try
and become something bigger and be part of a bigger picture. And if something feels like,
like if something feels like it is impossible to make it feel possible is to see the final outcome,
to visualize the final outcome far into the future and be like, okay, this is why.
And I mean, if you have high passions for climbing or in anything in general, and you want to make
that thing bigger or like build a community for it and establish something, then hey, we can go for
it. You know, it's like, if you want it so that much, then do whatever it takes. Yeah. So I guess
that's one that, yeah, that's my final statement, I guess. Okay. No, it's good. Good. Anything you
want to shout out or let people know where they can find you? You can find me, I mean, the only
socials I have is Instagram. Okay. And I'll link that. Yeah. It is A-G-B-O-I, which is,
it's just A-G-Boy. A-G is my initial, my first name initials and then boy. It is, it's just,
and I mean, backstory to that is it was my alias growing up as a break dancer and I stuck with it.
So that's why. Wait, A-G-Boy is not your initials? No, A-G is my initials. Boy is just other. How is
that your initials? Oh, my full name is Alan Gregory. What do you mean? Yeah. So my full name is
Alan Gregory. Your first name? Yeah. Like legally, like my legal name is Alan Gregory. God damn,
you never told me that. No one knows that. Now the world knows. Oh, now the climbing community
knows that. Yeah. I mean, I don't really say much on it. A lot of people always wonder like,
where did the G come from? Yeah. I was like, oh, it's my second name. Like my legal name is
Alan Gregory. Okay. Gotcha. But you can just call me. And like, I mean, like to back on the,
my Instagram name, it's just everyone back from high school, they don't know me as Alan.
They only know me as A-G-Boy. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's me doing that. I mean, that's because
everyone you meet from dancing and that was my alias in dancing. Oh, alias. Gotcha.
Yeah. So you can find me on at A-G-Boy on Instagram. Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you for
joining me today. This was fun and best luck to you in Seoul. Thank you. Thank you so much for making
it to the end of the podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. Otherwise, you are
a super fake climber. If you're listening on a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rated
five stars and you can continue the discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in
the description. Thanks again for listening.