starting to climb very chubby and always being like bigger than the other guys that has always
like affected me mentally like it's a bit of a struggle.
A climbing shoe here for us like costs a thousand and three hundred Reals for us and that's
like the same as the minimum wage here in Brazil.
It's like I didn't do a one arm pull up before being able to like win nationals or send like
my first V13 outdoors.
If you're trying to solve it with strength, you're doing it wrong.
Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast.
I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my guest for today Rodrigo Hanada.
Rodrigo is a boulder and lead climber from Team Brazil.
He actually started climbing fairly recently in 2018 but since then has been a two time
South American Cup winner and is working his way up the ranks on the World Cup circuit.
In this episode, we talk about what makes training and climbing in Brazil difficult,
how he feels like a weaker climber due to starting out as a chubbier kid and mindset
tips he uses while competing.
I hope you enjoy this episode with Rodrigo.
Real quick, I'm excited to announce my new sponsor helping make this podcast episode
possible, Mad Rock Climbing.
I got fitted with their brand new line of high performance shoes, the D2.1s.
They just came out December 6th but you might notice a few of your favorite gum climbers
are already wearing them like Oscar Boudrand from Team Canada and also me.
This is the first time I've gotten to wear their shoes for an extended period of time
and I'm actually super impressed with the grip of their in-house rubber and of course
the famous drone heel that everyone says is the cheat code to heel hooking small edges.
Feel free to message me if you have any questions about the shoes or sizing and you can use
the discount code NotRealClimber for 10% off your entire Mad Rock order.
Info will be in the description.
Back to the show.
But yeah, how are you doing today?
Are you just home in Brazil at the moment?
Yeah, I'm just home.
Today is a rest day.
So pretty chill.
Yeah.
Where in Brazil are you from?
São Paulo.
It's like the biggest city.
Okay.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, I don't know too much about Brazil, but we'll get into that later and
I'll learn more, which will be good.
For sure.
But yeah, let's get right into it.
How did you get started climbing and competing?
So yeah, I started climbing about like eight years ago.
I was pretty lazy in that time.
Like I would always like stay at home and stuff and some friends are like, oh, let's
check out this climbing gym.
And I just went there like without any expectations and I couldn't really get to the top.
I was like pretty chubby back then and I was like, yeah.
And I was like, oh, I guess I want to come back and try to make it to the top like in
just in any boulder.
And then I came back and that's how I started like just going and going and I got really
addicted to it and I would go like every day after school.
Yeah, like when I was 14, I'm 22 now.
So like eight years.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, that's like pretty recent and I think a lot of people can also relate to that kind
of story casually at least.
Did you do other sports before that?
Because like eight years is pretty fast, especially for like getting onto the World Cup circuit.
Did you like do other sports growing up?
Or I guess you said you were chubby, so I don't know.
Yeah, like when I was young, like way younger, like I used to play rugby.
I was on a rugby team and I also did like one year of gymnastics right after it.
But then I had to stop both of them because I had a problem on my knees and the doctor
said I had to.
Like an injury?
Yeah, I still don't know exactly what it was.
Maybe the doctor was wrong because now my knees like I don't have that problem anymore.
But he was like, yeah, you have to stop all sports.
And I've always been like really competitive.
And so when he said it, it was like pretty devastating for me.
And I feel like that's when I started like getting chubby and I was just sad and that's
why I would stay home.
And I guess when I found climbing, it was like that escape and it brought me back that
feeling of like competing but it was more like against myself.
So that's what I really liked about the sport and the support that everyone would give you
when you were on the wall.
I feel like that's something pretty great about the climbing community.
And I would say that something else that really brought me closer to the sport was the fact
that I've always been into like solving puzzles and problems like maths and stuff like that.
And I feel like solving each boulder problem is always like something that's pretty intricate
and always like psychs me up.
And so like the climbing didn't give you any like knee issues, especially with like bouldering.
There's a lot of like falling and jumping down.
I feel like some people get issues with their knees.
I had some problem like on my, I don't know the name exactly in English.
But I ruptured my ligament twice like in the last year and a half.
But it has nothing to do with the injury that I had like eight years ago.
So it was just, it just happened.
Geez.
Okay, I was climbing on that now.
I still like to be honest, it's still hard to deal with it.
Like doing some drop knees or very like intensive heel hooks can be scary.
But I've been working it a lot with my physiotherapist and trying to work like mostly my mental game
about it because heel hooks have always been a strong point for me.
And I feel like I've lost that kind of like superpower.
So I'm trying to like get it back.
Yeah, that's really hard.
How did you hurt it?
The first time was like three weeks, one month before Pan American Games that we're going
to qualify for the Olympics in 2023.
So it was like a big bummer for me.
I was like feeling really good for that event.
And I still like, I was still able to recover in three weeks and I still competed, but I
like didn't have the results that I was expecting.
And then I had it again in 2024 in Innsbruck.
So like it was around August last year.
And I was just like doing a lot of training and I feel maybe it was just like overusing
it and I did like a okay heel hook and it just popped.
But it was like different ligaments.
So the first time was doing a drop knee, the second time was doing a heel hook.
Yeah, I feel like it must be hard to like mentally get over that.
I feel like recently I know a couple of people who also hurt their knees like doing drop
knees or like hard heel hooks.
And yeah, any like tips for how to get over the mental side of doing like a scary heel
hook or hard heel hook or something like that after the injury?
Yeah, I feel like something that helped me was like I was getting inspiration from other
people that I also knew that injured themselves.
So I feel like I also tried to like share a bit of my injury and like my rehab process
because I feel like having these stories to base yourself upon really help you like just
put your head down and say like okay, I'm going to work again, I'll be back soon and
this is gonna make me stronger.
And I gotta say that like the times that I felt like I've had like the biggest like mental
switches or biggest gains in my climbing were actually when I injured myself because that's
when I had like enough time at home to like reflect about my training, what I'm doing
right, what I'm doing wrong and really like try to make it like to a better path and work
on other things that I normally can't.
So like I struggle as well with like finger strength, this is something that is hard for
me like small crimps and both times that I injured my knee were like periods where I
could really work on my finger strength.
So in the end of those periods, I was feeling way stronger.
So I think that injuries like of course they're really bad and not ideal for like a competition
year, but if you like try to deal them in the best way possible, I'm sure that you can
always take like positive outcomes.
Yeah, I've heard that a lot that you can kind of like use an injury as a motivator to improve
other areas of your climbing.
Have you had any injuries?
I actually, shoulders are the main thing but it's really hard to climb without using your
shoulders at all.
So yeah, honestly with shoulders, I don't really know how to continue training with
the shoulder issue.
Maybe some slabs.
Yeah, yeah, slabs.
But even then there's like some weird pressing stuff that was really hard to deal with.
Yeah, it never got like fully like ruptured or anything.
So at least there's that.
But yeah, I feel like shoulders is a tough one.
I feel like, yeah, fingers and shoulders, those are hard.
Actually haven't had a finger injury though, knocking on wood.
Yeah, fingers are the worst.
Yeah, have you had a finger injury?
I've never had like a major finger injury, like I've never fully ruptured a pulley, but
I've had like minor ones that last for so many months.
They're like pretty annoying.
Yeah, surprisingly, I feel like based on the athletes I've talked to, there's actually
very few injuries, like finger injuries.
And maybe that's like why they're great World Cup climbers, because they haven't had to
take time off to deal with a finger injury.
But yeah, going back to what you're saying about starting climbing fairly recently compared
to other climbers in like the senior World Cup circuit, what do you feel like you focused
on to get good so fast, especially kind of starting from like zero?
Yeah, so I think what really boosted my career here in Brazil was the fact that I went to
Australia to an exchange program when I was in second year of high school.
So when I was like 16 and I lived there for a year.
And here in Brazil, like we struggle with the fact that the importation taxes to bring
holds to Brazil are really expensive.
And so the gyms here, we mostly have like national hold that are getting really good.
Like recently we have some brands that are like standing out and stuff.
But back in the day when I started, it was hard to have like exposure to like cheetah
flat hold.
We still barely have them here.
And also like movement wise, we didn't have like coordination or slabs and stuff like
that.
So I feel like going to Australia really like opened up my eyes and I was like learning
a whole new like climbing world in 2019.
And I feel like when I came back, I had this advantage over like some other athletes that
were maybe stronger to like have learned so much like technique.
And that's what I feel like I've done in the last like World Cup years as well.
I was just trying to become like a better technical climber.
Like I really focused on slabs and coordination like really trying to understand how my body
moves on the wall.
And I feel like now like in the last year, I feel like I've like got to a point where
I'm like okay that's good but now I need to start focusing more on my power.
So right now like my focus is 100% on getting stronger fingers to be able to like really
be in that semi-finals level.
Yeah, what are like the holds that you were talking about earlier?
Are there any like Brazilian hold brands that we might know of or is it have you never seen
them outside of Brazil?
Yeah, so it's just expanding right now.
We have a brand called Crux and they're like dominating the market here like nationally
right now and they just started selling holds like to the US.
I think they're going to Europe now which is pretty cool to see and because we're having
exciting news, we're having a World Cup here.
Yeah.
They are also gonna be a part of it.
They were able to get like a spot in the IFSC recognized holds.
So I think you guys will all see some Crux holds in the World Cup.
Okay, I'll have to keep an eye out for that.
I'm excited to see some different holds.
That'll be interesting.
I wonder if I've seen them before.
I think they were in the there were a few in the last Pan Am games we had just like
last year in November.
Okay, I might recognize them if I see them again.
And so what did you move to Australia for?
It was just like a school exchange program or?
My parents always thought it was good to do it in a year outside of Brazil.
So like gain experience like life experience and my sister she lives in Australia and so
it was pretty easy to I lived with her.
So yeah, that was a really nice thing as well.
She's like 15 years older than me.
Whoa.
She was almost like a mom for me.
Yeah, wow.
When we were there.
There's difference.
Yeah, and yeah, and it was in fact great.
And I also went there back in 2023.
I was back in Australia for more training because I thought it was a pretty great place
to train and I had like the opportunity to stay in my sister's house.
It was like cheaper than going to Europe.
Yeah, for sure.
Does she also climb or no?
No, she actually used to be a professional ballet dancer.
She danced for Bolshoi.
I don't know if you know it.
It's like a Russian company.
It's pretty big.
Okay, nice.
Yeah.
Have you been to Australia?
No, I've never never been to the Southern Hemisphere.
It's a little far.
Yeah, I guess.
Yeah, Brazil is also in the South.
Yeah, no, it's just it's really far.
Like I'm kind of surprised about how far it is because I've like looked into like flights
to like South America or like Australia and it's always way further than I expected to
be.
And then I and then I back out.
But I do I do want to visit at some point.
Yeah, you should.
But it is pretty far.
Like going from here to Australia, it's normally at least two 12 hour flights.
Yeah, exactly.
Two days traveling.
Like once it gets around like the 20 hours of traveling, I kind of cap out there.
But one day I really should.
Did you get coaching there too?
Or was it just getting like whole practice with different holds?
I was mostly like just so psyched on having like crazy different boulders.
Yeah, so I would like mostly just climb until I had no skin left every single day and try
like all the climbs.
But I did have like a coach back here in Brazil and we would always like talk over the phone,
see how it's going.
So it was nice to have also some guidance out there.
Yeah, so then getting into your World Cup experience, you fairly recently just had your
best World Cup bouldering result in Prague.
I think you came in 35th.
So definitely on the way to making semis.
So congrats on that.
That must be really exciting.
What felt different about that World Cup for you?
About that one in specific, it was right after my knee injury last year as well.
It was like three weeks, maybe four after my knee injury.
And I was in Innsbruck in that time.
And I was like, I decided to stay in Innsbruck.
And I also skipped copper, which was lead.
And I had like this one month to just recover, get stronger.
And I was so focused on it.
And I feel like that really helped me getting stronger, getting really fit.
And being in Innsbruck, you're always surrounded by so many strong climbers that I was able
to maybe start already getting into the World Cup environment before the World Cup.
So I feel like that helped me.
Every day I was seeing someone pushing the limits of what I thought it was possible.
And I had like really hard blocks every day to train on.
And I feel like Prague was also an experiment.
Like I'm coming back from an injury, so I have no high expectations.
But at the same time, I know I'm feeling strong.
And the round also suited me.
So I feel like it was like a combo of all those things.
And yeah, I think that was also the second best result we had like nationally for Brazil.
Nice.
So I was pretty psyched on it.
How was your knee feeling at that time?
I competed with a knee brace.
I don't know if that's the name.
Oh, wow.
Really?
Okay.
Yeah.
We had to ask for like a special like require to be able to use it.
So with it, I was feeling pretty confident.
Luckily, I didn't have to do any extraneous heel hooks on my left leg.
So it ended up being fine.
It was just a bit unfortunate because one of the boulders, you had to like do a double
jump into a pinch like for the top and it was pretty high up and kind of sideways.
And the first time I got to it, I like fell like super bad, falling like twisting.
And that got a bit into my mind and I was like in the mats thinking like, I know I can
send this, but I don't know if I want to risk my knee right now because I had pen amps coming
up.
And so I decided to like not try the boulder again.
And maybe if I did, I would have been in semis.
Oh, wow.
Well, there's still there's next times.
There's lots of workups coming up.
The knee brace, was it like still a hard brace or was it just like some like does it actually
keep your knee in place or is it kind of just like that mental like awareness of your knee?
It's like a sock, but it has like two hard plastic things on the sides that also move
on the center of the knee.
So they like stabilize when you fall.
So it like gives you a bit, they work kind of as ligament.
So it just makes your knee stable when you're not fully stable yet.
Yeah.
I mean, impressive to get that result with a knee brace on.
What do you feel like you need to focus more on in order to make semis like this season?
I feel like I've been on a good path right now, like looking up my results from the last
like I've been on the circuit for three years, I think.
And first World Cup, I was like lost place.
Sure.
Understand.
And I've been building up.
So I feel like this 35th place also built up my confidence a lot.
It's hard to be in South America and not having like not having like hard blocks to train
on and seeing like strong people doing impossible things every day and still believing that
we can do it.
I feel like in South America, we need to start believing more in ourselves like all athletes
because of course we have less resources.
We don't have the structure or the time of the sport being developed in the country for
so long.
But I feel like we have fight in ourselves.
We have the fight to do it.
And I feel like I gained technique in the last few years as I said, and now I feel like
I just need a bit more power.
So that's what I'm working on right now, getting more fit, stronger, stronger fingers.
And I think I can do it.
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned that it's like hard for you to get difficult enough sets
in the gym and that there's not as many other like strong climbers to, I guess, motivate
you.
I definitely understand like the need to like see someone doing something better than you
to like get the psych up and get that like competitive mindset going.
Have you considered living abroad for more practice?
I had for sure.
There's a few factors like it's pretty expensive for us like the dollar right now is like six
to one.
And it's like I always use like this example.
I think it's a good example to measure things like a climbing shoe here for us like a Scarpa
shoe like a Drago for example that is what I compete on.
Costs a thousand and three hundred reais for us when you convert it and that's like the
same as the minimum wage here in Brazil.
So like a climbing shoe costs like same or more than the minimum wage someone gets paid
here for a month.
So it's like pretty expensive like the gear and that's why also the holds are so expensive
for the gyms.
But I got to say that it's been a really good few years like the gyms here are growing so
much like the development in our country is like beautiful to see right now.
And the Federation just built us a very, very good training center and that's where we hosted
like South American Championships and that's where we will be hosting the World Cup.
So I feel like we're getting there and with the World Cup as well we're gonna get like
more holds to train on.
And also something that really inspired me last year was my friend from Chile, Benjamin
Vargas.
I don't know if you've heard of him.
He was the first South American to make STEMIs in a bouldering World Cup and he did it last
year in Salt Lake.
So I was like so psyched for him and I feel like that was also like a boost that like,
yeah, let's do it like the South Americans can do it.
Bang Ha, he just did it so we can all do it too.
Yeah.
So then how do you get like World Cup level difficulty practice at your home gym?
To be honest, we don't get like blocks normally on the gym sets which is like understandable.
Like the level here is not that high to have like and we don't have as much resources to
like do it on the gym sets.
So we normally just like create boulders on top of the other boulders like mixing holds
and we have like a training area, a little training area now that the gym I train on.
It's like really, really nice to build a small space where we could like have like a spray
wall and a slab wall and we can like we're free there to set whatever we want.
We have a lot of holds there.
So now we're using that little training area but of course it's like hard to compare with
like the French team that have like three, four training centers and all the holds are
in Europe, everything is there but yeah it's a hard comparison to make.
Yeah.
So it's kind of up to you to build hard climbs for yourself on a spray wall.
Yeah.
And we're like fortunate enough that the federation helps us travel because they know that we
need to train on that structure at least for a few periods of the year.
So our federation really helps sending us like to Europe to training.
Like I said I was in Innsbruck for a month when I injured my knee.
I was there training.
Every time we go to Salt Lake for the World Cups we often try to stay at least like two
weeks before and then two weeks after to get some training done too and that's how we kind
of like deal with it.
Yeah.
I'm sure that really does help a lot.
I think something interesting that you mentioned is that you do get a stipend for being an
athlete whereas a lot of climbers from even like bigger climbing federations don't get
that kind of support and I guess they also like help like fund your stays in other countries
for like training before and after World Cups.
I guess how does that like funding work in Brazil because it seems like it's really nice
that they're putting a lot of money into the sport.
Yeah so since it became an Olympic sport we're now like the federation is now like attached
I don't know the word exactly like with the Olympic committee and so every Olympic sport
gets like a funding from the Olympic committee per year and that funding has to be distributed
in like different areas and so they're able to like use some of that funding to like explain
that okay so we don't have as much structure here yet and those training programs are really
essential to get our athletes to the level they need to and so they're able to explain
it and that's how we can do the training camps but I'm still like so happy they're able to
do it because as you said like I know that it's a pretty rare thing to have the federation
paying for the athletes to train outside.
Yeah and then in terms of like the like the athlete stipend you get is that your main
source of income or do you also do like other like coaching on the side or anything like
that?
Yeah so I do some settings here in the gyms or commercial sets and I also get money from
the government like for being an athlete right now for having like South American and Pan
American results you get international it's like a salary that you get for being in for
having international results as an athlete.
You get that income from the government and then I also have it from the federation and
from like one or two private sponsors.
You mentioned that you do like some setting also for some income.
Do you feel like the setting helps with your climbing or does it kind of just tire you
out in a different way?
It's for sure a bit of both.
I always do get tired from setting and that affects a bit my training because it's like
it's hard work but at the same time it's like money that's pretty important to me so I can't
like not do it and I do feel that it helps me getting in the mind of the root setters
when I'm also in a competition.
I feel like it helps me know what they expect from the athletes and what they're trying
to trick us into thinking.
What kind of stuff do you like to set?
I really love slabs, like I feel like that's my strong suit in my climbing as well and
I also really enjoy like feet coordination and coordination in general.
So what I like to set here in Brazil, it's normally new school stuff because that's the
thing we have the least here.
Normally the gym sets are very like rock climbing based because rock climbing here is like a
big thing and we have really good rock here so I always try to bring like new stuff, movements
that I've seen in world cups like in an easier version and it's like it's always taken as
well sometimes in a bad way but then it ends up being positive because I think it's something
new so people are like oh we don't like this jumpy jumpy stuff but in the end they always
learn something new and then they start enjoying it so I guess it's nice to have it in the
gym.
It's interesting that you get that feedback but I'm glad you're able to change their minds
about it I guess.
So yeah like I said earlier unfortunately I don't know too much about like climbing
in South America or Brazil and also Brazil is like a massive country.
Is there like a main climbing city for indoor like outdoor climbing?
Yeah so I would say the cities that stand out the most like in terms of like number
of climbing gyms and where most of the strong athletes are is São Paulo which is where
I live, where I train.
We have Fabrica here.
It's a gym that's been growing a lot.
It's owned by Felipe Camargo.
He's like a red bull athlete, pretty like strong rock climber.
He really pushed the limits for us as well.
He's climbed like 9B outdoors and V15.
And he owns this gym that has three locations here in São Paulo and then we also have Belo
Horizonte which is in Minas Gerais.
They also have a lot of gyms but our training center is in a city called Curitiba.
That's where the World Cup will be and they also have like three or four pretty good gyms
there.
So I would say these are the three main like cities for climbing here.
Are those cities like also good for outdoor climbing or you mentioned that there's good
rock somewhere?
That's something that is really, really, really big in Brazil and I wish more people would
come here to climb outdoors because our gym like scene is still developing a lot.
It's still growing but rock climbing wise, we have like so many nice crags.
There's like two places.
One is called Milho Verde and the other one is called Igatu.
They were both like featured in a North Face video with Daniel Woods and Juliana called
Night Moves.
I don't know if you've watched it.
I haven't watched that one but…
They talked like how it's like as big as Rocklands like both places.
It's like endless rock, endless like possibilities but there's just like not enough climbers
out here to open to make the first ascent.
So, we have like these incredible places that just need like strong climbers to come out
here and send everything.
I haven't seen the video but I'll have to link it in the description and take a look.
Do you have any interest in like developing these areas in the future?
Yeah, for sure.
Like rock climbing is also how I fell even more in love with the sport and it's something
that we even do here sometimes to get that like try hard feeling as we don't have it
like as much in the gyms.
I often like to go try like hard projects outdoor to get me feeling like strong on my
fingers and getting that try hard in my mind before a comp.
So I feel like that's a strategy we often use here as well.
And right now what I think as well it's like I don't do as many rock trips as I would
like to but I always think like well the rocks they're always gonna be there, they're not
going anywhere whereas the comps like my climbing career as like a comp athlete it's gonna end
like at some point and I'm gonna be way stronger by then and the rocks are still gonna be there.
So like I'm just like not yet doing those climbing trips outdoors as much.
Yeah, you mentioned that like outdoor rock climbing also kind of helps you get in the
try hard mentality for comps.
Do you feel like it does?
I guess I wonder how much it translates because there's sort of like a different mentality
outside compared to comps where like outside like you said it's always gonna be there whereas
at comps you really only get a few attempts.
So do you kind of try to like bring that comp mindset to outdoor climbing or does it just
like help in different ways?
For sure the comp mindset helped me a few times outdoors where I was like not doing
a climb and then I just like centered out and I was like okay imagine I'm like in a
competition this is the last boulder like for me to get a gold and just try to enter
in that mentality and it made me send the boulder.
So I feel like both ways translate well and also when I'm outdoors I feel like those are
the moments that I really feel connected like with how I started climbing and really connected
with myself just being out in nature you know touching some rocks it's like it really brings
me back to like my core and I feel like that helps me just train harder for the next few
weeks and also just like how the rock is formed is like you can't just change a few screws
and the hold is gonna twist a little bit or you can make the boulder easier.
It just is as it is so either try it really hard or you're not gonna send it and I feel
like that's what I get a lot from the rocks when I go outside.
I don't know if it makes this.
I'm sure some people would relate to it yeah.
I have like a very backwards thinking where I just I don't really like climbing outside
and I don't feel connected to nature so it like it never translates for me but I know
for a lot of people it does so I think other people will relate to that better.
Just going back to like the bouldering world cup that's gonna take place in Curitiba do
you think you're gonna feel like a hometown advantage or are you gonna feel like pressure
that you have to perform?
I feel like pressure will come.
Right now I'm not feeling it but I know for a fact that everyone that climbs here in Brazil
is going to Curitiba to watch the world cup.
It's gonna be like a big thing like having the first world cup in South America so for
sure it's gonna be a great event.
I really hope like all the athletes come and compete and I feel like I will have for sure
like support from the crowd and that's gonna like like me up so much.
It has been psyching me up this year.
I'm like I'm feeling really focused on training and having the world cup in my mind is really
helping me like train hard every day so I feel like not even just on the comp but also
like in this pre-season moment it's been helping me to know that I'm gonna have a world cup
in my country.
How like is the climbing community big?
Like you think it'll be like a huge showing people are gonna be loud the crowd's gonna
be like crazy?
I feel like Brazilian people they're all very like loud like happy and festive so I feel
like it's gonna be very nice.
I don't think it would be like as many people as like an Innsbruck World Cup or like Chamonix
just because it's been there for so many years but I really hope we make like a good event
and that it happens again in the next years.
Yeah well I hope it'll be a good time.
How does like crowd noise influence you?
Because I've only been to like a couple world cups in person.
I went to one in China where it was like pretty quiet so the yeah the atmosphere was like
kind of weird feeling I think and I went to like the Salt Lake one where it was a lot
louder but I haven't been to like any European ones.
Yeah how does crowd noise affect your performance?
Normally like of course I hear something here and there like very very it's not that often
because normally when I go into the meds I fully tunnel vision and like every time we
do like athletes presentation before starting like a boulder final for example I feel like
I normally don't see anyone it's just like a black wall in front of me I'm just looking
at the clock and really really focus on boulders I feel like that's something that I can do
pretty well like 100% focusing on the climbs.
Of course when I send them I really like to cheer on and look back and see everyone but
coming into the next boulder is like same feeling.
Going back into mindset I feel like a few times you mentioned that you don't think you're
the strongest climber so you focus more on mindset and routines and body movement so
I guess like first of all why don't you think you're very strong?
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I think it has something to do with like starting to climb very chubby and always being like
bigger than the other guys that has always like affected me mentally like it's a bit
of a struggle like always feeling fat and stuff like that and that makes me not feel
like as strong.
But I also do believe that like just in training when we go training together for example me
and my other teammates, Felipe and Samuka for example, they're like insanely strong
like we've trained like with other teams and the coaches everyone always says like how
crazy strong they are.
They really really stand out like when it comes to power.
And so like every time we spray SESH or just kill Ter SESH, I always get destroyed by them
like they're really really strong.
But then in comps like in the last few years, I've won nationals and South American Cups
and stuff and that kept like that kept me thinking like that maybe that's why.
So like how I always like focused.
I knew that I wasn't the strongest in the sessions and that I couldn't beat them on
spray walls and stuff like that.
So I was like I went the other way.
I was like okay if I can't beat them right now on this point like if I can't beat them
on a spray wall, if I can't be stronger, then I'm gonna be like that I'm gonna be the strongest
in everything else.
And I feel like that's when I started reading a lot of books about meditation and how to
like have a stronger mindset.
There's like a really good books that I've read about flow stage and I feel like that
really helped me.
And I feel like that came as well from having I wouldn't call it a therapist but I've worked
when I was younger with this woman called Esther and she would teach me how to like
at a very young age when I was eight or nine just exercises on how to like manipulate my
own brain in ways that would help me like strive in different areas of my life.
So like different exercises to like overcome fear or to be more focused in school and I
feel like all of those exercises translated really well to my climbing like competition
mindset.
There's like I have like maybe four or five exercises that I always do before answering
a boulder round and I don't see many athletes doing like a very specific mindset routine
before entering the rounds.
What are those exercises?
Yeah, so there's one where I do like it's like some pretty basic stuff that look kind
of dumb but really work for me.
One of them is like just putting my fingers in front of me like this and then opening
up all the way to like my sides and that helps me like being focused on what I'm doing but
still being aware of the whole boulder like and for example, before visualization of the
climbs, I always like to do that because I'm like reading exactly what I need to do but
that helps me like as I have like a panoramic view, it helps me come back and remember the
whole climb, remember maybe a put hold that I didn't see, stuff like that.
Another thing that I like to do is like I close my fist and I close my eyes and I remember
like all the good moments I've had in comps like amazing tops or buzzer beaters or like
remembering myself on a podium that I was really psyched on and I do that like over
a few weeks before a comp and every time I close my fist and so my brain like associates
those feelings with closing my fist and so right before going into the round, I don't
have to like think of all those things and really close my eyes and remember all those
things.
I just close my fist with the intention of closing my fist and I already like I feel
like this fire coming inside of me of all those moments that I was memorizing before
going into the round.
So that's also something that like really really helps me.
I really feel like so much more energized before going into the round when I do this
and yeah and a few other things that I feel like helped me a lot came from Esther.
Yeah, I love like remembering I don't know just like great climbing moments but I can't
always remember them off the top of my head so yeah maybe I need to try that and get the
psych up.
Yeah, are there any like I guess you mentioned she was kind of like a therapist to you.
Are there any like non-climbing related things you learned that you'd want to share?
It was a very long time ago so it's like hard to remember like specific things that we learned
together that helped me but I can just say like for sure I became a better person and
just learned so much about myself.
I still do like we still have appointments here and there when I feel like I need to
follow like something in my climbing that's not going well and yeah I feel like trying
to always look not only like when you're struggling to like get over like a lip in your climbing
like when you're stuck in a grade and you want to push yourself, I feel like often it's
not just getting stronger it's like there's so many areas that you can look on before
just going like I need to do more pull-ups.
So yeah I feel like that's what helped me like doing more mental strategies and working
more on technique, focusing more on my diet, how I'm sleeping that for sure everything
affects your performance.
Yeah I feel like a lot of people often just feel like they should just get strong instead
of working on like mindset or movement or anything like that first.
I guess are there any like strength metrics you want to get out there like maybe if people
hear that they're around a similar like strength level to you they'll feel inspired to like
work on their mindset or movement.
Yeah so like something funny that I've always knew was like I still I can barely do a one
arm pull-up right now like it's something that I struggle on.
Bout levers are pretty hard too and it's like I didn't do a one arm pull-up before being
able to like win nationals or send like my first V13 outdoors.
So it's like I feel like you can gain so much just from learning movement, learning how
to move better on the wall, how to use your hips, your legs before you need to do those
things.
It helps and of course that's like what I need to work on right now and I do get inspired
by people who can do like crazy things on like the Q2 board.
But yeah I feel like it's not everything.
Okay well yeah that's what everyone should hear.
You should be able to climb at least V13 even if you can't do a one arm pull-up.
I think that's the story to get out there.
And one last thing about like the strength stuff.
I might cut this out but it's just like it keeps sticking in my mind.
I feel like I know someone who had like a very similar story to you where they said
that they like started climbing when they were like chubbier and he says like once a
fat kid always a fat kid so he just like always feels like that even though like he's quite
strong now he's like climbed for a long time.
Do you relate to that?
Like do you still feel like that?
Oh yeah 100%.
Oh my gosh.
That's like something that I always have in the back of my mind and people always tell
me like stop thinking that it doesn't make sense.
I wouldn't say it's like a I wouldn't say I have like eating disorders or anything which
I know is like common in the climbing scene to have but it does like annoy me from time
to time.
Yeah I guess like how does that manifest for you?
Like how does it show up or like affect you mentally?
It does get me sometimes like just feeling more like down without feeling the side to
train more and then sometimes feeling like I'm not in the shape I wanted to makes me
when I eat more like as a counter effect I don't feel like it's a disorder or anything
it just like makes me a bit more down sometimes.
Makes me a bit anxious and from that sometimes I want to eat more and then after eating more
I'm like oh well now I'm just like fat again you know but it's like it's something that
I feel like a lot of people struggle with and I've always tried to have like a good
relationship with food.
I love eating.
Is there do you have any like I guess like tips or things that worked for you in helping
you get out of that kind of negative mindset?
Yeah I feel like it often comes like oh like I can't do this move just because I'm chubby
or that's the reason why I'm not sending this time or you know not like feeling strong but
then in the end of the day when I look back like that wasn't what stopped me from like
getting the results that I did and those were the times when I was feeling good with myself
and not necessarily I was like one kilo heavier or one kilogram like lighter so it's a lot
about like your mind and I feel like we look at ourselves in the mirror always like differently
from what we may actually be.
Well yeah I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that as well whether they're like trying
to be full-on athletes or just like climbing casually so yeah hopefully a lot of people
can relate to that.
Okay I think those were all the questions I had so moving on to some of the discord
and Instagram questions that came through.
The first one from Instagram was top three slab tips.
I feel like the first one is a classic but it's like trusting.
I did some training with Roman like the Yanez coach when I was in I would have been to Slovenia
training with them and one thing that Roman would always tell me was if you're if you
feel like you need to try hard on your upper body like if you're trying to solve it with
strength you're doing it wrong.
Like of course it's not like major rule you always have to follow but he was basically
saying like you can always like change your foot a little bit trust more your legs your
hips and that really helped me develop my slab game.
Second thing I would say is you have to be kind of like not scared to die like you have
to be like willing to you know like how do you say like hit your chin or hit your nose
on the wall because it's like if you're scared of doing the move and you don't fully commit
you're gonna slip and on slab if you don't trust your foot you're gonna slip and so if
you're willing to like okay I don't even care if I hit my shin on the wall that and trust
your foot 100% that's when you stick in movement.
You've got to be fearless on slabs and I would say that the third point it's like calm you
have to be really calm sometimes in comps even in the South American comp we had like
two months ago just me and Beng Ha sent this really really hard slab and it was so long
that you only had two attempts on it like it was so long and it had no handholds just
like foot walking and most people couldn't send it because after their first try they
saw there was like only two minutes on the clock and started trying to rush it and that's
when you start to go around so if you want to send this slab you got to really really
breathe and do like everything feeling that you're in a stable position.
Do you do any like breath work on the wall or off the wall as part of like your mindset
work?
I don't do a lot of breath work I wish I did more I definitely want to dig more into it
but when I'm on the wall I always try to like on the slabs try to keep my heart rate low
I feel like I start getting anxious it's so hard it's so much harder to send slabs with
a higher heartbeat.
I'm assuming like your shins are all beat up then you've got a lot of scabs and cuts
and bruises on your legs.
Yeah I feel like I think I still have like one in my shin right here from like two days
ago.
Oh yeah yeah oh your chin I was talking about your legs and your shins.
Oh sorry yeah my shins too but my chin as well.
Okay yeah yeah it's tough in the shower when you just break something open.
I found a lot of help from using like waterproof bandages those are my that's my slab tip.
Have you tried waterproof bandages?
I haven't.
Oh it makes a huge difference.
Makes you more confident too?
It's just like after you like have the cut you don't have to like deal with the pain
in the shower of like the water hitting your like fresh cut.
Yeah and does that make you like oh I'm gonna commit to this move and even if I hurt myself
I just put them on and it will be fine.
I guess a little it's like oh I know that it'll hurt like when I do it but then afterwards
when I shower it won't be too bad.
Yeah that's my slab tip.
Okay next question what are your thoughts on the new rules that limit participation
per country from a small climbing country perspective?
Do you feel like limiting the participation of developed teams helps smaller nations?
That's a pretty hard one to answer.
I feel like in the World Cup scene you do one the best of the best but at the same time
you also do one representative from other countries so it's hard to say like having
only two spots for like Brazil and even Australia or like all the other South American countries
and then having like 15 spots for our Japanese team when they are like hosting an event it
feels a bit weird to have that big of a difference but they did earn those spots so it's hard
to say.
I feel like it should be like a three people it should be like a three-person quota for
a country because most countries do it like top three internationals are liking the overall
result like if you get a medal then you're on the team and you get to compete.
I feel like that's how a lot of the countries do it and then having to like mix up two out
of the three makes it pretty hard and when you're trying to get when you only get more
spots if you're in the top 40 but then you only have two people competing and these people
still have to take turns to go it's also a bit like hard to compare and also other countries
in South America they won't have like we're pretty fortunate in here in Brazil to be able
to go to like two or three World Cups a year but there are some countries who can only
go to one and then it makes it impossible for them going to only one to be in the top
40 whereas Japan has resources to send athletes to every single World Cup every year so at
the same time that I understand that these countries have like a stronger climbing community
like stronger athletes they also have so many more resources to be doing that.
So I guess going forward do you feel like the participation changes will I guess like
help the smaller countries make progress in their climbing?
I don't think it's pretty hard to answer.
I'm like I'm not sure if it's gonna help them because that's not gonna make them have more
resources but I feel like it's gonna make it more fair and more equal to everyone having
a bit less spots but what I feel like they could have done is like maybe still leave
it up to maybe 10 spots for the countries who have a lot of athletes and then just up
the number for countries who have less quota to three or four people because these countries
won't even be able to send like three or four people but if there is an event then they
can at least like choose whether or not they want to take three athletes or not.
Yeah makes sense.
What do you think?
I actually really need to read up on the new quota changes.
I don't actually know it off the top of my head.
I've just seen like some discussion about it.
I guess like for the people who are listening who maybe don't know about it do you want
to give like a brief overview?
Yeah so we've had in the past like three years when I started competing the minimum quota
was three athletes per country and five for road champs I think and then recently it changed
to only two athletes per country for road cups and three in road champs and for bigger
countries like if you have anyone in the top 40 you gain an extra spot and people in the
top 10 they gain a spot for themselves.
So it's like if you get a spot between 20 and 40 it's a spot for the country.
Doesn't necessarily need to be the person who earned that spot and if it's a top 10
person then that person is already guaranteed on the circuit and so that's why Japan had
so many people competing per event because they would always have like two athletes for
the quota plus six or seven for the top 40 plus like two for being host country sometimes.
So that's why the number would escalate so much and in order to reduce that such a big
difference this year they limited the quota to even if you have people on the top 40 I
think the limit is going to be five if I'm not wrong.
Yeah I wasn't going to form any opinions on it until after I saw how it would play out
in the season so yeah I think I'll have to wait and see what it feels like.
Yeah it's like we also as an athlete I also want to be competing against the best of the
best in the world so at the same time it's like we want to see all the Japanese crushing
out there you know so it's a hard decision I feel like it wasn't an easy decision for
the IFC to make.
I guess yeah I kind of wondered how athletes felt this year when a lot of like the top
athletes weren't competing in World Cups due to like preparing for the Olympics or maybe
resting after the Olympics.
I kind of always wondered how that felt because maybe they didn't really feel like they were
competing against the best of the best anymore.
So yeah I'm kind of wondering if maybe people will have a similar feeling given like the
quota restrictions.
Yeah I understand that.
That's my cop out answer.
Okay so last question what are the outdoor climbing projects in Brazil that you really
want to get done?
So we have Fortaleza that is like a V15 well maybe well now it got downgraded to V14 and
recent years.
It's the most iconic boulder here Felipe Camargo did the first attempt.
That's definitely a boulder that I would love to send the next few years.
Right now I'm focused on maybe getting a few first attempts done in São Vento do Sapucaí
which is close to here and there's a V13 there that I really want to get my hands on it's
called Setemtaitaus.
And something that I didn't say earlier in the interview or posted it publicly is that
I probably won't be competing in LEAD anymore.
I'm gonna just focus on bouldering.
I felt like having to mix both in the year like already feeling a bit behind from the
other guys like wanting to be in semis and having to compete in both disciplines makes
it way harder.
So this year I made the tough decision of like of course I love LEAD climbing and I
didn't want to stop competing for it but I feel like if I want to excel in one of them
I needed to pick one and that also talks with how like the next Olympics is gonna be maybe
they are gonna split it up so I'm really like trying to take an advantage before it actually
announced.
Yeah that totally makes sense.
Do you think one day you'll want to I guess either add LEAD back in or maybe just like
totally switch to LEAD?
Yeah for sure.
I do prefer LEAD climbing outdoors so when I'm climbing outdoors just like the feeling
you get when you send a hard route it's like you just have to put so much more effort into
it and it's like such a bigger fight sending a route than it is sending a boulder at least
for me like the feeling I get is so much more fulfilling and for sure like I have so many
routes that I want to take down in the next few years and what I thought was like with
bouldering I am gonna get like so much stronger that when I go back into LEAD I just need
to like get my endurance back get the like lead flow back going and I'm gonna be much
stronger to send all the routes that I want to send right now and whereas if I was just
focused in LEAD I feel like it would be harder to transition into like hard bouldering outdoors.
Okay awesome.
Well I think that is all the questions I had is there any like last words you want to get
out there or words of wisdom you want to put out into the world?
Well I guess I wanted to say to if there's any South American climbers who want to become
athletes or who are already athletes it's like believe in yourselves because we can
also do it we just need more belief in our hearts and to everyone else I just wanted
to say like if you can come to Brazil come watch the World Cup it's gonna be a big event
for us I'm sure it's gonna be a great event I'm so psyched and yeah come watch come visit
Brazil if you guys want to just text me if you want to go rock climbing or just want
to tour around I can give some tips I'm open for you guys to text.
Okay super exciting yeah I can't wait for the World Cup in Brazil that'll be really
exciting okay awesome I want to let people know where they can find you.
I feel like the easiest would be my Instagram it's at Rodrigo dot Hanada with an H and yeah
just direct me there and we can talk.
Cool awesome I will leave the link in the description.
Okay great well that's everything I had thank you so much for joining me today and it was
amazing to talk to you.
Yeah thank you so much for the invite it was really great talking to you Ginny and I hope
climbing grows more and there's more podcasts like yours it was a great great experience
thank you.
Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast don't forget to like and subscribe
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