Ep 33: Niki & Jake - Routesetting + Hold HOT TAKES - That's Not Real Climbing

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
A lot of Americans make fun of us that we're using polyester.

(00:03):
Like they think like we are dumb and we're like lost on time.
Feel free to think that, but like our gyms work pretty well and the settings
still works pretty well and we don't destroy our polyester holes.
You can use slab to level the playing field.
Like a local Londoner and Toby could have a similar experience on a really hard slab.

(00:24):
Comp's are really exclusive.
They're only for the top one or 2% of people.
It's better to give back to the 99%.
I think for the Bern World Championship when they were setting like almost like
18 days in a row, they got like 180 or maybe 200 euros a day.
So basically nothing.
Welcome to another episode of the That's Not World Climbing podcast.

(00:47):
I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my two guests for today.
Niklas Wiechmann and Jake Mason.
Niki and Jake are route setters from another setting podcast, which is the
name of their podcast, but you may already be familiar with them because Niki was
my first ever podcast guest and you're probably familiar with Jake from the

(01:08):
Bouldering Bobats.
In this episode, we absolutely trash US Gym hold selection and setting.
They give their opinions on worldwide setting styles, comp formats, and moves
to leave behind in 2024.
And we discuss freelance versus World Cup routes that are pay.
This was a super fun conversation full of hot takes.

(01:29):
So I hope you enjoy this episode with Niki and Jake.
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.

(01:52):
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

(02:14):
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, not real climber for 10% off your entire Mad Rock
order.
Mad Rock order info will be in the description back to the show.
This is like a truly global podcast.
Yeah, everyone's really far.
Sydney, London and San Diego.

(02:36):
Where are you?
Yeah.
Wait, where does it say Sydney?
I'm in like, I'm in Tasmania.
Oh, sorry.
Hobart, Hobart.
Where even is Tasmania?
Yeah, it's like below Australia.
It's not New Zealand yet, but it's like close to not the South Pole, but it's
like pretty good here.
What are you doing there?
Visiting vineyards, hiking.

(02:58):
I survived a 22k hike two days ago.
My friends always take me hiking here because they live in Brisbane, which is
like 36 up now, like 36 degree.
So it's like just baking and melting.
So we go down here, visiting vineyards, hiking, running.
Yeah, I've never been to the Southern Hemisphere.
I don't know what it would be like to experience summer in December.

(03:22):
Or Christmas.
Yeah, I don't know.
For us Europeans, it's like, I used to live here, so I like it and I have like
friends here, so it's like really easy.
From my experience, it's very insect-y.
If you don't like insects, don't go to the Southern Hemisphere in summer.
Like the massive spiders or?
Well, I don't know.
I don't know about Australia, but in New Zealand in January and February is like

(03:45):
so many insects.
It's crazy, horrible.
Whoa, big ones.
Okay, I'll stay here.
That's fine.
How are your holidays?
Chill.
Really chill.
No plans for New Year's resolutions?
House party tomorrow.
No resolutions there.
What about you?
I shouldn't have asked because I don't have resolutions either.

(04:06):
I'm probably stretching actually.
Stretching.
I should be stretching more.
What?
Yeah, nice.
Fair one.
It's a good resolution.
Don't believe I can do it already?
You're already doubting.
You can do it.
Stretching is, yeah, every day.
It's just so boring.
Stretching is so boring.
I feel like it's like the most valuable thing probably and the easiest thing to do, but

(04:32):
it's just so boring.
Do you have a New Year's resolution, Nikki?
Do you ever?
Just stay alive.
Make it another year.
Maybe we should all try stretching.
No, not doing it.
There's no point.
All right.
I guess I'm alone on that.
What about travel goals for 2025?

(04:54):
I feel like I should travel less.
I don't think that will happen, but I think for the environment, I should travel less.
I did 21 flights this year.
It's more than I've ever done.
It's super bad, but I would do it again.
Yeah, should probably do the same, say the same, but I already get a lot of stuff lined

(05:15):
up.
I kind of feel bad about it, but on the other hand, nah, fuck it.
I love traveling.
Yeah, but it's work, isn't it?
That's it.
I never do anything for fun or leisure.
It's always work.
Okay.
So yeah, let's talk about work then, I guess, because that's exciting.

(05:37):
We'll just get right into it.
How did you both get into climbing and route setting?
I mean, I guess, Nicky, we kind of heard from you the first ever episode of the podcast,
but you can give another brief explanation.
My parents were climbers and my dad started climbing early, so I never had the chance

(05:58):
to get around it.
They also ran a climbing gym, and that's how I started climbing as a kid when I learned
walking.
And that's also how I got into route setting because they ran a gym and sooner or later,
I was asked to help stripping and then I was also allowed to put some holds on the wall
and I never stopped.

(06:19):
Yeah.
And I'm still climbing setting.
Well, you did kind of stop for a little bit, but okay.
Yeah.
Did you stop for a little bit?
Yeah, climbing.
I stopped climbing from time to time when I was a little teenager.
Oh yeah, when you start skating.
Yeah, I will plug the first episode ever of the podcast and for anyone who wants to hear

(06:40):
more of his story, check out the first episode.
It's probably really bad.
Thanks for sitting through that one.
It's probably really bad.
Thank you.
No, from my side, from my side, I think you did great.
Nikki was a great guest.
Yeah.
Yeah, you were a great guest.
I probably could have improved.
I don't worry.
I think it was a great burn.

(07:01):
Yeah, thanks.
All right, Jake, what about you?
Yeah, I was always interested in the mountains from a young age.
In my teens, I spent a lot of time walking in the hills and eventually found my way onto
climbing on ropes on gritstone, like trad climbing.
And then I did some sport climbing.
And then I was lucky enough to find bouldering in maybe 2012.

(07:28):
Found bouldering and realized it's the best form of climbing.
And then I moved to London, started working in the arch climbing wall.
That was 2014.
And then quickly found my little pathway into route setting via the traditional route.
You work on reception and then you speak to the headsets and then you do some washing,

(07:51):
you do some stripping, whatever.
That was my way in.
It's been sort of a 10-year organic growth from there.
So yeah, you didn't grow up climbing like Nicky?
No, I didn't grow up climbing, but I did.
Yeah, I've done lots of sports in my life.
So I was primed and ready to become a boulderer at the age of, you know, 2021, 22, something like that.

(08:15):
Yeah, you also have the physique to be an athlete.
I'm just a leek, but Jake is like, he has muscles, he can jump.
Yeah, I don't know.
I got lucky with the genetics.
I've got really long arms.
It's kind of helpful.
Oh, you have a big plus.
Yeah.
I don't know what it is, but it's more.
It's definitely plus.
So then how did you two meet and become kind of like a duo or like a bromance type of thing?

(08:42):
When did the bromance start though, really?
We met in 2017.
I was invited to the arch in 2016 for a three-day workshop.
And they told me that one of their setters was missing out because he was in the forest
doing, you did, what did you do?
Like this jump thingy, rainbow rock.
Was I in Fond?
Yeah, you were in Fond.
Oh yeah, I was on holiday.

(09:04):
Yeah, he was on holiday.
And in 2017, when I moved to London in July, I think that's when we met.
Yeah, and Nicky did like a residency and we kind of, I think we have a similar
feeling about climbing, a similar like approach to climbing.
So we gelled and since then we've been hanging out and teaching people how to do cool moves

(09:28):
and route set and whatever, lots of things.
They kind of blossomed naturally.
Blossomed naturally.
And we do a lot of stuff and private life.
We just get along like pretty well.
Now we do lots of work together through Climb Holds, the hold manufacturer in Slovenia.

(09:48):
But it's not only work, Jake.
I think we should put it out here.
Like what should be ready?
We are also friends in private life.
You're the silly one.
I'm the serious one.
I like work.
I like structure.
Nicky's kind of like floofy.
What do you mean I'm floofy?
You're the silly one.
You have a very relaxed approach to life and I'm like, I feel like I'm the strict one

(10:13):
who needs to know all the information now.
And if it's not perfect, ah, a struggle.
Yeah, for a German, I'm pretty freestyle, I guess.
Okay.
So yeah, clearly you both have traveled around a lot.
In terms of work and setting, what are some of the setting trends you've seen
in all the different countries you've worked in?

(10:34):
Wow, it's kind of super diverse.
Wow.
I mean, there are like four, maybe four Katana.
Yeah, like China and Japan seem kind of similar in that they have small walls, dense setting.

(10:55):
And then there's like in Germany, when I think Germany, I think like vast open spaces with
lots of accessible lines.
And then I think UK, UK is like still kind of old school, grotty, like ratty climbing,
but that's changing.
And then in America, I think even bigger warehouses with like loads of easy boulders

(11:18):
and loads of super powerful boulders.
Wow, I'm sure there's many, many more examples.
You could go down a long rabbit hole.
Like the French have a really techie style, like really comp-orientated style in France.
Yeah, I wouldn't say there's like a trend.
Like a trend would be, that's the thing, like a trend would be something like what happens

(11:41):
over time and floats from left to right or whatsoever.
But I feel like a lot of different countries find their different identities or like different
styles, what they do.
Okay.
And this is like mainly due to the limitations of their space or whether they can get material
as easily as in Europe.
Like in, it's just like UK and mainland of Europe.

(12:05):
I think I went to the trade show in November, a friend of mine, he told me there are nowadays
like 410 or 505 like hold companies and 200 of them started in the last five years.
And it feels like this could be right.
Like he's pretty detailed and knowledgeable, like pretty geeky about the stuff.

(12:26):
And in Europe, like you get all the stuff plus like, so like the development of stuff
just happens a little bit faster.
While we still have like other big warehouses or like smaller content spaces and like
a lot of like different identities already UK, Germany, France feels entirely different.
The Dutch feel different as well with their gyms.

(12:49):
But some other areas like, yeah, like China, for example, they have to deal with 80% Chinese
brands because they cannot import a lot of stuff.
And then they cannot, I think they told us that the rental contracts are like up to five
years.
So they cannot build like really, really lush, huge gyms because they need to get the money

(13:10):
back like as fast as possible for their starting invest.
And then they go the Japanese way to just like put a lot of boulders into one space.
And they felt like, I think there was Japanese smartness, like if they have like one hold,
one huge fiberglass macro in one color, which is designed only for one client, they just
put another color jib on it to make it available like a plywood volume also for other clients.

(13:36):
So they're really good at maximizing the utility of each and every single hold.
While gyms itself don't look as nice as we tried to in Europe, I think from time to time.
So they follow Japan a little bit in China, Singapore as well, or like a lot of like Asian
countries, I think.
And then Australia has a little bit of a mix between Europe, America and Asia.

(13:59):
But yeah, I think that's just like how I feel it is around the world.
And I climbed only in a few gyms in the United States.
How many did you climb it, Jake?
Well, two or three, not many.
Total like in your life?
Yeah, yeah, like three, I think.
Cliffs, cliffs.
Where did I go to in San Francisco?

(14:22):
Dogpatch and one more in Vegas I went to.
Oh, you went to one in Vegas.
I remember what it was ages ago, like five years ago.
Did the Vegas have pokies in it?
Pokies?
What's pokies?
Oh, like the...
Oh, like ped board.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
Like where you can put money in and become a millionaire.
Oh, no.

(14:44):
The gambling machines.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
God, sorry.
That took me too long.
It should do though.
Maybe those laws only apply to the strip.
I don't know.
No, it doesn't.
I mean, I lived in Vegas.
You have like slot machines and like gas stations and grocery stores.

(15:04):
Wow, they should totally put them in climbing walls.
They should actually.
Yeah.
I don't live there anymore.
I can't suggest it, but...
Damn.
But okay, so I feel like I have a personal gripe when it comes to hold selection at a
lot of the gyms I've been to in the US.
It's just, I feel like maybe they started the gyms like before really cool holds became

(15:29):
a thing.
And so then they just have like really boring holds.
It's such a nice boom.
And then they...
Well, this is like my point of view from someone who isn't involved in like the gym,
I don't know, industry.
But I just feel like they have a lot of uninteresting holds and then they don't really have the
money right now to like buy cooler macros and stuff like that.

(15:53):
It seems like they mostly buy US brands with the exception of flat hold perhaps and maybe
cheetah.
But from what I see, it seems to be all US brands, all PU and really not many volumes.
But I'm sure that's changing, but when you go to Europe or Japan or the rest of the world,

(16:19):
you'll see lots of volumes, lots of tiny, tiny footholds.
And I think there's maybe way more of like a techie style than in the US.
Yeah, it's an interesting observation.
All right.
So it's just like a whole distributor kind of thing?
It's a whole distributor and also like a whole factory problem.

(16:42):
You got to see like, I think the amount of gyms in the US, I think maybe like 550, maybe 700 gyms.
I think that's more or less like the amount of gyms we have in Germany.
I think we have 600 gyms.
Maybe US has a little bit more.
Wow.
But it's like Germany.
Wow.
So the amount of gyms, like even if it was Germany and the UK, it's not cooperating like

(17:06):
Italy, France, Spain.
Like it's not as big as a European market.
I think in the US, there's only two productions, maybe three.
There's Aragon and they produce for Cilta and a few other brands.
And then there's another one I think they produce for, I don't know the names anymore,

(17:30):
but it's like mainly American brands.
And I talked to a few people from the United States and like if they want to order holes
from Europe, they always have to talk to the distributors and the distributors, they compile
orders until the shipping container is full.
And then they got to wait like for weeks and months until the stuff comes over.

(17:53):
I don't know how big their orders are.
And the thing is a lot of Americans make fun of us that they're using polyester.
Like they think like we're dumb and we're like lost in time.
Bad words.
You might think like feel free to think that, but like our gyms work pretty well and the

(18:13):
setting still works pretty well and we don't destroy our polyester holes.
You cannot make everything out of a polyester hole what you can make with a polyurethane
hole.
But polyester, like we have more factories, it produces way faster, it lasts way longer.
So we have way more different shapes here, way more because we plus all the polyurethane

(18:35):
brands and I think we have way more factories here as well.
We got Schlamberger in Slovenia, we got 360 in Slovenia, we got Composite X in Bulgaria,
we got the Blocks one in Germany.
And I think there's more and maybe there's more and then we got like all these plywood
brands like we've got so many plywood productions while the American brands, I think there's

(18:57):
Dimension which is kind of okay and then there's still important blocks like the majority of
plywood volumes comes from Germany which is super embarrassing honestly because yeah it's
difficult for us to say because we are not like Jake visited three to four gyms, I visited
three to four gyms and I had mainly like a lot of weird experiences as well because I

(19:23):
think, let's put this for like the spaces were so big they could be much better.
Yeah, yeah like I climbed in a gym like 300 boulder problems and I think there was maybe
one push.
It's like the dimensions of like the variety of setting or movement styles and that's a

(19:45):
problem.
It's not down to the holes but holes can be inspiring I think for most of the people,
for most of the setters to make it better.
It seems like the walls are restricted by a couple of things.
One is lack of volumes for me and the other one is not committing to using screw-ons like

(20:06):
everything seems to be a bolt on.
I don't know if you've noticed that or if that's even fully true but from what I saw in the
walls I went to, most holes were bolted on and I think you can do way more with lots of
jibs and volumes than you can with just bolt on holds.
But this might be also like historical because one of the first polyurethane brands was Technic

(20:31):
in the States and nowadays if you order Technic jibs they're still not pre-drilled.
So like there is a historical part that you get a climbing hold even though if it's a
bigger hold and you have to screw your own anti-rotation screw in it which is like liability
wise in Germany that wouldn't even be legal to offer holes which can rotate because they

(20:58):
can rotate easily and you need to put a pin screw in it.
In Germany or like Europe it's designed that you kind of like have a thread where the screw
goes into to stop a hole from rotating like in the factory molds and produces holes like
this and a lot of polyurethane holes in the US don't have that so maybe it's like historical

(21:20):
wise that they don't do a lot of jibbing like commercially wise.
Ginny, you said you're missing certain holes, you're missing like cool holes.
What do you think exactly do you think you're missing?
Oh I'm...
Is there anything you can think of?
I'm just going based off of vibes here.
Okay yeah that's fair.

(21:40):
Yeah I don't have like a route setter's eye for this so I don't keep track of holds that
closely it's just that I don't... it's rare for me to like... like I don't even see a
lot of dual text holds really.
It's just like the... man I just I feel kind of embarrassed talking about it because I
don't know the terminology.

(22:01):
You do.
Like a lot of the holds are like not grippy and it's just like this shitty like slick
plastic sometimes.
Exactly that's because it's PU.
Which is also fine.
Oh okay.
That's because it's PU and most of it's like already three years old.

(22:23):
As soon as it's three years old or even two years old it's basically useless.
And some of these holds come out of the factory like this and I've talked to some people,
setters, gym owners, managers, climbers in the US and they're like we don't have
slippy holds and I'm like this is not possible.
My only explanation can be okay these people never touched like a hold with a lot of grip.

(22:46):
Like we have climbing holds which have grip like fiberglass macros from flat hold or cheetah.
This is like how our normal holds can feel.
And yeah but it's cool that you're slippery.
It's not cool.
But I mean I guess you can say it like makes you stronger so that's good too in a way.

(23:11):
Is it satisfying to climb on?
I'm not sure.
No it sucks because you just want to do the move.
But then it's so like.
In the UK when it's cold and you have like really dry skin and you try and pull on
polyurethane like plastic holds.
Oh my god it's sometimes literally not possible.
So in America like you're in San Diego right?

(23:34):
So it's basically never cold.
So maybe this is why.
I feel kind of cold right now.
What temperature is it?
Like 20 degrees?
15 degrees.
I don't speak celsius but it's 65.
I have no idea what that is.
My theory was going to be.
This isn't just a San Diego thing.
This is just like gyms around the US.

(23:56):
Yeah well my theory was going to be that if your skin is warm then you're more likely
to be able to climb on this on this like worn plastic.
That's 18 degrees.
Oh dude it's pretty nice.
18 degrees is lovely.
It's nice.
I don't know.

(24:16):
I don't know I think maybe you'll see like a retexturing revolution in the states.
No I mean I think the gyms here are well I would love for you guys to like come here
and like tell me everything that's wrong with it so it can ruin my experience.
That's just personal opinions also.

(24:36):
I would be curious your thoughts because I haven't really climbed in too many gyms
internationally.
I guess like Singapore a little bit in China a little bit in France like a few years ago
but I didn't really experience a lot of it.
Yeah it would be cool for you to come to Europe.
I think you'll see a very big difference.

(24:57):
Yeah so these country specific setting what was the word not trends but identities.
Identities you said identities yeah.
Do you feel like any of those identities transfer over to the World Cups or does it
seem like they kind of keep it pretty consistent across the World Cups in different countries.

(25:20):
Yeah I think that's my main critique.
It does not really like the World Cups are same same.
The World Cups don't feel like they are or they have their own identity.
Did we talk about it last time on this podcast?
If not I can rant on.
Nicky we spoke about this on our podcast and this is such a good point.
Carry on.
Yeah yeah thank you.
Yeah I think the World Cups are same same but different like walls look the same like

(25:45):
you don't have any if you just watch a World Cup any of it if it's Innsbruck, Bricksham,
Prague whatsoever sometimes they're outside most of the times to get a bigger audience
and but the holes are mainly the same because we are restricting the limiting ourselves to
IFC gold and platinum and premium and whatsoever crap categories so it's like four main brands

(26:11):
like at the Olympia Games and then like maybe 10 for the World Cups or whatsoever.
But it's same wall same wall design same holes all over the world and then the setting teams
of course like we always have like IFC setters plus like a few national setters but I don't
think the national setters bring enough identity from the nations always to make the World Cup

(26:35):
look and feel like entirely different between like United States and Europe and I think it
would be super cool if we for example had like okay we're going to the United States
like tennis for example okay okay now I'm on so tennis we got the Australian open now
hard hard hard court then we're moving on to French open the surfaces sand clay then we're

(26:59):
moving on to Wimbledon which is grass court which is not fair it plays like the same rules but it
plays like different speed balls bounce differently different techniques blah blah blah then we're
going back to hard court with the US open but and for climbing in my opinion it would be super cool
for example we start the season in China we got like 80 percent of the holes are Chinese

(27:21):
holes Chinese wall design we have mainly Chinese setters maybe a few IFC setters to
be there for the level and take care of that the styles are that it's like a well catered round
and they know the athletes but then it feels like you're going to China and maybe you've
seen the holes maybe not but it feels like really Chinese I don't know what Chinese climbing style

(27:42):
could be but for sure if you go for example to the United States like they used to be comms like
I don't know like all this dark horse series from the early 2010s or before that like super
powerful climbing whale whale yeah like the the early whale stuff like 360s on two finger pockets
big like huge open pinches like super steep climbing powerful climbing like longer bowlers

(28:07):
more moves and it looked like very American balls like six meter high and you're like oh
what the fuck if I if I fall now I might die I don't give it's just like in a different experience
compared to another country that would be super cool because it's also cool for storytelling like
football for example until 2014 whenever there was like a football world championship

(28:33):
in South America it was always South American teams winning so imagine you have a Japanese
World Cup on Japanese brands set by Japanese setters in Japan it could be like a cool story
like will we ever see someone winning a Japanese World Cup who's not from Japan
yeah yeah stuff like this like if every World Cup feels entirely different and and I don't know

(28:57):
whether the nations would be able to have like a certain style but if I take a look at French
root setting of course they have steep stuff and funky stuff but like and the
like with their French spices like maybe like not even like really steep walls needed they could
set a French World Cup style on vertical slabby walls would be so cool like so different to see

(29:19):
with French brands French setters just like that would be really distinctive
but I think nowadays it's not distinctive I think you nailed that I think basically the message is
standardization is bad standardization of holds standardization of wall all of that's coming in
now and we're not going to see as much variety as we used to have and so if we like did an American

(29:44):
World Cup it would just be like shitty PU holds and then that's that's what we want to see why not
like why not it's kind of cool yeah just really different thing what might what might happen is
we go so far down the standardization route that we end up with a lot of people who are
up setting exactly the same boulder for each round and you you you just test yourself on the same

(30:09):
boulder across the season it would be super boring yeah I think I think we're going there
well like it feels like we're going there we standardize walls setting teams holes then you
can also like make up 20 imagine you make up like 20 different boulder problems pre-season everyone
knows the boulder problems we have their preset and then they're like wildly they have different

(30:33):
difficulty gradings like like if you do um jumping diving olympic sports you do like
too salty you get a 2.8 and then it's just like how you execute it or how fast you execute it
acrobatics as well like there are different kind of stuff you can do and different ratings you get
for it so you could have like 20 or 30 pre-med boulder problems people know the boulder problems

(30:58):
and then they get wildly picked so you never know like randomly picked for each round then it's like
ah jake again on the slab three months ago and vail you didn't have a good time on the slab but
maybe this time here in paris did he train for the slab you know like then it would be at least like
a little bit like historical wise or like you could easily compare training footage and training

(31:21):
experiences to real comp experience it would be utterly boring but it would also make sense
the way the whole stuff is happening right now because for being an olympic sport it's nicer
to have something to talk about and something which is like really easy to compare and if you

(31:42):
can just say oh jenny again on the triple dino uh category three out of four uh oh she had a training
camp let's take a look at the clip from her and the training camp then we see some footage of you
training in salt lake then you're there in prague on the marketplace and you're like okay ah
secondary she did it so apparently she trained really hard this is category three out of four

(32:04):
she gets that many points and everyone believe oh yeah i understand that makes sense and this
could be a way i'm pretty sure like we're going there somehow yeah because i mean we kind of get
a little bit of that with them setting different-ish variations of the same moves with all the
laches and stuff like that but okay um so outside of i guess world cup stuff what are some of the

(32:31):
favorite comps that you have set for style wise or uh competition format wise i don't i don't think
i've set a weird format recently um recent comps i've done that i really enjoyed is we have a comp
in london called brawl on the wall um in november every year that's a sick comp that's just in it

(32:53):
uh in its third year so it's in its infancy it's getting bigger every year that's going like
that's gonna get that's gonna be big soon it's gonna be like the quiff of the sound
do you know quiff yeah i've watched that well i also saw brawl on the wall i was gonna ask you
a little bit about that if you wanted to get into it please excuse this brief intermission but if
you're interested in deleted scenes from this episode where i get grilled on my definition of

(33:17):
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(33:40):
of the guests if you'd like to help out non-monetarily liking commenting and sharing
helps a great deal as well back to the show yeah yeah sure brawl's cool brawl's like um our attempt
at bringing the international athletes into london for a big comp well yeah so like what is the
difference between that and and quiff there in terms of the format there's basically no difference

(34:04):
no difference um quiff is quiff just has a has a legacy it's been going for i don't know how long
has quiff been going 15 years at least a long time um but i think perhaps quiff is sort of
um i feel like quiff is becoming old it's starting to it's starting to taper off now um and maybe

(34:27):
the london is the future of big comps in the uk i hope let's let's see but yeah it was always
it was always quiff dot masters and studio block masters is like the the comps for international
athletes before the start of the season and brawl on the wall is is sort of that but after the

(34:47):
season yeah so i mean there were some like pretty big names there like toby and erin
um but i feel like there were also some other competitors who are maybe i mean still really
good but like more like local climbers kind of yeah how do you set something that's hard enough
for like olympians but uh not so hard that they can manage it during their training season and

(35:10):
also like something that's not too challenging for people who are more like local climbers
wow to to to set for the two different ability levels you just have um you just have multiple
rounds call these semis and finals and then eventually they they get they get weeded out
but um you can always make you can always make people fall off in four minutes uh even even toby

(35:36):
even erin you just just uh put them on a slab give them a bad bad foot load um there's a lot
there's lots of tricks and it's kind of it's kind of infinite to explain um but making them fall off
is is kind of kind of okay it's kind of fine you find you find your personal limit and then you go

(36:01):
like way harder and it's a it's a like an experience thing so i've set for toby quite a lot now i know
i know roughly how good he is and that's outrageously good you know there's a there's
a group of setters who all know the level so you sort of you you educated guess it based on the
vibes based on vibes based on experience and uh understanding of their level yeah but the the

(36:28):
thing about the thing about setting for both for both toby and like local wads um slab is a really
good good example you can you can use slab to level the playing field like a local londoner
and toby could have a similar experience on a really hard slab um but for example with a with

(36:49):
a power boulder like toby will always have a major advantage he's just ridiculously strong it's super
hard to set for both abilities but about but a coordination boulder for example uh would also
work that someone who's like really into funky flowy moves would have like a chance to feel what
toby is doing there uh he's pretty good but he's not like the best in coordination for example like

(37:14):
running boulders yeah yeah but in general like all these like who is on the team jake like a
like the setting team because there's there's always like ifc setters at least like one yeah
yeah included uh jan janu he's chief he's chief lots of um lead world cups and he's chiefed i

(37:34):
think he's chiefed a couple uh boulder world cups um he was on the team so he has a really good
understanding and then um matt vc he's he's he's in charge he uh he's an incredibly strong guy you
know it was a good team strong team yeah there were also some like really cool light up holds
how did those work like where how did you hook them up they were um yeah they were

(37:59):
trans transparent holds from ag ag holds okay in china and um yeah vc spent like a day uh just
lining the inside with uh just le led strips it's pretty low low-fi but they work quite well
yeah are we gonna see those in the world cups i mean maybe why not light up stuff yeah why not

(38:23):
i think they're not they're not uh they're not organized enough i thought they were like one of
the world cup hold manufacturers now yeah like you might be able to see sorry sorry you might be able
to see like the transparent holes but not nothing with the backlight i'm pretty sure oh sure okay
yeah that's what i mean i i vote for that going forward though if we want to make if we want to
make world cups more of a spectacle why not light things up fire like like concepts we need more

(38:49):
fire more laser more more more fire yeah more more pyrotechnique yeah but people are a little
bit too afraid i think but it would be so cool you top out and get like the fountain of fire
like or just straight straight up fireworks well like like men's and women's for fireworks why not
yeah and especially you could blast it out of the wall because you know like where the climbers are

(39:12):
like you know like you can take this um like this powder uh and you can keep it behind the wall and
then blast it like with a leaf blower out i tried it already and then you can you can put a smoke
machine smoke machine like yeah there's like indefinite uh like options to make climbing
a little bit appear better but like yeah i think yeah well it sounds expensive but yeah well i feel

(39:39):
like there was a there was a comp back in the day where once someone topped out or maybe they got
the top it would like blow like smoke or something like that yeah maybe adidas rock stars had that
when they hit when they hit the buzzer oh yeah okay that yeah we could do a break off series
basically like there should be a there should be the world cup which is like standardized and

(40:02):
whatever it can do what it wants it can stay serious and then there should be a breakaway series
that's kind of chaos yeah if i was a billionaire i would do this yeah the issue is that it's
expensive we need like saudi we need saudi investment we need the oil money yeah okay i'll ask um but but

(40:25):
i think in general like in europe we have more and more comps like which are like pre iFC or
after i see like really invitational comps like in belgium there was the other one and next year
we will have that yeah in general we'll go to dock masters then there's quiff and march and then
there's studio block masters in march and they all have a have an open invitational format where

(40:46):
everyone climbs on the same boulders more or less like the like the stars like the pros
and then yeah then it goes into semis and funs does that concept exist in the states like uh
regular gym goers climbing alongside like natalia and brook uh i haven't heard of it no i don't think

(41:07):
i've really seen it because if i'd seen it i would definitely go maybe it's because america's so
spread out sorry boulder project seattle wait or was it minneapolis like nick told me they are going
to do a big comm series and i think it's like over multiple weeks multiple stations and then there's

(41:28):
a big round off and someone from canada i think it was caleb also told me that in canada they have a
lot of like there's like a comm season after the iFC season or maybe before like then canada multiple
different comps like over yeah like multiple gyms always like follow up each weekend or after
fortnight a lot of people spend a lot of time there to make money i think it was caleb i'm

(41:52):
pretty sure it was canada montreal and stuff like that oh someone back me up here please i don't know
haven't heard of that one either okay i'll find out yeah i mean bouldering project um i mean it's
not really like a bunch of pros show up there will be like semi pros i guess i kind of show up to
those um but it's usually more of just like a local car yeah i was wondering how right regular

(42:18):
gym goes get to climb with world cup athletes and i guess it it happens in europe because of quiff
thought masters studio blotless etc etc but does it happen in america but but i think your original
original question maybe something to add is like different conformance and i think we're going more

(42:38):
and more into these like big into a invitational formats and there's not much innovation or back
in the days i think they still do it at rock masters like a elimination format and we used to
have it for years like at our fun comp at my parents gym it's great like you start with six
finalists which all start and boulder number one and afterwards you eliminate two which is highly

(43:02):
unfair but in the end you have only two people competing for the title which is pretty cool and
i think it's a really good format difficult to set for and i think my favorite format we ever ran
was like hard moves like a team team combination team competition it's like seven seven guys back
then and three women in a team and then you try to top as many problems as possible within the whole

(43:28):
team and then people move into a final and i think we had six or five cities within the final it was
always like you competed for one gym or one city so it's like you know these people and then in the
final we had six boulders five different lanes and the six boulder was hidden so no one knew like what
the six boulder the style was but then within the final team it's six six climbers out of the 10

(43:54):
people and you have to appoint them like one of these boulders so like jake this looks like a
dino do you want to climb the dino or do you want to climb the powerful boulder so jake goes to climb
the dino then you look for the best check of all trades for boulder number six which no one has
seen so far and then yeah three attempts for everyone and it was like seven meters high above

(44:20):
water and an inside swimming pool was like because like it was so sick it with with a crowd of like
5000 people it was the sickest thing and now it doesn't exist man you should do it again
what's called hard hard moves i will send you the youtube link it's uh now we're not doing it again

(44:41):
but like how long the qualification phase took like like a month or six weeks yeah yeah so like
every city over yeah yeah so the last format for example was like you had like 30 gyms qualifying
and it was like for example like six gyms from berlin and then each gym of berlin had like 60

(45:02):
boulder problems over four weeks or 100 boulder problems for six weeks then you tried to climb
as many as possible top on or nothing that's it uh you add all the points and then you make it into
the top 10 top seven male top three women back then and then these six berlin gyms they battled
out two final spots for the super final which was in another city so like you climbed with all these

(45:31):
people you had all the sessions with together against another gym tried to get more points
and tops than this gym then you went to the super final meeting like all these other cool cities and
people and teams from other cities and it was like the last edition yeah we had london we had the arch
we had a gladres center from stockholm they brought adam ondra and anthony goulston stuff like this

(45:54):
yeah it was so cool you had some swiss you had some swiss walls yeah yeah swiss swiss belgium
gyms dutch gyms german gyms uh so it was pretty international and then like in the swim opera
was dope because it was like a team event it's like way more and that like you have these climbers

(46:14):
you also have like people who uh climbed in the qualification phase they're sitting uh in the
audience and they're just like cheering you on it's like way more personal if you see someone
who's like yeah i know this dude and he climbs within a team like like with julevorm or like with
with adam ondra within a team because like you don't have yeah if you're lucky and you're really

(46:35):
really good you can make it still like into the team and i think that's pretty cool this could be
done on an on an uh on an international level like usa versus germany versus japan can you imagine that
it would be so sick and then it and it could also be uh like a series like you do five or six events
in a year the organization would be astronomical but that would be cool man yeah and that's the

(47:02):
thing it also works like i tried it two years ago in the netherlands uh we did it at a gym
uh ropo and groningen so we did a normal uh qualification phase i think 40 qualification
boulders i won't clunt as many as possible and people didn't know how the finals worked
then we had uh the first top the first eight men and the first eight women then they got mixed

(47:27):
together crosswise uh into teams by four and we only had four final boulders and then we had like
yeah all these teams and then they clumped together and they also were like okay ginny this looks
probably like a good roofball up for you do you want to do this and was super cool because again
the crowd is super involved and you're climbing within a team especially like smaller local comms

(47:52):
if people are not really used to a lot of competitions it can be like super uh they can
be nervous like can be super intimidating to climb in the final and like this everyone is like a
little bit like encouraged to try really hard and to do it like it's more like a communal thing
so it works if you really want to do it so then nicky any comps you've really enjoyed setting for

(48:13):
recently yeah nicky no i'm so done with comps i'm so i don't know yeah yeah like yeah i can't
identify myself with it anymore like i i it's so difficult for me because i don't know the people

(48:35):
i also don't care that much about the people anymore like the comp climbers i don't know i'm
not at that level i just don't care anymore i'm over i think i'm really done with it so i'm just
mainly filming yeah yeah i don't think i will set a comp next year wow that's that's not possible
it is why not what if i what if i invite you to hang yeah okay

(49:05):
because it's because it's you did you have like a particularly bad experience or just like slowly
over time you aren't enjoying it as much anymore just slowly over like i'm in no no physical state
that i that i can feel like anywhere close to it anymore like not even on slabs or vertical walls
anymore and i just don't care like i've seen too many comps set too many comps it's just like it

(49:30):
doesn't matter so it sounds like really nihilistic but it's just like there's nothing new just utter
boring and it's always like wasting a complete weekend so i like like it when we do it when we
do it in london because it's with our friends and what's ever like like i'm visiting friends and
family but on the other and it's a really spoiled and privileged point of view but i've been part of

(49:53):
comms and watching comms now since like over 20 years so it's okay yeah and there are a lot of
people who have a lot of fire for in it who think like they know how it works and okay if we do this
this happens from my experience like there's so much luck involved so is a roll of the dice and
if you do you do anything you do anything for a certain amount of time you get you get jaded you

(50:19):
get bored of it you've seen you've seen everything you can possibly see so you move on to the next
thing and if i if i can speak for you nicky um i think nicky is in his in his phase where he's
trying to give um beginner climbers or lower ability climbers the best possible experience

(50:39):
um like nicky's really keen on setting accessible stuff nowadays and i think maybe that's always
always been true but especially now um and like teaching people the fundamentals of climbing
and just and setting generally um like comps are really exclusive they're only for the the top one

(51:01):
the top one or two percent of people um like it's better to give back to the 99 i think right yeah
that makes sense i i'm in it i'm in it for the one percent at the moment but i'll be like nicky in a
in a few years yeah so then going forward nicky you mentioned you will be doing workshops at the
franken your academy um are these workshops for centers or yeah so so over the last few years i've

(51:28):
done like a lot of workshops internationally nationally and it's mainly like going into gyms
and doing like in-house workshops for the gyms when they have an existing team they got problems
on their day-to-day basis or i rented uh existing gym walls and then invited setters from everywhere
to participate in workshops these workshops are and now we found a space franken your academy

(51:51):
and forshan close to nürnberg in the franken euro in germany which has uh which offers like the
possibilities for lead and boulder setting to host workshops from a basic level for beginners people
who have never sat before who want to get into setting or who just want to try it for one day
people who are already setting commercially or comp wise we will run commercial setting classes

(52:16):
comp setting classes new school setting and and hopefully also like sooner or later some mentoring
about like how for for for head setters or for other people because we need spaces like this
people cannot experiment enough anymore and it's like the gym is closed when you do stuff

(52:37):
there are no customers around we have all the materials all the holes all the walls and volumes
just to play around and i hope yeah this is my next big project just to share and see like how we can
professionalize this and like open more spaces for a lot of people to just play around and learn and
uh experiment yeah and like but this goes from commercial to comp as well i guess in terms of

(53:02):
learning and experimenting it's hard for me to imagine coming up with new moves at this point
how do you imagine setting continuing to innovate it's hard for us to imagine as well um i think
i think i think the material the the holds that are available generally um they like they set the

(53:26):
trend the so i think maybe we'll see way more no-techs slippery um i think we haven't seen
anything of that yet we'll see a lot more of that in the coming years although i don't i don't think
it's cool it's just um just different it's really easy yeah it's different and it's like a really

(53:46):
easy way to get people to fall off um it's maybe not the not the best way but it's it works uh and
everyone's in the same boat i think we'll see a lot more of that um yeah equipment is the is the
thing that will change like what holds are available and then in in terms of moves like

(54:06):
i think we'll see bigger combinations so um i don't know like this time last year there was a french
comp that was jokingly referred to as the french traverse champs it was like gigantic 20 20 meter
sideways like paddle dinos like infinitely super long i think we might see way more of that

(54:30):
and again i'm not sure i'm a fan of it i'm not sure i'm a fan of it but i don't know i hope we
will see like some like hardcore moves again just like three or four moves like straightforward
board climbing and i'm pretty sure because like a lot of the ifsc setters right now
i think a lot of them are like the newer ones who are getting into charge they want to mix it up

(54:51):
again getting out of the funk and also like show just like raw precision power yeah i hear they're
starting to add back in more strengthy crimp moves and they can only do this if it's not the olympic
combined format they can only do this with one zone if it's like two zones they're not allowed
to do it because like it has like the style factors but seiyaku and tsukuru for example if

(55:15):
you can say some names they're like pretty good and i think they're they want it like a little
bit more like pure power and simple boulders like we we really want to see it as as climbers as
setters we want to see it but i'm concerned that the audience won't necessarily understand what's
happening if it's just like four move power boulder i don't know i don't know if the audience will be

(55:39):
entertained so i feel like it might not work but let's cross our fingers i want to i want to see
that i want to see um i want to see mantles like when was the last time you saw a so really hard
mantle like a 2005 mantle on a green blob that's so sick bring it back no no you can only do this

(55:59):
like with the with the ifsc world cup format you are not allowed to do this with the olympic
qualification or olympic two zone format that's a problem yeah and and and some setters need to be
like they need to be willing to to risk something in the world cup uh format like only with one zone
to be like okay there's two moves there's a hard jump here and let me do a mantle and and it's for

(56:23):
sure like more difficult to guess whether people will be able to climb this or not or like in how
many attempts like a funky flowy parkour new school stuff it's always like easier to get more attempts
out of it than a pure power problem yeah pure power is way more risky to sap yeah and to guess

(56:45):
how good they are well also the thing is i guess if it's just a pure power boulder then it's quite
possible we'll either just see people be able to climb it or not be able to climb it and it might
not be very enjoyable to watch someone get like shut down on something and then they like can't
make progress and it's just four minutes of watching someone not be strong enough to do

(57:08):
something and they can't get like suddenly stronger in the moment yeah that's the thing it's
yeah it's difficult to see the process yeah okay so we want to see more mantles and maybe power
moves what's a move you're tired of seeing yeah we we want to see more mantles i'm so incredibly
sick of lashes like 20 2023 was the year of the lash and oh my god it's so easy to set and so

(57:34):
incredibly useful and it works it works so well for comps but i'm sick of it no more lashes get
rid of lashes okay and i'm sick of the the 180 degree turnaround on a slab on this one footer
i'm so sick of it because like it's always like first we stand up then we traverse over so it's
like a lot of horizontal horizontal space with nothing yeah i'm so sick of it and with that one

(58:01):
especially once you understand the formula to setting it um it's just this it's exactly the
same every single time like maybe the color of the holds change but that's pretty much it yeah so i'd
like to see more yeah like i think we both agree on like powerful a little bit more simple stuff
but uh i'd like to see also more like like deathy corners or like weird chimney chimney chimney would

(58:26):
be so cool a mental like full body like extortion horizontal pressed out like quarry man style and
imagine that in a world cup people's brains would explode like um like like traditional climbing
techniques but ultra ultra hard that would be cool in injuries all over the place yeah elbows

(58:49):
fly but you can present them like way nicer nowadays you have all this like beautiful material
you can do a lot of like good looking crazy stuff yeah how do you make a chimney hard enough for a
world cup depends on like like how how open the corners like if the if the corner is like really
shallow then it's uh all of a sudden about flexibility and like and you could use a lot

(59:11):
of like dual texts or like maybe even no text just to make like every movement pretty pretty precise
and intricate just like flat stuff like you can do it if you want it you can do it for people who
haven't seen it like what jake was talking about the quarry man johnny doors clumbers like it's
like one of the most amazing probably my dream route but i should do stretching for this

(59:39):
yeah but it's like the it's an 8a chimney uh corner climb at a plus route it's amazing it's
like one of the most amazing climbs and and the slates so yeah in the slate quarry in wales
oh so cool okay so more chimneys more mantles fewer laches which i'm okay with because i still

(01:00:01):
haven't really figured out that move i just i don't know it just doesn't work for me they won't go
away though unfortunately because they're so incredibly useful and so easy to set maybe
we'll we'll see we'll see fewer of them eventually but it's going to take a little while for them to
really go um yeah what about you so yeah i agree with fewer laches i don't think there's been

(01:00:27):
too many 360 moves because i don't think i've actually gotten a chance to try that myself
um moves i want to see more of i guess not that i actually want to see more of this
but um it was really exciting to watch it was the step up into no-tex fist jam in the prog semis

(01:00:48):
oh yeah yeah i hated it but it was it was pretty cool yeah that was cool so it was different
you don't see that all the time that's that's good difference is like uh yeah different stuff
basically that's that's what we want yeah but again i don't want them to set it a bunch because
that will get boring yeah because if you if you see too much of it the world cup then people will be

(01:01:12):
jumping into cracks in your in your local wall and that's not that's not cool have you set the
step up fist jam before or jump into a crack yeah of course it's horrible it's painful it's horrible
i mean do the other day in in in china like a fist jam but like in a dual-tex uh yeah that was like

(01:01:33):
a runner and then uh throw your fist into a dual-tex crack like a shape like a v and you were sliding
right in um actually quite enjoyable but yeah agree to disagree on that um so it seems like you both
prefer freelance setting or did you have dreams of becoming world cup setters one day or still

(01:01:55):
have that dream no no it's already too late for me i'm i'm i'm 33 i'm old and i'm too weak
so no i like i like i like how fake realistic you are you wouldn't be too weak you would just need
to specialize on your special skills but like it's it's good that you're not doing it like i like
from a friend's perspective because i get more of you as a friend and you're not like super busy all

(01:02:20):
the time becoming a world cup setter yeah um like i i set for the gb team but even if even if a world
cup came to the uk came to sheffield or london or you know a boulder world cup in the uk i wouldn't
i wouldn't be in i wouldn't be in with a chance of joining that team i don't think i'd be i'd still
be you know like eighth or ninth or tenth in line to be that local setter well you look at five maybe

(01:02:49):
maybe fifth no i don't know cousins is above me you know cousins met uh like cousins max yeah
yeah but like like yan yan jaime and all these guys oh not you now okay how do you get higher on
the list is it like based on ability or strength or just like knowing the right people no no no

(01:03:12):
not about how much they it's not political it's uh purely purely strength and experience um
um there are just other people who have been doing it longer and are better probably yeah we
shouldn't say this public that met cousins is a better set on climber than you should probably
not do this his ego would be man's absolute sandbagger i can't i can't i can't um i tried

(01:03:35):
to climb one of his boulders in yonder the other day after after i had my christmas dinner like
two days before it was graded v8 and for sure it was v11 12 maybe super super hard the man's a
sandbagger uh so freelance yeah commercial setting yeah commercial setting or or competitions like

(01:03:59):
lower level competitions for me are just they're just way more fun it's um it's just an easier
task and there's there's way more creativity you can kind of more or less do what you want more
freedom the the thing i also think about comp setting nowadays it's not only setting the
competition like getting into setting the competition is super competitive nowadays

(01:04:23):
it's it's like i'm part of the organizing team for studio block masters and just like putting
the team together i get so many messages of people who are like um can i set the finals can i set like
can i come and set and blah blah blah blah blah some of these guys i don't even know
i don't know the qualifications and then it's like so many experienced good setters who are

(01:04:45):
already setting so and who are out there nowadays it's uh difficult to find even spots it was easier
like a few years ago i got it now like i was pretty lucky well jake what do you feel like you're
missing in terms of skills to become a world cup setter well probably i maybe i should have been

(01:05:06):
a competitor i never actually competed um one one of the guys who's just become a
world cup setter in the uk max airton he he had like three or four years on the competition
circuit so he has that under his belt um he's also i think he's only 29 or 30 he's he's young um

(01:05:29):
yeah it's just like loads of time is it more lucrative to do freelance setting i'm not sure
what the pay is like for world cup setters either uh i i don't i don't know either they don't know
i think for the boran world world championship when they were setting like almost like 18 days
in a row they got like 180 or maybe 200 euros a day so basically nothing well for the job they

(01:05:52):
did that's so bad yeah so so i think like for really earning money you need to be like
maybe the boulder boulder world cups nowadays i think they the world cup itself pays a little
bit better and i think the chief is like and like paid from monday till sunday or sunday till sunday
and gets like more money how many do you do per year you know it's yeah that's the thing like even

(01:06:16):
if you get like 500 for a day like a boulder world cup as a chief and it's like 4 000 after taxes
paying health insurance travel costs blah blah blah blah blah blah like you get travel costs and
and hotel but you have to pay for food and the week afterwards is usually your debt and the days

(01:06:38):
and the days beforehand so that's a good question like freelance setting i think it depends on the
country but like even if you do like three days in a row or like three days a week then you end
in germany which is like which can pay like up to 350 euros then you end up with uh 12 times
350 what's that nine 1050 times four times four that's like 4 200 euros and in germany after

(01:07:07):
taxes because you get over the tax bracket like you get like we pay 40 40 percent taxes then you
didn't pay health insurance yet you need to take care of that you find jobs that you yeah in my
opinion like you can do freelancing for some time but it's not a longevity you think like if you have

(01:07:27):
if you're employed somewhere as a setter and you get some freelance setting from time to time
uh it's a more sustainable income and way of living and and most of the world cup setters also
have a gym or a move or a headset or somewhere sascha for example he started now at uh a course

(01:07:48):
because he was like okay i want to do more commercial settings again and like have a
probably steady income we didn't talk about the income but he wanted not only comp setting
so go head setter b pump you know i don't know many ifc setters who are fully freelance i know more

(01:08:08):
like people all guys fully uh conceding freelance but i don't know like i know more people who are
freelancing just commercially than conceding wise in in london for example i think there are 32 walls
now and most of them take freelancers so if i wanted to i could probably work six days a week

(01:08:31):
but it's completely it's completely unsustainable like i'd be i'd be burnt out within within a month
so i think uh the potential uh potential for it to be lucrative is is there but
it never really works out because you unless you're a machine you can't work uh freelance you can't

(01:08:52):
set like five days a week for a whole year you'd be you'd be broken it's nice to have it's nice to
have like a head setting role as your security you're like backup because you can do you have
some time to do some admin work behind the computer so you can rest yeah that makes sense it seems a
lot more restful than just selling your physical labor i guess um okay so i also just wanted to

(01:09:16):
touch a bit on your setting podcast another setting podcast for those who haven't checked it out yet
um have you been enjoying it and what's the plans for that in the future oh yeah we have a podcast
we were on a break
the future we should do it again but we were on a break i think uh since before

(01:09:38):
font and blow like we went to font when did we go to font october oh october yeah yeah then there
that then there was november then i went to china and then we were super busy the last uh because
like winter season is always the most busy season for us yeah setting wise and working wise workshops
and competitions every single weekend it's chaos yeah it's crazy but yeah the the podcast will

(01:10:04):
it will resume um once we're back on a regular schedule i don't know what february or january
nick how we can do it next week honestly like i'm i'm back like i'm full of energy again
we should talk about our year i read somewhere that if if you if we put out 21 podcasts or more

(01:10:25):
then we've made it into the one percent group only one percent make it that far yeah yeah yeah
and i think i think we've done nine now nicky or ten we have to keep on pushing
me but it's basically just yeah just us talking sometimes we invite friends just to talk about
root setting and sports in our life we we don't do that much technical stuff like we start and

(01:10:49):
then we hit record and then we stop and then i upload the stuff like i haven't even figured
out how to upload it to other streaming platforms outside of sport you fuck i can help you out with
that the only the only difficult thing is finding topics i think i think we'll run out of topics
very quickly so we need we need to start bringing in guests and i don't think so jake but we also

(01:11:11):
have a lot of guests if we wanted to yeah i know the long long list if we want to maybe we should
just start talking about other sports love it dude here did i tell you there's the brisbane open like
tennis starts again curious is playing with joker which yesterday i watched the double that's amazing

(01:11:32):
and i'm going to watch australian open in murban like in two weeks this is my big goal to nice too
we should go to the modem again maybe check out oh yeah okay yeah yeah yeah i've got goals i would
not necessarily recommend adding a bunch of guests scheduling is kind of a pain in the ass

(01:11:52):
setup time yeah it's not so simple okay so that wraps it up for all the questions i had
um let's move into some of the discord questions first one why is it so rare for gyms to have
footwork intense climbs when that style is pretty prevalent outside is it just that the trends are
more dynamic climbing or is there some fundamental thing that makes footwork climbs particularly

(01:12:16):
particularly difficult to set who asked this come to europe come to europe this is clearly an
american asking this question actually yeah you're right wow it's that obvious and this comes down
probably like to to to the holes because we have like indefinite amounts of bad footholds and we
have an indefinite amount of good slabs also indefinite amounts of plywood volumes which are

(01:12:40):
functional and tapered in again indefinite amount of angles so we have a lot of like nasty footwork
balancey footwork and all the grades in majority of gyms like if you don't have if you don't have
volumes and you don't have small footholds and none of your setters in well i'm being really

(01:13:01):
general here but let's say most of the setters in the u.s don't have any experience of slab climbing
or like proper slab climbing then they will never set it there's no opportunity to set it so that's
that's why you don't see it as much but if you come to if you come to germany france uk you'll
see loads of it we love setting it yeah and i think a lot of people like probably if they have a slab

(01:13:24):
to utilize the place of a slab and sometimes setters destroyed with a second or third draft
if you have something really balancey you need to be close to the wall and maybe this is like more
for the setters out there so you set like the first slab boulder then you test it or roughly
so you know where you can put stuff and cannot put stuff imagine it as green zones where you can put

(01:13:48):
holes or volumes in the second round which don't disturb like the first boulder of your first round
and then you can create a difficult balancey stuff without having any protruding chesty
holes in the way which throw you off the wall but it's like utilizing the other stuff which you have

(01:14:09):
and if you don't have like a lot of like small footholds then you can still create like balancey
stuff with big slopey tapered footholds but you need to find the right angle and right wall so
then what do we americans need to do to get footwork intense climbs they need to be aware of it i need
to commit to it and they can try to talk to their setting teams i think it's always worth like not

(01:14:32):
be like oh this is shit but more like hey maybe could try to yeah focus on like balancing stuff
like in the next slab or vertical wall set maybe they don't even know that they don't have that
in their gyms a lot of people are not aware of how their gyms are designed or what they cater to not
even like a lot of setters yeah they're pretty oblivious to what's happening around them all

(01:14:58):
right so next question when trying to force a movement or when trying to develop a new move
how important are the holds available can you make do most of the time or will you abandon the idea
if the hold you need isn't at the gym or it doesn't exist yet well tricky uh there yeah the
equipment available is incredibly important but if you have if you have the experience and the

(01:15:23):
understanding of um how the physics of climbing works like you go from a stable position to an
unstable position to a stable position again if you understand that you can probably get by with
most equipment but there are certain things like really radical things where you might need

(01:15:43):
you might need some dual texture it's also time and place like how much time like question is
like how much time do you have to encourage to force the move is it like restricted to
a difficulty level like are you trying to create like a triple dyno in 5a which is impossible

(01:16:04):
uh and do you have like the right uh walls and angles so these are like three questions before
then you can start experimenting and then if you don't have the resources like means holds
for against macros whatsoever then can be difficult uh up to impossible and i think that's why we see
a lot of like jibbing like uh putting like putting plastic onto plastic or plastic onto fiberglass

(01:16:26):
they do it in the world cups because they have a restricted amount of time but also resources
resources slash holes and whatsoever so they need to force a move and they just need to construct
things it's just like yeah construction time like on a yeah and like build stuff and a lot of people
do this in commercial setting as well and it's maybe the fastest way sometimes to achieve stuff

(01:16:52):
but it damages your material so always take yeah take talk to the gym owner's headset or whatsoever
um and the main question was whether it's possible always like without the material to force something
yeah if you can force moves without a certain hold or if you would abandon the idea well it
makes it easier and if you have a lot of time maybe you might achieve it with really not that

(01:17:14):
good material but maybe it's impossible not every yeah not every move works with every material
in every angle yeah the more stuff you have and the more time you have the easier it is to get
there so then is there a hold that you think doesn't exist yet that should exist no no no no

(01:17:35):
no it's all out there so i'm part of a whole company and i can say like after looking at
the stretcher again what we're doing is basically a lot of like waste plastic pollution like so many
of our holes have like the same function same visuals whatsoever there's not enough functionality

(01:17:56):
there's a lot of like just too much dual text for example if there's like someone out there who knows
the shaper of pusher who created like the biggest macro with like the biggest taper so so the concept
of dual text for example is that you have the shiny surface which is slippery so you cannot grab

(01:18:19):
it or stand on it then from pusher i say it again pusher produced like in china the the fiberglass
volume has a sloper which is like 20 or 30 centimeters wide maybe 20 centimeters deep but
then it has like more than or like maybe a meter of taper of dual text which you cannot use so you

(01:18:40):
could use way less dual text way less like plastic and material to achieve the same effect maybe it
doesn't look as good and there's a lot of stuff out there which just like doesn't make sense which
just looks good which takes a lot of space off the wall which is just crap in my opinion and and just

(01:19:00):
to add to that ramp that hold in particular it doesn't even taper where the dual text whether
no text meets the wall it's like a 90 degree angle and you can it's like maybe three centimeters deep
you could just grab that thing it's it's basically a joke fucking dumb mind my language um i'll leave

(01:19:21):
a link in the description for people to take a look at what hold we're talking about um if they're
curious curious what hold this is um i've never seen it before so it's not here at least okay so
last question what makes a good beginner dino or parkour focused boulder or what do you consider
the jug ladder of parkour routes that's a great question what do i consider the jug ladder of parkour

(01:19:48):
so i think a really good new school parkour route boulder is accessible easy to learn or like
accessible easy to repeat so you can try to learn it again and again or have the experience so
it's like comfortable doesn't hurt whether you do it or you fail and it gives you a feeling of

(01:20:10):
satisfaction once you did the move maybe something something like unexpected happens so your whole
body moves and you never thought about this that they are that you might be able to do this like
the easiest triple dino or a sideways step into a foot plant or a really really easy toe catch like

(01:20:33):
in our last foundations of new school workshop we had unexpected really really easy toe catches
which the setter never set never climbed and then all of a sudden like oh that's so cool
um this would be yeah a jug ladder do you want to know maybe the easy toe yeah easy toe catch might

(01:20:54):
be like way easier to achieve than a lot of people think it might be and it's also like way easier
than people might think toe catch can be or or perhaps um an easy foot plant is very very simple
to set and also sometimes super mind-blowing for the climber but very satisfying yeah so satisfying

(01:21:19):
but like a like a two-part paddle dino can never be can never be the jug ladder equivalent okay yeah
that makes sense what about jug ladder in the sense that maybe it's like uninspired or too simple or
boring uh cool maybe a runner just like left right left runner into a side pole sometimes or like not

(01:21:45):
into side pole that's I think runner to the left or right just like horizontal runner and but then
you end up in a jug which is just like horizontal like in general we say don't tilt your holds like
in a horizontal way because then the the directional force is just vertically vertical down

(01:22:06):
and you start pulling and you never need to find like the the perfect position the sweet spot to
hold the move or to hold the hold like as soon as that's the thing about the jug ladder like it's
really forgiving uh because you just pull down like like like an ogre and you're like stop stop
stomp stomp um but you you don't have like any experience of moving or like it doesn't create

(01:22:30):
any feelings except for your legs and your biceps yeah you don't have to find you don't have to find
a position the position is just there it just happens automatically it's the the satisfaction
comes from finding the position yeah and we're talking a lot about like finesse or technique or
feelings here and it might be difficult if you've never climbed in a gym which has climbs like this

(01:22:54):
and there are climbs like gyms like this out there which are mainly physical pulling and don't have
like this sweet spot of technique and flow or like body positioning and they have like you can do is
we it's just our personal opinion i think that we don't prefer a simple or single-minded physical

(01:23:16):
gym yeah but there's nothing wrong about the places itself no yeah i have heard that before
um i took like a beginner route setting workshop before and i think i remember the instructor
talking about like this beginner setters trap of wanting to make every hold horizontal and i would

(01:23:36):
totally fall into that trap i think i'm just like i'm not creative enough in that way it's crazy how
much things change if you tilt a hold like 45 degrees one way or 45 degrees another way yeah
way different worlds of opportunity okay well that's all the questions i had then um any last
minute words of wisdom you want to get out there words of wisdom spit it enjoy enjoy climbing

(01:24:05):
don't climb for the number climb for the fun of it yeah that's a really good one like i i spent a
lot of time on reddit for all the ask me and like for for the good stories but sometimes i see like
climbers like okay this is a v5 in my gym would this be v4 v6 in your gym we don't know anything
about the grading in your gym and whether it relates to what kind of reality every bouldering

(01:24:31):
area is graded slightly different every gym is slightly different so the we always say like the
difficulty should be just relative within your gym so it should be consistent within your gym
in europe a lot of gyms or we at least we steer away from outdoor climbing grades on the tags

(01:24:54):
because indoors is not outdoors doesn't make sense so you can also put like one to ten on it or a to
g whatsoever no one cares it's just like to show like different levels within your gym
so don't care about the rating don't care about any kind of plateaus it's just like happens then
do something else do another kind of climb just like enjoy climbing and don't take it too serious

(01:25:20):
it's just plastic it's plastic holes on the wall it's cool to meet people spend time with them
do some stuff for your body but don't take it too serious wise words very insightful all right well
thank you guys for joining me today want to let people know where they can find you what's the
podcast called?

(01:25:40):
Our podcast is called another setting podcast because we usually talk about setting and sports
so if you want to get like a insight into root setting and into our minds
uh uh that's called another setting podcast i have a youtube channel it's called beta root setting
jake has a youtube channel as part of a youtube channel yeah you can find me on bouldering bobat

(01:26:00):
uh you can also find me on my instagram jaker mason uh that's all i got what's my instagram
uh schnicklas i don't know yeah follow for follow jake follow for follow um yeah that's what we do
and if you want to learn setting and you're and you're in europe check out frontnewacademy.com
because all these root setting workshops are for beginners or people who are already into setting

(01:26:24):
and if you want to come and hang out if you want to come hang out we'll both be on the channel
if you want to come hang out we'll both be at dock masters in near amsterdam and studio block masters
near frankfurt this year january and march yeah yeah we'll be there hang out with us cool jake
perfect thanks again great chatting with you guys thank you thanks jenny bye thank you so

(01:26:51):
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 rate it five stars and you can continue the discussion on the free competition climbing
discord linked in the description thanks again for listening

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Ep 33: Niki & Jake - Routesetting + Hold HOT TAKES

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 33: Niki & Jake - Routesetting + Hold HOT TAKES