Bouldering progress

 I felt like I could boulder for longer than before, which means an improvement in endurance. The skin started to feel a bit sore after about an hour. I still have trouble with the blue boulders (up to 6B) since they require strong hands. I tried the circuit and I could barely do a 6A+, but I was happy I could stay on the wall when I was tired and was ready to give up. My hands stayed gripping tightly on the handholds. The foot placement could definitely improve. 

I tried on my Tarantulace  after they have been resoled with "unnamed rubber".  The rubbers are pretty sticky and I have no problem with the resole job. I could however really feel that the shoes don't squeeze the toes together enough. They are sufficient for boulders at my level, but I could see that I won't be able to reliably pushing off of them hard enough for harder routes. The resoled ScarpaVapors though feel reeeeally tight. I'm hoping that the rubbers would soften up a tiny bit after several uses. I'm still hoping to find a pair of shoes that cause less pain to my feet than the ones that I own.

Things to work on: core strength, grip strength, endurance, foot placement, reading routes, hip placement, balance.

I'm also hoping my feet would strengthen enough for them to hurt less in climbing shoes in general. 

August climbing update

I'm looking at my July climbing progress article . I feel like that after doing several routes that were quite fear inducing. Recently I feel less fear when I am on new 7-/7 (6b) routes.  I even did an outdoor 5c route where I actually fell because a handhold I grabbed came off. At the time I thought I was too close to the ground and would hit the ground for sure, but luckily my belay partner caught me so I was totally fine.

For August, I haven't been able to pull harder, but I recognize I would be able to do a 6b route better if I could sustain hard pulls for several moves. So what I am lacking is power endurance. I also recognize that if I had (sustained) stronger finger strength then I would be able to master this grade. I also need much better footwork, because there are some tricky parts where I felt like my feet and hip placement have not been ideal. For lower grades I could just compensate by hanging onto the handholds stronger; but for this grade and higher, the handholds are not nearly as good, so the feet better be more solid and balanced to hold my body weights.

- My core also needs to be stronger. I had less of a body tension issue this month, but maybe I just didn't go on a route that put me in really odd position.

- Regarding fear about being out of balance (at 6b, this will probably change when I climb a higher level): 

•  Less of a problem unless I am very tired. So I am more used to certain positions now. They used to feel imbalanced, now I know my body can still hold the position without falling off. 

- Fear of heights: less of a problem this month

- Fear of falling: having actually fell outside, it's less scary for now.

- This month I started grabbing the quickdraw when I felt like I was not going to hold a position stable. This was a no-no for me before, and now I seem to just care less. I don't know if this is a good or bad development.

I hope by the end of the year I would be more comfortable lead climbing 6b's. Specifically, I hope to improve my power endurance, my footwork, and my core strength. I think losing some weight (3-4kg) would help a lot too.