Boulderactive was over the last weekend. Haha I swear I'm getting worse at handling disappointment even though I should be getting better at it. Or maybe I am? I'm just hung up over stuff as usual. The comp was held at Funan Mall. Novice qualifiers were on Friday morning so had to wake up pretty early to get down to the City Hall area. Was put in detail 6 along with most of the other VJ peeps. Jovan, Ziq, and Anthony iirc. Funny thing happened that Andy Su thought he was in detail 16 and went out. Luckily since he registered they still could shift him to a later detail. Climb starts and I focus into competition mindset. I think one of the biggest and most useful things I've learnt this year under Nic has been maintaining focus during competitions. The ability to clear your mind and make sound judgements really counts especially when it comes down to attempts. Did the routes in order of 2-1-3-4-5-6. Had a bit of a shaky start from the first route when I missed my swing out to the next foothold. Managed to react in time and use the volume to keep tension with the wall. Route 1 was a tricky balance route that really pushed my patience haha but pulled a flash off in the end. Route 3 was relatively straightforward. 4 was the hard one I think. Required a LOT of clarity when it came to your own beta, as well as a degree of finger strength. Managed to match hands properly with a toe hook and finish off. Route 5, straightforward as well. Only thing was the match hand into heel hook, but the heel itself was stable and the next moves weren't hard too. Last was route 6; a jumpstart into static balance which needed a shoulder-y lock off move to the bonus hold. Managed to flash a bonus but even after 3 tries, failed to top the route. This was the bane of my climb. Couldn't stop imagining myself finishing it on the first try, which I could have if I had trusted my feet more and committed to the move. Ah well. 5 flashes and a bonus came out of the climb. Quite happy with my comp performance, even though I still rue the wasted finals and promotion opportunity. Vincent was even sadder though, holding 8th place until the last few details, missing out finals by an even smaller margin. I think the routes were a bit too easy for this year, especially considering the amount of people participating. Oh well, 17th place isn't that bad when I think about it, since that placing includes those not in Novice (*cough*Gavin*cough*). Still looking to improve, so here's to Gravical next year.
Went out to Sentosa on Monday's school holiday with the bunch too. Had a super duper awesome time getting sunburnt/almost sunburnt and playing with them. Our first outing which wasn't related to climbing hehe, and hopefully won't be our last. Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am to have been part of this team :)
I think I'll end off on this happy note. Good things shouldn't be spoiled. A post for another time perhaps.
Good Night
Now dance, fucker, dance
Man, I never had a chance
