I love starting my weekend with a Power Vinyasa class. It's invigorating, it's challenging, and it's a great reason to take a nice Saturday afternoon nap. I love taking class with friends. I love seeing what other people get out of a class. I love feeding off of their energy as they feed off of mine.

This morning, Juregen joined me in class. I enjoy observing him in class. He's strong, he's fit, and he's an "enginerd" like me. He teaches the Strength Series at Go Vertical that I've written so much about lately. He's also a member of his company's adventure racing team (adventure racing is a mix of orienteering, biking, paddling, biking, climbing, endurance, brains and game-theory).

I find some of the poses in our Power Vinyasa class very challenging. Several times during class I'll find myself bargaining with myself: giving myself the okay to drop out of a pose. It's good to see that Juergen struggles in poses too. Its reassuring that he finds them challenging too. That being said -- that whole "giving myself permission" and "bargaining" thing, is something that I need to work on in climbing too. I've definitely had that discussion with myself as I'm approaching a tough move on a route and I question if I have the strength to pull through it: "Maybe I should just fall now and rest and then try it", "I don't think I can hold onto that nub long enough to reach the next hold, maybe I should just stop now and save my strength to give it a try after I shake out".

Juergen talks about this as "fall-ure" vs. "fail-ure". Climbing to fall-ure is climbing to the point that you fall because your foot slips off a hold or your hand looses its grip. Climbing to fail-ure is climbing to the point that you fall because you let yourself fall, because you quit, because you failed.

It's scary when you fall because your arms give out. Falling because your foot slipped off a hold is jarring. It's unexpected. It keeps that fear of falling alive in your head. It feels "safer" when you fall because it was on your terms. It feels like you're controlling it. It's expected. You know its coming. I think for me, that is the hardest part of climbing to fall-ure. I'm giving up control of when I get to fall.

Thursday I was climbing with Morgan. My legs were exhausted after slacklining. I was on a new 5.10- that I hadn't climbed before. I was tired. I had already taken a break earlier in the climb. I was two moves from the end and I yelled "Take!" so Morgan would take up the slack and give me a rest on the wall. To my dismay she replied "no." WHAT?! What a bitch. She wasn't letting me fail. I looked up at the next hold, gritted my teeth, and breathed through the next two moves as my forearms threatened to release. I finished the route. After she lowered me down. I gave her a hug. She pushed me. I needed it.

I need to remember that feeling: that I can push myself past what I think I can do and finish a move, finish a climb and exceed my expectations. I like that feeling. Thank you Miss Morgan.

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Posted by Jessica on March 31, 2007 8:45:17 PM EDT #

Joe adjusting the carabiner setup on his slackline while Kai patiently waits to practice some more.

For those who aren't familiar with slacklining, its kind of like tightrope walking, but springy-er and bouncy-er. The line itself is actually pretty taut, but by nature of the webbing (a 1 inch wide piece of flat rope) it stretches a bit, giving the line its bounce. The line is typically set up between two trees and the idea is to walk across it (and eventually do other stuff: turn around, sit down, stand up, jump, etc). Its a great exercise for your balance, for your core and for your legs. If you do a search for 'slacklining' on YouTube you'll find plenty of examples in action.

Joe has a pretty neat setup for his slackline. Its basically a bunch of webbing, some slings, and 6 oval carabiners. Some of our other friends have bought slackline kits that use a big ratchet to tighten the line, whereas Joe's line just uses a bunch of pulley's and brute force.

I was excited to see how quickly my legs remembered how to balance on the slackline. After 5 or so attempts, I was able to stand on one leg for a few seconds. By the time the sun was setting I was walking a 5 steps or so. I quickly was able to get back to the level I ended at last year. Hopefully in a few more sessions, I'll be walking comfortably and turning around. That'd be cool. Kai did GREAT. He started off with a violently shaking leg, and falling off within a second or two. Within the hour he was walking a good 6 or 7 steps. I was very impressed. I've don't think I've seen someone get to that stage so quickly.

Me, improving my balance on the slackline, amongst the long evening shadows of a passing audience	Joe floating in the air on a slackline in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Its always interesting to see what kind of people you'll meet when we're out at the Art Museum. From a distance it kind of looks like you're floating between the trees, so people walk over to see what you're up to. Today we met a group of college kids who were traveling around the US with a Christian Choral group. I think they visit elementary schools in each city they visit, or something. A few of them tried the slackline and were able to walk on it with Joe and I on each side, holding them up.

After they finished playing around they hung out while Kai and I practiced balancing on the line. Joe is a talker. And he had quite an audience, so talked he did. Quite quickly, one of the girls in the group mentioned that they were a Christian Choral group and asked if Joe was a Christian. He replied that he was an Atheist, but I could hear in his voice just as he said it that he'd wished he hadn't. They had their opening and were fascinated that someone didn't believe in God like they did. I kind of muted out a lot of the conversation. Growing up in Salt Lake makes you kind of immune to some of that talk. I definitely like discussing religion with friends. I find it interesting to understand what other people believe and discuss things, but I wasn't into it tonight.

It got chilly as the sun set, and my legs were exhausted, so I thanked Joe and Kai and headed back to the car. I sat down and on comes NPR. I had serious thoughts if there was some conspiracy about evangelical Christians going on. Today's edition of Fresh Air with Terry Gross was about evangelical Christians and Evolution. That's about all I caught of the show. I just wasn't in the mood. I rarely change off of NPR, but today was one of those days. Maybe I'll listen to the podcast when I'm into it.

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Posted by Jessica on March 29, 2007 11:20:09 PM EDT #

I bit the bullet last night and upgraded my website to run a non-antiquated application server (kind of like a webserver but for dynamic content like a shopping cart, or a blog) and the latest version of Pebble (the actual blog software I use).

I upgraded from Tomcat 4.1.27 to Tomcat 5.5.17 (which is the latest Tomcat version that my hosting company, WebAppCabaret, currently offers). The startup/shutdown of the appserver is noticibly faster. Hopefully it deals with memory management better (I was always having to restart my website before).

But upgrading to Pebble 2.x has made the most noticible changes (not only from the obvious look and feel changes) but also from a functionality standpoint too. Simon Brown has really done a great job of adding some nice features to Pebble in this last release.

Some things you may notice with Pebble 2.x:

• Rich Text Comments: Now when you leave a comment you have the option of using a rich text editor as well as writing plain HTML (Click the "add a comment" link and you'll see what I mean).
• Sidebar Tag Cloud: You can still see all the tags I use, but now you can see the most common ones right in the sidebar.
• Better spam filters: So... I haven't been able to test this one out yet. But I have faith. I was getting up to 20 spam comments/day with my old blog (which is why all comments had to be manually approved). Now, hopefully the comment filter will handle it for me.

I ran into a couple small snags when upgrading to Pebble 2.x, but nothing I couldn't handle (thank you Simon for your help).

• Failed reindex: After following Simon's upgrading how-to, my categories showed up, and my images showed up, but none of the blog entries were there. I tried reindexing all the blog entries, but nothing happened. I looked at the log files and saw that the SAXParser was dieing somewhere. After some further debugging I found there were three 0kb blog entries (somehow). After removing those, all my blog entries were restored.
• Migrating Drafts: Pebble gives you the ability to save draft copies of your blog entries. I have a few that I've been working on for awhile, and a couple that I abandoned. They didn't transfer over when I upgraded, but all I need to do is copy and paste them and resave the drafts. No big deal because there aren't too many of them.

Overall I'm psyched with Pebble 2.x. I'm sure I'll find tons of new administrative features that I'll love using too. I'm not 100% sold on the new look&feel that I've designed so please comment with any constructive criticisms and glowing praise that you may have. I'm sure I'll be tweaking it a lot in the next few weeks as I figure out more how I want this thing to look in its latest incarnation.

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Posted by Jessica on March 28, 2007 10:31:54 AM EDT #

I got a little restless on my lunch break today. One of the dangers of working from home (other than not showering til 3pm and taking conference calls in your pajamas) is that you can go a bit stir-crazy. I had a really tasty lunch of Seafood Udon with one of my co-workers today (luckily he lives close by). On the way home, I was craving something sweet. Easter is an dangerous excellent time to have a sweet tooth. There's a thousand and forty seven things you can buy to fulfill it.

My favorite are the Russel Stover Vanilla Creme eggs. They remind me of the "Divinity" that my Dad made at Christmas time when I was a kid. Lucky for you, they didn't have any Russell Stover eggs, but they did have Peeps! I didn't go as far as these guys (I do in fact need to work). But I had an entertaining few minutes. I took a video, but the screen in the microwave door didn't make it very viewable.

Peeps face off

Peeps duel

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Posted by Jessica on March 27, 2007 2:43:16 PM EDT #

My friend, George, recommended I check out a documentary on PBS called Through Deaf Eyes. I recorded it on my DVR and I think I'll save it for awhile. It was excellent. Through Deaf Eyes is a 2-hour documentary that goes through the history of the deaf culture in America. A lot of the things they discuss I'd learned from my cousins, but it was neat to learn the details.

Two of my cousins are deaf and because of them I've learned sign language. I'm not fluent, but I can hold a conversation. They're very patient with me and correct me when I sign the wrong word, and teach me new ones when I come to a word that I don't know (and being the kind and loving cousin that she is, Elyse is always happy to laugh at me when I say the WAY wrong word... like for some reason I always mix up the sign for "kill" with something quite innocent, I forget what it is now... but she always snickers at me). I think that technically I know "Spoken English Sign Language", which means that I simply sign the words that I want to express, in the same order as I do when I speak them aloud. American Sign Language is a full language unto itself, with its own sentence structure that is different from English.

I absolutely love knowing Sign Language. I love being able to speak with my cousins, and I love getting a glimpse into the Deaf culture. I've taken French and Spanish in school, but I never got good enough to hold a conversation or really express myself. I'm always impressed by people who can. I really like that I can do it in Sign Language. Sometimes when I'm out at a loud bar, my hands will automatically start talking, even though the friends I'm talking to can't understand them. Its so much easier to talk in a loud environment in a language that doesn't depend on sound to communicate. You can talk with your mouth full. You can talk from across a room. You can talk in a noisy bar. How cool is that.

A couple interesting things you may not know about Sign Language:

• American Sign Language and British Sign Language use completely different signs. Although a person who speaks American Sign and British Sign can communicate by writing back and forth in English, they can't communicate through sign. (Check out the American Sign Language alphabet and the British Sign Language alphabet.
• American Sign Language was developed by Laurent Clerc a deaf Frenchman who came to the US to teach at the first School for the Deaf which was started by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. He combined his native French sign language with signs the US students were using. Check out how similar the French signed alphabet (LSF) is to the American alphabet.

I think one of my favorite parts about watching Through Deaf Eyes was reading the sign language. It was neat to just try to read what the people were saying and then using the spoken interpretation to correct myself or to pick up on the parts that I missed when they spoke it in sign language. I can practice signing on my own (signing along to songs on the radio, or practicing fingerspelling) but I can't really practice reading sign language without having someone to watch (and Elyse and Vicci both live a few hours away), so it was neat to be able to practice while I was watching the show. YouTube has made it easier for me to practice too, there's a deaf comedian named Keith Wann who's put some of his skits online (Deaf Technology ruined pizza night and You smell like farts). He's pretty funny, check him out.

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Posted by Jessica on March 26, 2007 12:06:34 PM EDT #

I never met Sam's friend Tom, but from everything she's told me about him and everything she's written about him. He sounds like an amazing person (and some of the stories she tells remind me of that same spirit that my mom had). On Friday, Sam asked if I'd be interested in doing the Climb the Tower event for the American Lung Association. Instead of a 5k charity race, it's a race up 50 stories of the Bell Atlantic Tower in Philadelphia. Oof. I'm in ok shape. I'm strong, but I certainly need to work on my cardio. 50-flights of stairs will certainly work your lungs. It's an excellent event for the Lung Association to hold.

I've had a lot of "firsts" with Sam: 1st time riding a bike in Philadelphia (we rode bikes to and from the "Climb the Tower" event -- yeah... lets walk up 50 flights and then ride bikes, sounds good.), 1st time walking up 50 stories, 1st time lead climbing outside... I wonder what else she'll introduce me to...

The day started off nice and early. I met Sam at her place and we rode bikes to Center City, Philadelphia. It was kind of neat to get a glimpse of her daily commute that I get to read about every once in a while (by the way, I rode her bike, she's got very short legs). Luckily Sam was very patient with me and went nice and slow. It was funny how turned around I got on the city while riding a bike (I normally have a pretty good sense of direction). I swear at one point we were backtracking towards her house, then suddenly we were on Market Street.

We got to the Bell Atlantic Tower (looking for the other funny-dressed people in the lobby) and registered for the event. We were one of the last people to register, so we were one of the last people to start. They started racers every 20 seconds. Us being #'s 157 and 158, we had about an hour to kill before we started. So we stretched, and had some green tea (and hoped we wouldn't have to pee when we hit the 34th floor).

It's hard for me to believe that Sam hasn't always been athletic. She's a great climber, she climbs hard, she climbs long and she climbs gracefully. She rides her bike to work most every day (even on those days when I'm thankful that I work from home and don't have to venture out of my nice cozy couch). And that chick is really in shape too. All that being said, I wasn't suprised that Sam did so well on the walk. But I think I could have knocked her over with a feather when she found her name listed in 36th place for the event overall. She finished 6th for all the women in the event, and 2nd in her age group.

I wonder how many times I've written that Sam kicks ass. Well, she does.

This was the first time Sam has ever won a medal at an event. She said she wasn't going to take off her medal the rest of the day... and I believe her. We went out walking around her neighborhood and had some tea the event and she wore her medal around her neck the whole time. I'm so excited for her. (BTW, here's her account of the day's adventures).

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Posted by Jessica on March 25, 2007 8:04:56 PM EDT #

Last year when I was soliciting donations for the HERA Foundation a very blunt and honest friend of mine asked me if the donatoin was tax deductable, because he only wanted to do it if there was something in it for him. He went on to say that no one does anything, if there's nothing in it for them. And in his warped way, he was right. I really enjoy raising money for HERA, and sure, I get something out of it: if I raise $750 I get to be in the Climb4Life Gear raffle and get some really great climbing gear (last year I got a harness and a helmet, Sam got a rope!). But more than that I love the feel-goods that I get out of it. I love the idea that I'm making a difference, that I'm helping fund the people who will find a way to detect ovarian cancer, that I'm helping raise awareness so that women out there know what to look for. I love that feeling.

Sam, Colleen and I are coming up with lots of ways to raise money for HERA. We had such a GREAT time at the Roller Derby, and we raised a LOT of money, and more importantly, we spread a LOT of awareness. I'm really excited to see what other organizations we can get involved with, how many more people we can teach about Gynological cancers and their symptoms, and how much money we can raise. I think its gonna be a fun summer.

If you'd like to help HERA, you can make a donation or join our team.

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Posted by Jessica on March 24, 2007 2:22:52 PM EDT #

Climbing is a great release. It gives me somewhere I can go where the only thing I can focus on is the wall in front of me. Its a great excercise: strength, flexibility, cardio, mental stability. It's fun to do. It's a challenge. It's social. It's different each time I go. I think all the reasons I like climbing, is why I like yoga.

Its not suprising to me that so many climbers also practice yoga. Its another avenue to improve all the skills you need to become a good climber: strength, flexibility, mental focus. It's fun to do. It's exciting to see myself improve. It's a different series of poses each time I go to class. I really enjoy it.

All that being said, I think one of the reasons I like yoga so much is that it gives me a totally different mental break than I get from climbing. When I'm climbing, I have to focus on the route in front of me: my next move, my next hold, my next clip. I love going climbing after a stressful day at work when I can't shut my brain off at the end of the day. It gives me a great way to get all engineering problems out of my head (because when I'm climbing, if I'm thinking about something else, I'll fall). Yoga gives my brain the complete opposite kind of rest, and sometimes I need that too. Yoga has taught me (and is still teaching me) how to clear my mind, how to focus my breath, my energy, myself. How to take all the things that have been piling up on me, and let myself step away from them. Not because I need to focus on one thing (like in climbing) but because its ok to focus on nothing.

I'm really happy with my mix of yoga and climbing. I try to climb twice a week, and also try to practice yoga twice a week: Yin and Power Vinyasa. The Yin class is perfectly timed. It's typically the day after my hard climbing workout, and it gives me a gerat way to stretch out and relax. Power Vinyasa is an exhilerating way to start off my weekend. The intensity of the class varies from week to week, but it always seems to match the mood of the class. Rochelle is my instructor at and the owner of The Studio for Yoga And More in Moorestown, NJ. I'm really lucky that I found such a great yoga studio and with an instructor who's flow really matches my own. I really love Rochelle's style. She's very aware of her student's needs. Knows when to push us, knows when to go easy on us, and knows when she can have fun with us.

I'm so glad I started yoga. I look forward to continuing it for a very long time.

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Posted by Jessica on March 21, 2007 10:10:28 PM EDT #

I've got a healthy fear fo falling. Yes, I love rock climbing, but I still get a bit freaked out sometimes. Every once in a while the fact that I'm climbing way off the ground and attached to a rope... it kinda gets to me. I think a fear of falling is essential to climbing. It keeps you safe, it makes you respect the sport, it makes you double check all of your safety gear and it keeps you alive. Climbing is dangerous. Climbing accidents happen.

All that being said... I don't plan on stopping climbing.

I was lead climbing with Ejeon a while back. There was a new pink 5.9 route on the left of the red lead wall, and onto the yellow arch. Its a really nice route, with some great moves on it. But I kept taking a lot of rests on the wall. I knew my arms were getting tired, and rather than finding a spot to rest one arm at a time, or risk falling a few feet -- I asked Ejeon to "take" ("take" is what a climber says when they want their belayer to take in the slack on the rope so the climber can rest on the wall). Truth be told, I was afraid of falling those few feet. It'd been a while since I'd taken a "whipper" (a "whipper" is a sizeable fall that you take while lead climbing. It's got that name cause it makes a whipping kind of sound), and somehow that fear of falling had gotten in my head to the point that it was preventing me to push myself...

So a fear of falling is good when it keeps you safe, but it's a HUGE problem when that fear is preventing you from pushing yourself, from increasing your endurance, and from improving your climbing. As I've written before, there's 3 parts to climbing: mental, physical and technical. I'm always trying to hone my technical skills: being conscious of how I'm placing my feet, keeping my arms straight when I'm hanging, not over-gripping a hold... all of that stuff, and the Strength Series is working on addressing the physical and mental sides of my climbing. I see a pretty obvious path for the physical stuff: push-ups, pull-ups, climb, climb climb. The mental stuff is harder for me to work on.

Last month, Michael Reardon came to Philadelphia as part of his Soloquest tour. It was really neat to hear his talk and hang out with him a bit. His mental strength is really impressive. I certainly don't have the urge to go free solo, or even work on any high-ball bouldering problems. But listening to his talk and peppering him with a zillion questions really helped me see things differently. He'll tell you himself, he's walked away from climbs that joe-blow could do blind-folded and in heals. Some days, he's just not feeling it. You've gotta respect your head when its not in it. For him, his life depends on that awareness. I need to hone that. I need to understand my head, understand when my head's not in it, and realize when actually I'm just not willing to push myself and I'm letting myself giveup. Its a tough thing... understanding what your own mind and body is telling you. But I'm working on it.

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Posted by Jessica on March 19, 2007 11:14:24 PM EDT #

Holy crap. We just got back from Day 2 of the East Coast Extravaganza Roller Derby and I can't believe how much money we raised! (By the way, I think Colleen is going to join the Roller Derby. She was eyeing up those uniforms a whole lot. Hmmmm... I wonder what her derby name will be.... "Colleen the Mean"? "Careening Colleen"? Hmmmm...)

The Philly Roller Girls helped us raise money for the HERA Foundation.

A huge thanks to everyone who donated goodies for our raffle: Eastern Mountain Sports, Ride Your Bicycle, The Studio For Yoga and More, REI, Go Vertical, Bitter Gravity, Valerie Hayken Photography, Michael Reardon Soloquest Tour, Mark Synott and Livity Outernational.

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Posted by Jessica on March 18, 2007 10:31:01 PM EDT #

Today was day one of the East Coast Extravaganza. Despite the icky "wintery mix" storm we had last night, there was an AWESOME turnout. And TONS of people bought raffle tickets. Sam is the best at selling raffle tickets. She goes right up to people and sucks the money right out of their pockets. It's really quite the thing to behold.

The Knit Uteruses (Uteri?) were a huge hit. Everyone was asking about them and wanted to know how they could buy one. We're respecting MK Carroll's copyright and not selling the wombs (just like I don't want people to sell things they make from my patterns). So we've included the wombs as part of our raffle. We gave away half the raffle prizes tonight and were able to raise a whole lotta money for the HERA Foundation, more than that, we were aable to raise a lot of awareness. I can't wait to see how much we bring home for the whole event. Roller Derby fans are very generous. Thank you to all of you.

Throughout the course of the day I got the chance to see a few bouts, and I think I'm starting to understand it. I'll have to read over the basic rules of roller derby again, so that I understand it better for tomorrow. But here's how I gather it works:

One girl from each team has a star on her helmet. She's a "jammer". Both jammers start off behind a pack of all the other girls, and their goal is to weave their way to make it through the pack. If they do so without going out of bounds, then they can score points. I *think* only the girl who is deemed the "lead jammer" can score points... and she's also the one who can decide when to call the jam off and play stops. I'm not sure yet what you have to do to become the lead jammer.... and I'm also not totally sure what a "pivot" does (she has a stripe on her helmet). All the other girls are "blockers" and basically --- they just try to prevent the jammers from making it through the pack.

There's certainly a whole lot of strategy in the game, and also a lot of endurance for those jammers to keep lapping the pack to score more and more points. I can definitely see the appeal of the sport. If I didn't climb so much (and if I had any coordination on skates), I think I'd definitely consider trying out. I really enjoyed team sports when I was younger, and being surrounded by such strong women would be so opposite of my day-to-day as a software geek in a male-dominated industry.... its an interesting idea indeed.

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Posted by Jessica on March 17, 2007 11:26:26 PM EDT #

This time last year I wrote about the Honda Element crab ad that I ABSOLUTELY adore. "I Pinch." Ha, it makes me laugh just thinking about it. If you haven't seen it yet, you absolutely MUST. Its no longer running on their site, but you can still download the crab, or you can see 'Gil' the crab on youTube.

Well, it appears that my little crabby friend has a bit of an insecurity complex, and it came shining through when his arch-nemisis, the lobster, made an apperance. The lobster ad (and the other silly animal spots) are on ElementAndFriends.com, or you can download the lobster to keep for your very own.

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Posted by Jessica on March 16, 2007 8:14:17 PM EDT #

I think that was my favorite IM conversation last week. I had a huge cheesy smile on my face for a while after that (kinda like I do now).

So... the story is this: Last year at the Climb4Life event in Salt Lake, Colleen's roomate Kelly knit a womb. Sam and Colleen had all the pro-climbers pose with it for photos (guys and gals alike). I ABSOLUTELY loved the idea. It's a fun, funky way of bringing the subject of Ovarian Cancer right out in the open. Its cute, its poofy, its fuzzy, and people talk about it. So, all week long I've been knitting wombs. I've got a dozen so far. I'm sure I can finish a few more before the Roller Derby.

I had SUCH a fun night with Val. First we went to the Philly Roller Girls practice to take photos for the upcoming East Coast Extravaganza (I must say, its great having a friend who is a professional photographer), and then we went climbing at they gym. I brought my bag-full-of-uteruses (uteri?) with me, and the girls had fun posing with them. I can't wait to see how the photos turn out.

Lucky for me, Val had extra film left over after the Roller Derby, so I had my own personal photographer at the climbing gym. Yay, climbing pictures!

• the materials:
  • One set of size 8 double pointed needles
  • One ball of chunky yarn. I used Wool-Ease Chunky, Lion Suede and a bunch of different scrap yarns I had in my collection.
  • Stich marker
  • Polyfill stuffing
  • 2 pipe cleaners
• the pattern:
  • The full womb pattern is available on Knitty.com.
  • I made a few modifications:
    • As listed on MK Carroll's website, row 23 should be: knit all stitches.
    • When decreasing instead of: "k, k2tog, k X, k2tog, k", do this instead: "k, ssk, kX, k2tog, k". This gives a nice ridge for the corners.
    • After a few wombs, I got a little bored, so I started using novelty yarns, adding some fair-isle speckles and even did some stripes. I've got me some funky wombs.
    • Don't skimp on the pipe cleaner. Basically, don't cut one pipe cleaner in half and use it for each fallopian tube. The pipe cleaner won't go deep enough into the stuffing of the uterus to keep the fallopian tubes all perky, so use two full pipe cleaners and trim them as needed.
  Tags : rollerderby burythedragon climb4life womb currentproject thirtyinthirty
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  Posted by Jessica on March 14, 2007 11:56:35 PM EDT #

Ever since we moved into our house I've been doing quick pull-ups off of the door frames. I've never been able to do many -- door frames are sharp. So I finally bought a hangboard. That way I can increase my contact-strength, improve my grip and improve my ability to hold onto sloppers and crimps. AND, I can do all of that without driving 15 minutes and paying a $3 toll to go to the gym. (Not that I'll go to the gym less, but now I can play at home a bit too).

I'm pretty happy with where I had Joe install it. It's installed above a nice wide doorway. Drilled into some nice solid studs. You can't see the hangboard from the front door, so it doesn't look like I'm completely obsessed with climbing, at least not from the first 15 feet of the house.

What I bought is a Metolius Simulator CNC Training Board. It's got a huge variety of holds to practice on: jugs, slopers, edges and pockets. Metolius also publishes a series of ten-minute drills to actually use the training board to train on. I'm sure Juregen will soon begin assigning me homework for the Strength Series to workout at home. I look forward to it.

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Posted by Jessica on March 13, 2007 10:18:16 AM EDT #

Thirty blog entries in thirty days. Its a good challenge for a two-a-week blogger like me. I'm pretty selective with the geeky topics I write about: rock climbing, knitting, partnering with roller derby chicks to save ovaries... you know.. the usual ;). I try to stay on topic, I try to log things I find interesting and hopefully log things that other people find interesting too. It'll be a very good challenge to find 30 topics that I think are blog-worthy in the next 30 days.

And my goodness... I really need to speed up how long it takes me to write one of these. I write, I read it over, I write again, I correct, I add, I tweak, I read it again, I save it, I add something in the middle... then I publish the damn thing. Maybe I'm too self-conscious, maybe I'm not confident enough in my writing, maybe I'm just anal and think myself somewhat of a perfectionist. Whatever it is. Hopefully this will get me over that.

(Thanks to Wil Wheaton for the inspiring challenge)

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Posted by Jessica on March 12, 2007 11:55:51 PM EDT #

Philly Roller Girls hosting East Coast Extravaganza to benefit HERA Women’s Cancer Foundation

Philadelphia, PA -- March 6, 2007 -- The Philly Roller Girls announced today a percentage of ticket proceeds for the East Coast Extravaganza will be donated to HERA Women’s Cancer Foundation through Team Bury the Dragon. The East Coast Extravaganza is a large-scale flat track roller derby event featuring two full days of competition by teams from across the nation. The event will take place March 17-18, 2007 at the Sportsplex in Feasterville, PA. Participants will include Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) member leagues as well as regional rookie leagues applying for membership in the national organization.

One rink will feature full-length, regulation bouts between travel teams from WFTDA member leagues, including the Philly Roller Girls. The event will be sanctioned by WFTDA and travel team bouts will count toward the participating leagues’ national rankings.

Two additional rinks will host open scrimmages and challenge bouts—half-hour bouts between home teams, special teams and rookie leagues. The challenge bouts will adhere to WFTDA rules, with the exception of the reduced playing time. All events, including scrimmages, will be open to the public, giving fans a chance to see up-and-coming regional derby talent as well as seasoned veteran skaters. A complete schedule of challenge bouts and scrimmages is available online at phillyrollergirls.com.

A meet and greet for press will be held both Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 - 4:00 PM. Members of the press will have an opportunity to speak one-on-one with skaters from participating leagues on the bridge area between rinks one and two at the designated time each day.

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Posted by Jessica on March 8, 2007 11:21:50 AM EST #

Goal setting is a scary thing. It forces you to step back and think about what you really want, and then because you actually wrote it down, now you've actually gotta do something about it. How do you achieve it? What do you need to do to get there? And more importantly: what do you need to give up to get there?

Goal-setting is the first step for the Strength Series at Go Vertical. This is how Juergen explained it: Say, you want to achieve this goal (maybe, its to on sight a 5.12)... if it wasn't for something you were doing right now, you would have already achieved it. So you need to give up something, change your routine, change your training pattern or change your habits in order to achieve it.

First we tried to objectively look at our climbing. There's 3 facets to climbing: technical (stemming, edging, laybacks, mantling, etc), mental (fear of falling, confidence, calm, focus, etc) and strength (endurance, power, brute-force, etc). If you're lacking in one area or all three, your climbing will suffer. You can be as strong as a professional weight-lifter, and you'll be able to climb some impressive routes, but without technique, you won't last long and you'll fall apart on more delicate moves. It turns out that I feel I'm pretty balanced between my technical, mental and stength aspects (or, that I'm equally deficient in those areas depending on your glass half-empty/half-full view). Basically, I've got plenty to work on in order to improve my climbing. One thing I know for sure: I've been lead climbing for over a year and I'm still only climbing 5.9's. Whether it be be mental hang-ups, strength deficiencies or poor technique, I haven't been able to break into 5.10's. It's kind of frustrating. But now I'm hoping this class and these goals will help me drive through that.

So... here's the goals I layed out for myself during the class. Hopefully writing these down and publishing them for the world to see (ok.. for the 4 people that read my blog to see) will help me to achieve them.

Medium-term goals

First we set out some medium-term goals. Things that we want to achieve within the next 3 months:

• Climb a multi-pitch sport route
• Become more knowledgable about outside climbing techniques
• Take a class at the EMS Climbing School
• Climb a 5.10+ on lead

Long-term goals

Next are the bigger ones. My Long term goals are both climbing and non-climbing related:

• be autonomous when climbing outside (be able to setup top ropes, sport lead routes, etc. be able to take people climbing who haven't climbed outside before).
• take a climbing vacation (travel somwhere just to climb -- Joshua Tree? Moab? Red Rocks?)
• increase my yoga practice (improve my postures, practice on my own)
• live somewhere that outdoor climbing is more accessible.
• start and actually finish a large knitting project (a sweater, dress, or jacket)
• find a healthy balance between home, work and hobbies
Tags : goals govertical strength
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Posted by Jessica on March 7, 2007 11:24:59 AM EST #

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Posted by Jessica on March 7, 2007 9:52:59 AM EST #