Adam Ondra: "Any climber with mediocre stregnth can climb at least V8 given perfect technique" Thoughts?

I still have yet to see an actual citation or clip for this.  Did he really say it?

hyperbole

climbing friend,

it is true, there are plenty of v4 you cannot climb with "mediocre" strength, and need at least some little of the crushing strength. he is just sandbagging and wang-slapping the others for self-gratification if indeed he would have been saying on this words. or perhaps he very much enjoy reading your lengthy and pointless discussion on MP and he trolls it under the assumption name when not busy on a "prohjict"

Like many things related to climbing,"mediocre" is relative.  One person's "mediocre" will be someone else's "crushing".

Only your best onsights belong to me :)

An interesting collaborating data point.

About 6 years ago,  back in a day when people still posted on RRC.com, there was a long and heated forum discussion that started by someone asking,
"Can anyone climb 5.14?"

In a typical fashion, most people responding to that thread had NOT climbed 5.14. But there was a group of people who argued that yes, in fact, given enough time invested, proper training, and luck in avoiding injury, anyone could climb 5.14. And there was a geroup of people arguing that no way, 5.14 is an elite grade and only a few people could ever hope to achieve it.

Fast-forward 6 years... and every single person who argued that it IS possible to climb 5.14 has climbed 5.14... It is is kinda interesting, isn't it?

S. Neoh wrote:

Like many things related to climbing,"mediocre" is relative.  One person's "mediocre" will be someone else's "crushing".

Only your best onsights belong to me :)

climbing friend,

your "crushing strength" is my "mediocre strength!" You would not be touching this, I am too legit to terminate.

ALL your FLASH are belong to ME!!!

Lena chita wrote:

Fast-forward 6 years... and every single person who argued that it IS possible to climb 5.14 has climbed 5.14... It is is kinda interesting, isn't it?

Our mind is usually the source of limitation in most activities. The difference in red pointing a 12a and floundering on 10+ was mostly telling myself that a 12 wasn't *that* hard. The pedestal I had put the grade on in the past made those routes not attainable. 

Nick Drake wrote:

Our mind is usually the source of limitation in most activities. The difference in red pointing a 12a and floundering on 10+ was mostly telling myself that a 12 wasn't *that* hard. The pedestal I had put the grade on in the past made those routes not attainable. 

climbing friend,

if you sit many hours, many days passing, in quiet cave meditation on how easy it is the sending la dura dura, surely you may walk up and perform bold enjoyable yet perhaps not so difficult flash, forearm refresh at crux? if sharma he gives it to you the beta?

I like the current wiki climbing grade page. V9 = 12d and V10 = 14a... they skipped an entire range in comparison when they redid the color matching.

Nick Drake wrote:

Our mind is usually the source of limitation in most activities. The difference in red pointing a 12a and floundering on 10+ was mostly telling myself that a 12 wasn't *that* hard. The pedestal I had put the grade on in the past made those routes not attainable. 

Agreed. I don't know that simply believing you can do a certain grade is enough to achieve it. But NOT believing that you can is a 100% surefire way to NOT achieve it.

When I first started climbing, I was going climbing with groups of people who were climbing much longer than me, so as a newbie I was listening attentively to "words of wisdom", about how you toprope several grades harder than you lead (we are talking sport climbing here!), and how someday the people speaking this wisdom thought they could get to the point of toproping 5.12a and leading 5.11a, but certainly not any harder than that, because 5.12a was, like, totally badass grade, maybe 5% of people ever climbed it!.
Mind you, at the time, these people were toproping mid-11 without much trouble. Maybe with a hang or three, but they certainly were capable of doing the moves. And I had no clue what the difference was between 5.9 and 5.11, I just knew that 5.12 was REALLY hard, because here were all these people who have been climbing for years, and they were nowhere near climbing it, even though they were way stronger than me... so of course the chances of me climbing 5.12 someday were close to zero.

Fortunately, I had moved on quickly to climbing with a different group of people. Who didn't hold specific grades on pedestal, and who actually worked on sending routes, and made me realize that there was nothing magical about the ability to send 5.12. Or 5.13, for that matter. or even, really... 5.14.

And I went from thinking that yeah, maybe someday I would be able to toprope 5.12a, and lead 5.11a, to actually sending the magical grade, and realizing that there is nothing magical that stops me from improving further one small step at a time... And 10 years later, the people who were talking about someday toproping 5.12 and leading 5.11 still haven't progressed a single letter grade, on lead, or on toprope.

Lena chita wrote:

And I went from thinking that yeah, maybe someday I would be able to toprope 5.12a, and lead 5.11a, to actually sending the magical grade, and realizing that there is nothing magical that stops me from improving further one small step at a time... And 10 years later, the people who were talking about someday toproping 5.12 and leading 5.11 still haven't progressed a single letter grade, on lead, or on toprope.

That sounds very similar to my own experience, many of the people I started climbing with are still at that 11- lead level they have been for years. In the meantime there's a decent number of us who only started climbing in the last few years who are red pointing low 12s. 

Aleks Zebastian wrote:

climbing friend,

if you sit many hours, many days passing, in quiet cave meditation on how easy it is the sending la dura dura, surely you may walk up and perform bold enjoyable yet perhaps not so difficult flash, forearm refresh at crux? if sharma he gives it to you the beta?

Sharma said to just use Ralph Lauren cologne and it'll go. 

Only a professional would say something that egotistical 

Lena chita wrote:

Agreed. I don't know that simply believing you can do a certain grade is enough to achieve it. But NOT believing that you can is a 100% surefire way to NOT achieve it.

When I first started climbing, I was going climbing with groups of people who were climbing much longer than me, so as a newbie I was listening attentively to "words of wisdom", about how you toprope several grades harder than you lead (we are talking sport climbing here!), and how someday the people speaking this wisdom thought they could get to the point of toproping 5.12a and leading 5.11a, but certainly not any harder than that, because 5.12a was, like, totally badass grade, maybe 5% of people ever climbed it!.
Mind you, at the time, these people were toproping mid-11 without much trouble. Maybe with a hang or three, but they certainly were capable of doing the moves. And I had no clue what the difference was between 5.9 and 5.11, I just knew that 5.12 was REALLY hard, because here were all these people who have been climbing for years, and they were nowhere near climbing it, even though they were way stronger than me... so of course the chances of me climbing 5.12 someday were close to zero.

Fortunately, I had moved on quickly to climbing with a different group of people. Who didn't hold specific grades on pedestal, and who actually worked on sending routes, and made me realize that there was nothing magical about the ability to send 5.12. Or 5.13, for that matter. or even, really... 5.14.

And I went from thinking that yeah, maybe someday I would be able to toprope 5.12a, and lead 5.11a, to actually sending the magical grade, and realizing that there is nothing magical that stops me from improving further one small step at a time... And 10 years later, the people who were talking about someday toproping 5.12 and leading 5.11 still haven't progressed a single letter grade, on lead, or on toprope.

climbing friend,

these peoplez that believe toproping sport climbs like it would be their job believing it is helping them are terrified of life quite misguided and sabotaging their progressions of theirownselvesz... teaching themselves you must always be afraid, so afraid, must never fall, never fall, if you do not have blessed toprope calling you forth from the heavens you cannot climb and must seize up with fear and climb most statically like robot proclaiming also taht you are not afraid ... it being most unthinkable to try uncertain move 1 meterz above the protektionz

You mean like Tommy Caldwell did on the Dawn Wall?

climbing friend,

there is indeed a difference between toprope rehearsal of cutting edge big wall send of a lifetime and habitually toproping mid-11 single pitch, yes? perhaps you are quite offended as the toprope hero?

climbing friend,

the v8 it is terrible but you may pretend you are consuming the vegetable. it tastes like dirty tainted tomatoe and budweisermixed with dirt.

Someone of mediocre strength should choke the stuffing out of Ondra.  

climbing friend,

oh, he would utilize his angry ostrich power on you!