UKC

I got in an interesting discussion on Instagram, someone had posted a vid of them climbing indoor what was a bit of a jug ladder and claiming it was v10. I pointed out that this may not necessarily be the case because indoor walls can be notorious for overgrading. This comment sparked a furious thread of responses claiming my comment is against the spirit of the climbing community.  Is it really though,  if I posted a vid of me out for a run that's fair enough,  but if I've said I've run claiming a sub 2hr marathon I would expect to get called out. 

As a community do we offer blind congratulation, or are we able to critique

In reply to Cbee20191:

You are not alone. I get the same response at picnics when I piss on the BBQ.

In reply to Cbee20191:

I think that claiming that wrangling over the minutiae of grades is not in the spirit of the climbing community shows a significant lack of exposure to the actual climbing community...

Anyway surely you can't claim proper grades for plastic?

In reply to its ultimately all massively subjective, especially indoors, I get that,  just interested me ethically. Each to thier own I guess. 

In reply to Cbee20191:

Post the link. I want a look.

In reply to Cbee20191:

If you spend time on social media looking at bouldering content and have even the faintest idea about the conventions that most people abide by you'll see people congratulating themselves on, and being congratulated by others for, crouch-starting sit-starts, using holds that aren't in, lanking past the cruxes of problems that everyone knows are soft for the grade if you lank them, etc. etc. Couple that with the fact that social media rewards positivity even when it's unwarranted (if I tell someone that their green-tick Insta-send is invalid because they used a heel that everyone knows you can't use for it to be that grade, rather than posting a bunch of fire emojis and the words 'Absolute beast dude', then they might not hit me back with similarly banal platitudes next time I want validation and so spray my own green-tick send footy online) and you have a sort of digital arms race where difficulty is subsumed by ease of consumption. Why pull your ass off the ground when it's easier to crouch? Why risk blowing the send by not using good (eliminated) holds when that might mean no content? And if everyone else is doing those things, why shouldn't I? After all, bouldering is a matter of content-generation rather than a matter of problem-solving and the pursuit of convoluted difficulty, and I don't want to get left behind.

Whether this is behaviour that should be called out is, I think, an important question, because that leads you to ask yourself a) why it bothers you in the first place (what is it, really, that annoys you about it?), b) what the utility of telling someone that they haven't done a problem right actually is (how does that improve your life?), and c) what you consider grades to be for, given the idea behind them is to say how hard one arbitrary sequence of moves up a piece of rock is relative to other arbitrary sequences of moves up other pieces of rock, rather than for them to be trophies or accomplishments in and of themselves.

All of this relates more to outdoor bouldering than indoors, but I'd say that it's even more true there given the abject meaningless of indoor grades and impermanence of the problems.

In reply to Cbee20191:

Calling it.  Troll!!

In reply to Droyd:

I mean indoor especially, I get the argument about impermanence, and there is no real agreement regarding grades, at a less than professional level it's just an interesting debate. It is however a debate we do have, i do often question the grading of what I climb as a way to judge my own performance. if something feels soft and I know I'm not pushing my own limits then it's maybe not the stated grade. 

In applying that to others, i do apply that internal route and hold reading ability to climbs I watch, it's accuracy is of course debatable but indoor holds are in many cases fairly standardised and can glean a sense roughly of the difficulty of the climb. 

It's all just a game really though, I get that. 

In reply to Cbee20191:

I wouldn't worry about it. 

In reply to Bobling:

Your contribution is appreciated 🙄

In reply to Cbee20191:

I think the polite response to any indoor footage is to scroll on by.

In reply to steveriley:

Agreed. I'm still reeling from the news that people video indoor routes  and then stick that video online :-0

In reply to Cbee20191:

I think indoor climbs can be deceptive in assessing difficulty based on hold size, and I wouldn’t want to ballpoint a grade against a problem I hadn’t climbed. As an outdoor example, Fake Pamplemouse is all big holds but that doesn’t stop it being 8A. 

In reply to TheGeneralist:

I'm on instagram to look at gritstone beta vids. If it was possible to filter out any indoors climbing content I definitely would. 

In reply to Arms Cliff:

Good point - just been watching Stefano Ghisolfi on silence, some of the holds on that look deceptively like jugs especially when watching in 2-D and you don't quite realise the angle the rock is at !

In reply to ChrisBrooke:

The longer you look at indoor climbing posts and the more you engage with them by commenting, the more you will see them. That's the internet. 

In reply to Cbee20191:

Ask Rich Simpson 

In reply to Droyd:

Good post. To answer your rhetorical? question I think calling out purposeful cheating is obviously legit and if it’s accidental cheating then calling it out helps mitigate that specific form of cheating from propagating. As for the purpose of grades they serve many purposes and there is nothing wrong in being proud of achieving a particular grade - as long as you aren’t cheating of course 😉

In reply to TheGeneralist:

Me too.

And not only that, but people watch them! WTF?

In reply to Cbee20191:

I propose a solution: we introduce the 'I' grade, which becomes the ubiquitous grading system for indoor boulder problems. It promises to be entirely consistent within one centre, utterly incomparable between centres, bear no relation to V grades or other grading systems and no one is allowed to question it.

 - and outside, we'll keep our grades and our endless discussions, jibes and arguments. I mean, what would UKC be without the biannual Three Pebble Slab thread?

In reply to Cbee20191:

I am not sure I have ever seen an indoor V10 graded boulder. Most places go with V8+ for the highest graded problems. 

In reply to Cbee20191:

Was it the pink one in the corner?

In reply to tlouth7:

That is nails, that one. I'll spray you some unwanted beta across in a pm...