PCI Clinic

Eric Jerome

             Yesterday I attended a PCI (Pro Climbers International) clinic featuring Sasha DiGiulian, Carlo Traversi, and Paul Robinson. Overall the clinic went well although they did not teach me very much that I did not already know and felt that even though this was the most advanced clinic they should have had an even more skilled clinic. They had a team competition at the end of the teaching similar to the style of the comp hosted at the grand opening of Chris Sharma's Sender One. Personally, I thought that this, although fun, was a large waste of time and would rather have been learning more from such amazing individuals.

             We started the day by warming up and emphasizing stretching on the wall, doing large exaggerated movements, and "doing yoga on the wall".  Then Sasha took a group of us over to a fairly large overhang and was attempting to teach us about warming up our larger muscle groups and getting more dynamic when warming up. She then taught us that when training to be most efficient for projecting we should not re-adjust our hands. We all tried doing so and found it quite difficult as it is natural movement to us. We continued on the Paul. We were stationed on a flat/slab section of wall and he was meant to be teaching us how to warm up for overhanging terrain if the iso wall is only a flat wall or inadequate. After all, we really just ended up projecting while he watched and gave advice.
Carlo's turn ending up being my favorite of the three. We were at a large roof with the main climbs on it being to V5s. First we climbed one or both of them. Then he challenged us to do it again but without bending our elbows at all. This was meant to show that we could climb on roofs and by using better foot beta not use any energy in our arms. I found this really interesting and am going to challenge myself in the future to work through things with my feet rather than using my power to pull through it.

             Next, my group was back with Sasha up on the systems board. All she told us about was circuits and 50 moves which everyone there already did, however, it was insightful to know how she actually trains.  We moved on to Carlo on the same wall as before. Now was core. Basically, we did sets of crunches and leg lifts on jugs (hanging on roof and touching the holds around you with your feet). We finished that up rather quickly and then just fooled around attempting levers. Then came Paul which was my favorite. Campusing and finger strength.  We did some basic campusing techniques and finger training exercises that I already know and do, however, it was interesting seeing that someone like Paul with some of the strongest fingers in the world can get by with such basic exercises. Although, thats assuming he doesn't do plenty of others which I'm sure he does.

             The competition was a bust and I don't really feel the need to talk about it. Overall, I think that this clinic would have been 1000x more beneficial for less advanced climbers attempting to learn basic training techniques. It was still a fantastic experience getting to meet my idols and seeing how chill each and every one of them are in real life. I walked away with some stickers and an autographed poster which I am psyched about. In other news, in a few hours I am heading back to the Binary Boulder in an attempt to finished cleaning it up and maybe figure out some sequences.