Liam & Aleshia Dickson Motiv_Ation Page
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Summertime
1For most people summertime is when the rope comes out and the boulder mats go away. For the weirdo’s like us, we typically hide inside and train.
Currently we have been focusing a lot on finger board, namely because i want to send Col’s Traverse aka “paper tiger” and that seems to be what it is coming down to. I assure you when I send it you guys wll know about it and I’ll hopefully have some footage of it to put up. We have ventured out a few times over the last few weeks and I have spent about 2 days on the problem so far. I have every move wired it now just is coming down to a confidence thing, that and a little fear of success. Hopefully after a few more weeks of training I can send it in the new year!
Have been becoming increasingly frustrated at the Froggat guide, I recently did a problem called “Seeing the light” supposedly 7b, it is nails, confirmed by James FM who believes it to be “The Mission” 7c. Apparently a few strong Hamilton locals have done it and so I am staying with the idea that it is called seeing the light. Its a fantastic problem the best 3 moves I’ve done for a while, I thoroughly enjoyed the problem.
I also tried wht i thought was “The Mission” but it must be an eliminate as what I climbed (below) was lots of fun to climb but probably about a 6
Aleshia has been making good progress and is coming frustratingly close to sending “stretched out” 7b, she is climbing quite well but suffering from the lack of variety and exposure to different rock and problems but hopefully in the coming weeks we can go somewhere a bit different!
On another far more exciting note,with a little help from MOTIV, I have found a new area that fingers crossed will allow for some summer bouldering. First reccie looks promising and when we head back out in January it should yield a few harder lines.
Hope everyone has a great christmas and make sure you “like” MOTIV Stuff on Facebook to get the promo code for the Christmas Specials!!!!
Exciting News
0The Motiv Team, distributors of MOON, BLURR, GYMOSS & BEASTMAKER have brought Liam on board as a Brand Ambassador.
Now doesn’t that sound fancy!
Motiv has also seen fit to bring Stoo into the mix too. Exciting!
In less exciting news it looks like its raining everywhere so maybe just a weekend of training and or resting up as its only 5 months until the good conditions in NZ & Oz return!
Wellington Trip Report
0It was a 5 hour drive from Tauranga down to Paraparaumu (aka the ‘umu) – just outside of Wellington, to stay at Motiv Founders Matt and Vanessa’s.
The next day we drove another 1 ½ hours to Turakirae Head for some bouldering!
We parked up and walked for 45 min to get to the boulders! Possibly a little further than the guide implies….. On the way I drank a bit too much water and the search for a boulder without gorse was a little difficult, so that was unfortunate.
Liam found the guide to be difficult and navigating the climbs consisted of walking through a jungle of uncooperative flax, grass and boulders. It made you think everything was a bit of a walk away when really it was 20m away from you! Definitely needs a scale or something!
I threw my boulder mat around quite a bit during this time. But we found the boulders we wanted and Liam and Matt did Tyrant 7c? (maybe easier) while I paparazzied around.
Vanessa sunbathed on the boulder mats and gave us beta…
She is climbing cripple at the moment after having shoulder re-construction. It was sad not having another girl to climb with… fingers crossed she’ll be back on the rock soon. After I scoffed all the food we brought 
I tried Kash and Karry (7a) and Rotund (6c+) I did Kish Kash.
I was a bit disappointed with my performance on the rock, I seem to be lacking in power endurance (though the problems are longer than the ones I’m used to at Froggat).
Liam did so well (maybe because I was being a good cheerleader) making good progress on Allison Wonderland 8a and has got his sequence down, just needs enough power to link and will do it next time fo sure.
Matty made good progress on Fatal Discharge 8a and hopefully will get it done in the next few weeks, IF the rain stops.
The next day I was sick L with some kind of stomach bug? and had to watch everyone down pizza for lunch while I ate Sorbet – by the way the Mediterranean Food Warehouse (42 Constable St Wellington) make great pizza and sorbet.
All in all, our thoughts about the trip are that the rock was quite slick and close together, but generally good; Worth another trip down; Loved the walking bit (lol); An ideal long-weekend destination for us. Matt and Vanessa’s is also an ideal bed and breakfast place to stay :p
Lesh
Trips, Training and Rain
0So far the past few weeks since wellington have been super quite on the climbing front.
Wellington was mildly successful, I managed the 2nd ascent of Tyrant with Matt grabbing the 3rd. Originally graded 9 but by unwinding to a crimp before taking the under cling it makes it much easier and probably warrants a down grade. Will wait and see on that front. Nice problem through a little tricky to get the hips in the right place and climbs ok. I think the local Young Gun called Josiah did it the following weekend. Also managed to piece together ALW and hopefully I will get down there in Dec to have a good day on it.
Training is going well with a reset of the walls and finishing up on our campusing. We were graced with strong man Stoo after his successful trip back from Rocklands last week.
The new problems are going well and my finger injury seems to have come right so am working on getting strength back in my left ring finger now on the Beastmaker 2000, coming soon to motivstuff! (not how I injured it either)
We will be updating our training section with what we are exactly doing over the next week. Have been a bit slack with this lately mainly due to work and the bad weather being un-motivating to write about exciting climbing things.
We even tried to find some climbing at Blowhard Bush this week but unfortunately the rain across the north island thwarted us. All we got to was looking up at what I think was teapot boulder. Unfortunately that was as far as we got.
Hopefully I can get my hands on a guide for the area so next time we are down we have something to report!
Watch this space for more training updates and photo’s to come!
To Wellington!!!
0Only 2 more days to we leave for a day and a half’s climbing at the RAK.
Hoping to grab an ascent of Musashi, I was so close on last time I went, and hopefully a 2nd ascent of Tyrant or Boiler Plate?
Lesh will be trying her hand at Uber Rotund, Toast or Attack! Toast thoroughly kicked my arse last in 08 thwarting my efforts on Pumping Iron. Lets hope she has better luck than me.
Rumor has it that Motiv Man Matt has his eyes on Mr Olympia for this weekend.
So many options and such a short trip, frustration central!!
Will get back to you with a trip report on our return.
Weekend Out
0With bad weather on its way through the North Island, LAD grabbed Zac AKA Trixie and headed out so lesh could have a morning on one of her projects, Stretched Out (7b) and see if I could piece together Deflow (7c).
Lesh had a good warm up, repeating last weeks 6 on her first pop! She then set about working Stretched Out’s powerful first move and tricky middle section. Meanwhile Triixe and his GO GO Gadget Arms made Double Trouble (7a) look like it wasn’t even an effort. Not too shabby considering he’s only been back climbing for a month.
I sent Stretched out on my 2nd go after slipping out of one of the wet middle holds while lesh pieced the moves together. On her last go of the day managing to get all of the moves linked with just a little bit of power for the start move! She’ll do it on out next day out for sure.
We then mosy’d over to the Deflow and I had a couple of goes. Its a relatively straight forward problem, not overly difficult or as sharp as I remeber it being last time back in 2007. It all boils down to 1 move for me, a small pocket before a double take to the massive 2 finger pocket. My dead pointing skill are not that good but I was able to lock the move so hopefully arriving fresh with the sequence sorted and my game face on I should be able to finish it up.
Trixie and Lesh tried Power On (7a+) a pockety traverse while we were there, not a particularly nice problem but has a couple of cool moves in it. Both of them had some mild success and maybe next time.
Had a quick look at Subtle as well while we were over there. Supposed 7c+ I’m not entirely sure where it starts either, the ’03 guide isn’t that crash hot on explaining where problems are…..Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.
All in all a good day out, a bit disappointing that we ran out of gas before we could send the problems but that’s how the game goes!
Looking forward to next weekend. Aleshia and I will be off to wellington to meet up with the Motiv Team and hopefully have a good serious go at Allison Wonderland (8a), hopefully snake it from Matt who’s had a couple of days on it or I might put my effort into Musashi (7c+) got close to that in 2008 but no send so should be a good day out. Either of those would be a good birthday present!
Weekend at Froggatt
0Successful day out at Froggatt on Saturday. Such a fantastic day if not a little hot, that brought some frustration on the smaller holds.
First up was was Bulgernomics on Pond Boulder. Cute wee little V6 that had a couple of dynamic moves through a couple of 2 finger pockets
Lesh dispatched that quickly, and with style!
Next up was Double Trouble V6, a cool double out move to a nice top out. Such a cool problem. Also has a nice traverse in called Stretched Out that is meant to bring the whole problem up to V8.
After Lesh had finished her sending we went back to James Fm’s new little area and I had a crack at the Tombstone Project. Man that thing is intense. Small holds on a 15-20 degree over hang. Will be awesome when it goes.
After that I turned back to Duck Fat. After James had come down to try it, his fat arse broke all the remaining holds, so it was fair game again.
After a couple of hours success! Duck Fat 2.0 was done and dusted. A cool problem that heads straight up now and how the line originally should have gone.
Should be a solid V9 now but we’ll see once some one repeats it.
Watch this space for more Froggatt Sendage!
Froggat Battles
0The competition is heating up at Froggatt with James FM and his crew claiming first ascents left right and center!
James supposedly has a beautiful V8 with a hard hard sit start that we missed out on trying last night but i did manage a quick snatch of Rich Morgans problem that he had been working in the weekend with a nice direct finish (no photo’s yet sorry I forgot a camera!!!) Unfortunately when I went for the sit start i broke a crucial hold as i latched the finish and was forced to start the problem again!! Perhaps I need to continue my weight loss regime…
Did manage to work a new sequence that heads to the right now, probably goes at 7b+ for the stand and the sit may bump it up to 7c but I ran out of light and skin for that. The problem to the left is still on however that will be considerably harder now that the crucial pinch/sidepull is gone!
Lesh managed a quick repeat of one of James FM’s new V5′s unsure of the name and had some great attempts of low powerful v6 just down from Vagabond King
It would seem our training is paying off
Will have some photo’s for you next time of these stella problems. So nice to be climbing on crimps at Froggatt!
New Beginnings
0I have tried 3 times in my life to successfully run a blog, it would appear that I am not very good at it.
I am hoping that 4th time is a charm and lets see what this brings. I am going to be trying different things here and there to attempt to keep this blog interesting for both me and for you so I’ll start with my first photo
This is from my second trip to the Grampains. If you have never been there I do suggest you go, and fast. the rock is simply amazing. Whether you boulder V2 or V13 there are enough problems and project there to keep you going for months.
I was lucky enough to get over there for a week in July with Matt. Staying with Simon in Moyston about an hour away from the Gramps. Fantastic fun!