Time flies and its near the end of 2014, with the boulder season closing with Rockmaster 2014 in late september, and just before that with Onsight Bouldering Championships (OBC) making a comeback after 2012. I missed out blogging for Boulderactive - will try to include it in here as well.

On a good note, I have completed my first coaching course and am officially NROC! :D I've learnt alot from the course, am definitely gonna apply it once training starts again.

NROC membership card! Proud. :D

Managed to bag the championship title for OBC 2014 held at the Onsight Climbing Gym late August. The routes were set by the local route setters from the gym itself: Shaun, Hazlee and Hilman. It was an unexpected win for me as I was tuning down and had laid off from training after the Boulderactive earlier in July - placed 3rd in the competition, battling near the end through an elimination format which was rather stressful. :p

Open Women winners for Boulderactive

Rustam Gelmanov was the guest setter for Boulderactive and the competition was held in tandem with the Asian University Climbing Championships. - the first of its kind (here we saw local hero Aaron Tan from NUS beating World Cup climber Chon Jongwon to the overall Boulder champion, with our Singapore flag flown high (proud moment there). Liting won the speed climb on the last route and won 1st for Boulderactive, along with a trip the compete in The North Face Cup Japan 2015, as I had done so for the past 2 years - its gonna be one awesome trip once again!

With Rustam, very inspiring, very small too!

Back to OBC 2014, the gym specially built an addition flat wall in addition to the massive advanced wall. We had 6 finalists this time, and finals went by almost as fast as Boulderactive, and it was a joy to compete.

Candid moment taken by Hazlee. Hes the only one who can bring me "out of my zone" when I'm resting on rotation.

Sharing the podium with climbermom Beatrix Chong and fellow podium buddy Felicia Lim.

Rockmaster 2014 was once again the rock-clubbing com-party-tion that we always expected Singapore Polytechnic to host. This time was no different with the back-to-basics wall and side openings, smoke machine and disco-tech lights. Red Bull came in strong this year and I'm hoping this is the start for something big for climbing, here in Singapore.

I managed to flash 4 out of 5 of the qualifiers route, with 1 mistake on starting on one of the route to total 6 attempts to top. I placed high on the table and was feeling rather confident and at ease with how I was climbing. The format was slightly different this time, with points allocated to the "intended moves" to a tile. Meaning some intermediate moves were not awarded. To be frank, as a competitor, I am still quite confused with the scoring system, as I cannot tell how the points were tabulated and awarded.

Wearing the blue Kailas pants which I won in OBC 2014. Love it for being ligthweight and stretchy. Good size too!

Managed to flash my second finals route, and reached near the last hold for my other 2 routes. I had managed to high point on my first attempts but mistakes costs me a grand finish and I got pushed down to 3rd. Things like matching on a tile to generate more power to make the next move, and a simple confidence jump to the otherwise scary fall at the last route. The champion title was awarded to Vanessa Teng, budding climber from SP and the National Youth Squad and I'm proud she has come this far.

Final results for Rockmaster

Getting tired in going for that tile on Route #1 Womens Open Finals. Photo credit to Jonathan Song.

This boulder season at a glance:

• 1st place, SMU Gravical, Boulder
• 2nd place, Pumpfest, Boulder 
• 3rd place, NUS-Black Diamond Boulderactive, Boulder
• 1st place, Onsight Bouldering Championship, Boulder
• 3rd place, Rockmaster, Boulder

has seen some variations in my podium placing. I do hope I can continue with even better performance in the coming year.

This year, I have begun to take a step back and explore other trainings. I have to accept that I will not be able to compete overseas as freely as I could in the past, nor train as hard, due to work commitments (its not easy trying to let this go. :p). I am currently working on difficulty routes, i.e. leading, to explore climbing in more ways than one. I managed to join the speed team for one of their trainings - making me all nostalgic for 3 years ago when I was training hard for speed. I will continue to crush at local competitions as much as I can, so that one day, when opportunities come knocking on my door, someday I can actually open that door.

Till next time,
keep the psyche going.

J

Life has been rather busy since The North Face Cup Japan 2014 in early February. I've since started my teaching practicum and have begun to finally go full swing into teaching.What time I dont spend doing up lesson plans and working on my next lessons, I spend it coaching the VJC netball girls. Perhaps for this few weeks I will cool down on my climbing intensity and really work reality for now.

I did a small Q&A for Onsight Climbing Gym for their online news bulletin:


Do check it out for some details! And they cover some of the local climbers and happenings at the moment as well! :)

I feel that I must truly write about this trip, as its been a really awesome one! Sure beats the previous one I went to, for that I am truly grateful for the opportunity once again and the grace of God to allow me the win in Boulderactive 2013 back in August.

I was bound for Japan about 3 weeks after school started for the year, together with Ponti Hardiyanto from Indonesia, who also won the Open Men category for Boulderactive 2013. Prior to this, I was neck deep in paper work, trying to apply for my leave and clearance from the ministry to go to Japan, making sure that my lessons are taken care of, homework all done, etc. All messy and unsatisfactory conclusion aside, I did go to Japan (and made sure I did, no matter what!!) I paid for my own tickets this time, with my hard earned prize money from the previous few local boulder competitions I participated in (yay!).

I arrived in Tokyo 3 days before the competition.My first meal of the day was at this nice udon place that Yuji brought us to:

Having udon and tempura

That first day, I met Caroline Ciavaldini and James Pearson who were also guest climbers for The North Face Cup this year. Daniel Woods and Kim Jain were not able to make it though. So we went to this gym called Caramba nearby Iruma to boulder and climbed for the day. The place was really nice (but really cold! because it was night by then and cold just seeped in through the walls)! Had to constantly sit near the heater to keep my shoes and fingers warm.

Caramba Gym

 Right after that, Yuji brought us back to his place and we had home cook, japanese steam boat. Very CNY feeling! Vegetarian too!

steamboat!

The next day, we had time to kill, so Yuji brought us to this little mountain, Mitake, near his home and we bouldered there! The area was nice, snow had fallen and a river snaked around the boulders. It felt so good to touch rock again, and before the comp too! Crazily psyched man. Being surrounded by nature and just really soak into the fact that I was there in Japan, bouldering, was just surreal. Already Day 2, and I'm already having the best trip of my life. :) Great way to kick start my year for sure!

Group photo!

The next day, I woke up to snow! I immediately opened the windows and stuck my hand out to catch some snowflakes. HAHA. Havent really seen snow in real life before, the cold didnt get to me either! Everything was fluffy and white - for now...


Base Camp on the first day of qualifying was packed! As usual, the kids wow-ed me and I spent a good amount of time reading the routes and watching people's beta. Really psyched for my competition the next day!

Even helped Base Camp shovel some snow for the fun of it! Snow was calf deep at the end of the night. Crazy! Walking in it was easy at all. :p

Semi-finals for Division 1 was different from last year. There were some changes in the wall features and more technical balancey routes were set. That said, I felt that all my training 5-6 months before had come to this and I was ready for it! (Even more so, because I touched rock and it was like magic because you dont get these in Singapore.. haha) I managed to finish 5 out of 8 routes and placed 7th position in all, missing finals by 1 spot! Exceeded my expectation of hitting top 10 (or better last years position). I knew that going to finals would be the next step. I flashed through the powerful overhang, but got stumped by a bridgey and slopey route. But I still managed to clear those crucial ones before the time was up! Did not manage to try 2 routes AT ALL and thus held no bonus to rise me up to rank for the finals. I really had fun during the climb. We had 50 minutes this time, and climbed together with the Division 1 guys. It was amazing!

Heres one of the routes I did:

Semi-final results for Div 1 women

Getting reachy on this undercling volume move

My first route of the day, a balance slab problem which I took my time on. :p

Finals was just as crazy and only videos and tell how insanely strong the japanese climbers are:

Some Singaporean represent at Base Camp!

The North Face Athletes

Anyways! The rock trip was great. We headed to Toyota and had two solid days of climbing (I wish there was more!) at Ogyu and Komiyama. It was granite and if not for the past few days spent creating rock hard skin with Climb On, I would have succumbed to painful fingertips by my first climb. Raw skin is not something you want to fall victim to when your outdoors, knowing you might never have this chance to climb here again! Haha.

Touristy jumpshot - A must! Overlooking a town, reminds me of Qingdao, or even HK.

Diamond Slab. V6. Sent this! Technique level up!

With Aaron who came one this trip as a route setter for the comp!

Groupie shot!

Crimp start for a V13. Couldnt start!

Comfortable route! Cant remember the grade, but there was a throw to this good ledge!

Captured a rainbow at this highball boulder

On a dicey route at Komiyama, really painful and small crimps here. Photo credits to Eddie Gianelloni.

Had such fun and really enjoyed myself on this trip. The miso cupnoodles, hearing everyone speakin eddie-chan slang, talking about climbing and the world, sticking my tongue out in the snow.. I think I really owe myself 1 x fun after starting the year 2014 on a low. Training hard for this made the memories even sweeter. #noregrets thats my motto this time. I did everything and all that I can. You can call this one final last burst of competition and dedication before I officially begin real work. But I really cant wait for more rock trips. Thats one thing I know I cant give up on. Its what makes me happy and keeps me sane!!

Till next time,
J

Its been a long time since this page has been updated, but some things are worth mentioning here so that it can be remembered. :)

p.s. the prizes are quite decent! Haha. Yay!