Club night at Indefatigable climbing wall

At long last, a Friday evening free! I poked my head in again at the Anglesey Adventure club which my son Sion used to frequent. As always it was great to see so many keen young climbers bouldering, top-roping and leading. All the discussions about when to let young people learn to lead and to belay lead climbers that occupied much of the NICAS seminar gained a fresh relevence when you see how seriously even the youngest climbers take their belay duties. In fact, much more attention to the job in hand than the average adult surrounded by beautiful people....

NICAS seminar at Ratho

The move

Another visit to Ratho - what a fantastic place! It's certainly the most inspiring artificial climbing wall that I've ever visited. in fact its better than some real crags...  This trip was to update NICAS providers with developments in the coaching qualifications. I travelled up to Scotland with Dave Rudkin, who volunteered to do all the driving - as do most people when they've seen me at the wheel. Dave ran a session about coaching processes and ways to "front load" long-term teaching objectives right from the start. Other interesting sessions included a discussion about young climbers peer belaying , training a squad, acting as a technical adviser and integration with the education examinations requirements. An integrated pathway for young people seems to be emerging. My overall observation of the current state of play is that we have moved from a situation where climbers feared a takeover by "educationalists" to a new order where the education world has been won over by the climbers. You can quote me on that.

Ian Dunne and disciples

Climbing at Red Rocks, las Vegas

MLT officer Steve Long and Board member Andy Boorman have been sampling the delights of Red Rocks, the magnificent desert wilderness bizarrely located only 3 miles from las Vegas. Along with 2 other Climbers Club members they have completed dozens of routes including the celebrated Rock Warrior, Risky Business and Cloud Tower (UK equivalent grades of E3, E3 and E5 respectively).

Steve returns to the office on 17th October.



Andy Boorman on Risky Business (5.10c)





 Steve on the crux of  Cloud Tower (5.11d)



UK and Ireland-wide agreement over FUNdamentals workshops programme

This week the National Councils (British Mountaineering Council, Mountaineering Council of Scotland and Mountaineering Ireland) and MLT took a quantum leap forward in the develiopment of a coaching qualifications pathway: a formal agreement to work to a shared syllabus for LTPD in UK and Ireland. (LTPD = Long Term Participant Development in case you're wondering, also known as LTAD, the A standing for Athlete - there was much fun at the meeting trying to work out which members of the group were athletes and which were participants. The best known component of the LTPD/LTAD concept is FUNdamentals, coming to a wall near you soon!)

After the meeting Kevin Howett, the Development Officer for MCofS issued the following statement: "We are developing a coaching pathway in Scotland with the support and advice of sportscotland. The first step in this is a FUNdamentals of Climbing course, a syllabus for which we have been developing with their help. At the meeting of the National Source Group led by MLT on the 29th September we were pleased to gain agreement across Britain and Ireland to amalgamate our respective syllabuses, refining the successful workshops already delivered by BMC in England to produce a UK standard course. We hope to start delivering the new course in Scotland in the New Year, and use it to start the training and endorsement of an expanded number of Scottish climbing coaches, who will then help in developing and delivering the follow-on level courses of learning to Train and Elite Training."


In addition to agreeing to merge the draft syllabi, we also agreed on a principle of "team training" throughout the UK, as part of an ongoing move towards harmonisation and external valuation throughout the UK. This helps pave the way for these workshops to eventually be integrated into the coaching qualifications pathway that MLT is developing and implementing over the next two years. This means that canny coaches will be able to keep "a step ahead of the game" by following the LTPD workshops as they are introduced: LTPD is already being piloted under  the working title of "Learning to Train" (though "FUNdamentals II", or "conSOLIDation" may be a more suitable title for this interpretation of this phase for climbers)