DouglasHunter wrote:
johnwesely wrote:
Why should I buy Redpoint? I loved the SCC, but it seems like twenty odd bucks is a steep price to pay for a book full of tactics. Sell me the book.
Fair enough. While its true that the book contains many tactical suggestions, its not just about making suggestions. We address the challenges of applying tactics, and in the video we analyze my application of tactics on both an onsight and a second try redpoint. So you see the tactics in action in a way that is more difficult to do in other contexts.
Second, we wrote more about on-sight climbing than has ever been written previously. For me one of the challenges of writing about on-sight climbing is that no one has yet provided a good descriptive model for what the brain and the body are actually doing in an on-sight. I felt it was important to provide the best description of the cognitive challenges involved in onsighting as I could. To this end I took the model of motor learning laid out in TSSC and use it as a vehicle for understanding the really unique challenge that an onsight provides in the world of sport, and for understanding the different demands that are made of the climber at different points in the on-sight process. On-sighting is really unique and frankly a bit bizarre as athletic challenges go, and I really hope my description gets climbers more excited about onsighting by deepening their understanding and appreciation of its challenges.
Also we include history, and in the introduction we describe what was going on in climbing in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s that eventually let to the concepts of redpoint and onsight being so widely embraced by the climbing community. Placing the concept of redpointing within the greater context of climbing history is interesting. While I don't like to use the word evolution, changes in beliefs and tactics in the climbing community over time allowed for redpointing to arise as a type of ascent. Imagine what our thinking would have been like in the 1980s without someone like Gill applying the aestheitic model that he developed in previous decades. also the rise in the idea of projecting and yo-yoing in the 1970s created tensions and problems to which redpointing was a pretty good answer.
when it comes to redpointing our approach is a bit different from other authors whom I would say take an achievement based approach to redpointing, while our approach is learning and processed based. Further we describe different ranges of redpoint performance describing the difference in tactics, learning, fitness and expectations between a 2 or 3 try redpoint and say, a 15 try redpoint. They share the same name of "redpoint" but they are totally different performances and we describe why.
I don't know if that helps but those are some of the features of the book that I think are important and that really can't be found in other sources.
P.S.- shout out to Jason!
Good stuff, Douglas.
If I remember correctly, way back when I reviewed your first book, my chief complaint was that while it hit technique and the kniesiology (sp?) of it all in fine detail, it skipped around redpointing and onsighting like a 6 year old girl on a doll store. It needed equal attention, I said, or it should have been left out completely. I believe you or Dan responded soon after that you were saving it for a second book. I'm really glad to see it come to fruition! I can't wait to get my greasy mitts on this one, too.
