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jimmyjamal
Sep 5, 2004, 8:55 AM
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Registered: Jul 28, 2003
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I am slowly getting better but the one thing i struggle alot with is jaming, i find it really hard to get my hand to stick ing the crack, maybe i just don't have enough strength to hold it or something, advice would be great thanks.
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chrisparedes
Sep 5, 2004, 3:05 PM
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Get your hand nice and flat into the crack, then start curling your fingers down and your feel your knuckles and the top of your hand against the inside of the crack. Sometimes, it's better to stack your fingers on top of one another though. I practiced hand jamming when I went bouldering once. Get a good jam, then just lean back on it so you feel confident.
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pt
Sep 5, 2004, 3:12 PM
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Try not to Pull up on the hand jam. Get a decent jam (the best you can manage) then use your FEET to push up. Try to use the jam just for balance and use your legs for upward progress. You will be surprised what jams will work if you are only relying on them for balance.
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dirtineye
Sep 5, 2004, 4:51 PM
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Dingus wrote sometihng good about this, search for it. One of hiw main points was about caming your foot.
Check out some jaming techniques in books or from someone you see who can do it well too. Sometimes a ring jam or a thumb cam works wonders, in s spot where a finger lock sucks or at least is very painful, for example.
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petsfed
Sep 5, 2004, 6:30 PM
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In reply to: Try not to Pull up on the hand jam. Get a decent jam (the best you can manage) then use your FEET to push up. Try to use the jam just for balance and use your legs for upward progress. You will be surprised what jams will work if you are only relying on them for balance.
Its actually very hard to find balance in a splitter with both hands and both feet in the crack. Good flagging technique suddenly becomes essential when you're not pulling on hand jams.
As far as sticking good handjams, try to jam against the heel of your thumb (make like trying to touch the base of your pinky with the tip of your thumb) and the fleshy part of the back of your hand. That will give you a (pretty) bomber thumbs up jam. As the crack gets smaller, your thumb will do less and less until eventually you're jamming with the heel of your hand and your knuckles. Then comes finger jams and things of that nature, don't worry just yet. For thumbs down jams, you end up jamming between the fleshy part of your hand below your pinky, and the fleshy part near your thumb. Stick your hand into the crack, thumb down, and twist until it holds.
Bigger than hands and you hit fists, up into offwidths. Fistjams are painful, but usually very solid. Stick your fist into the crack whatever way it fits best, thumb tucked in or not, then clench your fist to make it expand to fill the crack.
Foot cams are the bread and butter of crack climbing. Pretty simple really. Rotate your lower leg (at the knee) about 90 degrees until the laces of your shoe jam on one side of the crack, the sole on the other. Then twist your knee back up to vertical. Your ankles need to be semi-strong for this to work. Repeat with the other foot.
Keep in mind that if you have all 4 appendages in the crack at all times, you will be like a door on a hinge. That is, to stay balanced will require a considerable amount of strength. Instead, flag outside of the crack with whatever leg happens to be lowest.
Mix up your techniques. Combine thumbs up and thumbs down jams wherever seems most reasonable. Look for secret face holds so you don't have to jam all the time. If you climb Incredible Hand Crack strictly as a crack climb, its much more strenuous than its 5.10 rating suggests.
A word on crack grades: cracks are incredibly body size dependent. If you have small hands, Supercrack of the Desert is an offwidth. If you have big hands, Friday the 13th has an difficult, interesting low crux, then cruiser almost to the 3rd pitch. Desert splitters have little respect for a,b,c,d but Jtree, Vedauwoo, South Platte, all have face climbing-like cruxes, so you can refine it a bit more.
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crackmd
Sep 5, 2004, 9:57 PM
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Petsfed brings up some good points on both handjamming and footjamming. I would like to address the photo of Friday the 13th that he used as an illustration on how to jam. I do not feel that this is a good example on how to jam a crack of any size. If you look closely at the climber's right foot you will see that the sole of his foot is in opposition to the corner which is left-facing. This technique unfortunately seems to be intuituve for a lot of climbers because it places the climber in a spread out and more comfortable position. I would argue that in this particular crack and cracks that are similar that this is not the ideal means of making upward progress. If you draw a straight vertical line through the middle of his body you notice that his center of gravity is well to the left of the crack. This makes it difficult to both jam ones hands or fingers in the crack and it makes it especially difficult to place gear. Looking at his hands you see that his center of gravity being well left of the crack has disallowed him from using what look like adequate jams/fingerlocks and thrown him into a layback of sorts (I must quality this statement by saying that I have never climbed this route and am only going off what I see in the picture). Unless the edges for his left foot are positive (which they don't seem to be based on his bodytension as well as the closely spaced protection) then more often than not this technique will transform into a layback with both feet opposing against the dihedral. He may get away with it here since there appear from the photo to be better hands jams a few feet higher. I have seen many climbers fall into this trap on Coyne's Crack for although the jams get better higher up they are rarely better than thinhands for a long ways. Most climbers cannot sustain a layback for the entire 80 feet.
I propose that in general ideal crack-technique involves aligning one's center of gravity with the crack. In the case of this picture, this could easily be done by torquing the right foot into the corner (right sole facing the opposite way of the climber in the picture). This will move the climber's center of gravity in line with the crack while allowing him the choice of stemming his left foot on features or using it in the crack as well. Having one's face right in the crack will also make it much easier and less scary to place protection.
One might argue from looking at this photo that the crack is thin and not conducive to a good right torque. To this I would say that with practice one can use even the thinnest of corners for a foot torque by jamming the outside of the foot into the dihedral.
I am not asserting that laybacking is not a valuable technique; it has gotten me out of many tough situations. In order to effeciently climb cracks for the most part one needs to be able to stay in the crack and make progress using the choices given to you in the crack. Never is this more evident than at Indian Creek.
I do feel that with practice and dedication one can find balance with all four extremities in most cracks.
Kudos to the climber in the photo for wearing a helmet!
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petsfed
Sep 5, 2004, 10:47 PM
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Crackmd, you're givin' away the beta! In all seriousness, the jams are bad enough there that unless you have small hands, the technique in the photo is the best way to go.
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crackmd
Sep 5, 2004, 10:59 PM
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With all due respect Petsfed, I will have to climb it myself to see if I agree with your last assessment. Even in the thinnest corners one can often take advantage of the "geometry" to get solid footjams. It's officially on the list. Now I have yet another reason to come out and check out the killer Wyoming crackclimbs. Peace!
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alpnclmbr1
Sep 5, 2004, 11:33 PM
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A few good posts can be found here
http://www.rockclimbing.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=833160#833160
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pt
Sep 6, 2004, 12:14 AM
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I have climbed Friday the 13th (probably 20 times) and the technique shown in the photo is not the best way to do the opening moves. You can get adequete, albeit, flared finger jams and climb the crack more straight on. Without giving away any other beta, there are better places for the feet as well. crackmd's assessment is right on.
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philbox
Moderator
Sep 7, 2004, 11:15 PM
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Registered: Jun 27, 2002
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I notice that jimmyjamal lives in Launceston Tasmania thus he is very close to some great crack climbing destinations. There are numerous crracks in the gorge right in the centre of Launceston and Ben Lomond would have to be one of the great crack climbing destinations of the world. Soaring cracks more than a hundred metres high.
Go to the Ben and crack climb your heart out mate. This will make you a better crack climber.
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