progress

We're into December in the back order and should be through that by the end of the week, so people who are waiting shouldn't be staying at home off work waiting for that special email for much longer!
After the back order is clear the Boards will be available to order online and from selected shops/walls

more in a bit, gots wuk ta dee innit

Comment & Analysis

@Matt:
For each grip in your set of encores you should be aiming to fail on the last hang (No. 6 or 7) in that set and for every subsequent set afterwards. The big rest in between sets should allow sufficient recovery (adjust it if not).

You can incorporate fingerboarding in a number of ways into your training cycle, it also depends on what facilities are available to you. On a prioritised 4 week cycle we'll do big fingerboard sessions after a rest day, the day after a session usually involves normal bouldering or a rest day depending on how intense the prior session was. We often fingerboard after going out bouldering in the winter, this is more of a double session approach and usual when we've been rained off etc.
The jury still seems to be out on whether 5 1 hour sessions a week work best or about 3 2hr sessions. And we'd appreciate emails/with thoughts and personal experiences on this in order to build up a database of training vs gains/time.

We do very little campussing as a rule, and we're certainly no experts in it. More on this some other time. I know climbers such as Adam Pustelnik, Rich Simpson are fairly big advocates and excellent examples of it.

We usually warm up on the board on a fingerboarding session, in a fairly regimented manner to give an indication of how sparky the forearms are feeling.

the future holds

The antibiotics are gone! Penicillin seems to have done its job; what is interesting is that it now takes a 10day course to shift what Fleming's wonder drug would have killed in a few tablets in the past. Diseases are adapting to punishment in the same way our bodys do. It just shows that if you want to get stronger you can't give your body the same treatment constantly and expect it to improve, you've got to gradually up the dose, keep pushing it and it'll adapt and respond accordingly.

What else have we been upto apart from coming up with complex metaphors? Well i've dropped a few 3's and 4's on the works board on one side due to my right arm being crap, i've sent them on 1 side though but this is silly and doesn't count towards anything except fustration. People should also brush the holds more, they're going to be up there for a while, you may aswell tidy your problems up whilst you rest ay?

Dave is making the 1000 series prototypes this week, as well as making a huge batch of 2000's.

We've heard of 2 people critisizing the 2000 for not having any small holds on. This REALLY gets our backs up, and i mean REALLY gets our backs up. So heres the deal, it didn't exactly slip our mind to not put edges on <10mm, we have lots of edges in Ned's cellar down to 4mm, these are fun for 1 off tests but they suck to train on and ruin skin for outdoor sessions. Some of you may have noticed a 5mm logo beneath the works Beastmaker... So come on Wads, step up, first person to 1 armer it infront of a member of staff there gets a free board or £60 cash, whichever you prefer. We prefer to do 1 armers and 1 arm repeaters on our comfy boards. Last time i checked no one has emailed me saying they've 1 armered the slopey 2 finger pockets or 45 degree slopers.

So far, Ru Davies has 1 armed the small pockets on the bottom rung, effort Ru!
Lots of people have 1 armed the bottom rung as a drag or crimp.
Ned's mate Rich has 1 armed the 1 pad mono on the bottom rung! BEAST!
and Keith has transferred from the slopey pockets to the 45degree slopers and held the swing, no tricks, its just brick. Effort Bradbury!
the 35degree sloper has been 1 armed a fair bit too.
(i'll be creating a far better records page in coming weeks which people can upload record claims themselves)

none of these people critisized the board for being juggy they just crushed it like its meant to be, those who did, we know who you are! and we expect to be burnt off well and truly. Oh and there have always been plans for a
2000 ELITE, this will be available in a month or two and is half depth on all the holds, aswell as some extra poor additions. the bottom crimps will be 5mm and really rounded.

Can you tell the psyche is back on board?

A'malc'gamation.

We'll my last week's been interesting and pretty hard for me. Sometimes you realise there's more to life than just climbing. Then you also quickly realise how great it is at whatever grade and how rarely you regret spending time on such an abstract pursuit (to the general public).
The board has gone from my room now and i can fool people that i'm a relatively normal person again, as explaining a 12ftX8ft "bed" is never easy, even if your landlords hammer screws into walls and only speak in single cyllable words.
Coincidentally The Works is now sporting an almighty beastmaker/works "motherboard" and we've taken pride in our setting, we'll probably be tinkering a bit in the next week or two so don't get too attached to your problems just yet, changes will be small though. I.E. perfecting the symmetry etc.
I did two problems up it today, a 1b and a 2a, i got close to some 3's but they ain't easy. I also scoped out some future 4's and 5's. 5's representing some serious power.
If there's complaints that its too hard feel free to use the rest of the UK's biggest bouldering wall where your time will undoubtedly be better spent, you'll then be thankful that there is a nails board there when you can do all the set problems in the centre footless (as a certain beastly spaniard found today). Climbing is all about progression and the works now has facilities which cater for 3yr olds upto font 8B crushers, i'd say thats pretty awesome under 1 roof.
I'm looking forward to the board scene developing there and tasting other peoples beastly creations as well as putting alot of effort into some of my own.
I'm getting over the lurgy now and only have 5 days worth of antibiotics left. I can't wait to unleash on the board and start training for some of the stuff that means alot to me, both in sheffield and Northumberland. My mind is on easter now and a french seige at queens, nuff said.
A new delivery of 12 boards is coming tomorrow, things should increase volume wise after this as we have sorted initial teething stuff out like cutters blunting out and engravings being variable.

Enjoy the new board at the works if your a sheffielder, i'll be in there under it alot now so just shout at me and Ned if your keen to discuss some training or for a general chin wag.

Board rules (these will be written up by it): Feet on X-marked wooden holds only.
For symmetry problems you have to do both sides in a session for it to count.
Be cordial and take turns etc, there will be a few bench mark beastmaker problems written up in the book to help show the way with the board grades and if your struggling on the 1's then its probably good to find a quiet time to work stuff on there, if you get our drift.

Dan.

surprises

surprises, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

we're back

Setting off on Friday afternoon the Shire Corsa didn't know what a fun little adventure she was in for, a perfect journey down in the 10hr mobile disco that is my car featured classic Solid Steel mixes and copious amounts of Drum and Bass. We woke after a few hours sleep to hear that Rob and Ned had got a little excited at 6 in the morning and had decided to turn Rob's focus into a Reliant Robin via the process of eliminating cornering on roundabouts. For the record Rob is usually a good driver and isn't used to being jumped by new road layouts at such hours. This left us all in the mighty Corsa with the exhaust knocking out a fine tune on the rear axle. On our first day we decided to hedge our bets and go to elephant, with excuses of lack of sleep galore quite a good day was had. except by Rob who mostly curled up in a miriad of positions infront of various boulders. Elephant's a pretty nice place and chilled out, i soon scrapped all pretentions of it being a pottering day and got stuck into Partenaire Particulier
After about 20mins the deal was sealed despite feeling a bit rough around the edges, despite Ned's 1hr of sleep he still got up Envie d'Ailes in 2 goes, my excuse of feeling ropey was overruled by Neds superior excuse of sleep deprivation.
So i thought i better get properly ill, luckily for me i woke up the next morning with what looked like PVA glue plastered round my tonsils and with glands the size of gonads. "Man flu" turned out to be strep throat and i had 2 rest days followed by a trip to the french incarnation of mr potato head (a cheery doctor) who gave me some tasty antibiotics, these allowed me to climb but i still felt like i was scraping base level performance out my body despite some stellar whinging.

Meanwhile Ned'd got a good nights sleep in him and set about dispensing weeks of pent up psyche. If it wasn't for a severe bout of English finishing syndrome then Karma would have been lapped about 6 times, unfortunately the finishing hold remained 1 inch from grasp. It looked like Imothep was going to inflict similar torture, with Ned lapping through the crux and upto the last moves every go. After some tantalisingly close goes including slapping the very top, Ned's skin was thinner than a flies wing and he had to tape his entire right hand. After a duff go like this and nearly chucking in the towel he must have given himself a little talking to as the next go was utter crap technically compared to previous goes, what did emerge was one of the most impressive bits of climbing i've ever seen. Sometimes you see sends that are a bit special, and sometimes you see a person 100% focussed on achieving their goal. Despite a comletely taped right hand on a hideously slopey compression 8a Ned growled his way up the top moves of imothep using a mixture of pure rage and absolute focus.
That's probably enough text for now but i'll write a bit more later on and whack some pics up.
We're despatching a few boards this week and should have quite alot more via the weekend. I'm still on antibiotics and am generally pretty cranky due to a week and a bit of training withdrawls