warmest wishes to YOU!

hey guys n gers~

juz wanna wish everyone a velli MERRY XMAS n happi holidaying~! =)



kellY

KL trip 2006!

Oosh! Greetings to all muahaha merry christmas and happy new year hor. I Adrian Looi, the golden boy of christmas will share my humble experience with the NUS team in KL 18th Dec - 23rd Dec.

Testing the limits
I tested limits this time. Pushing the boundaries will make you improve. I felt I need to know how difficult things are for me to chart the waters.

After testing limits, I realized that Sandra and Mei Fen fiercer this year than last year! This year they gave me no chance to talk or to perform my up-the-cup-motion. When I opened my mouth, they immediately "shuddup adrian" "stop it adrian" "dammit adrian" "yucks adrian." The morale of the story is not to test Sandra's and Meifen's patience..Meifen is extra hot this year too. Might it be due to the short shorts that she was wearing? Looking forward to training yay.

Of course I tested the limits of my climbs too. I tried a 7A+, stupidly thinking that it cannot be too tough as I went quite high in Camp 5's 7A route. My arrogance was rewarded with an early fall. I even resorted to hang-dogging to try the remainder of the 7A+ route in Nanyang wall but kanasai. The footholds are slippery like shit and the handholds were sloper based, with the option of crimping. But at least I know how I should proceed with my climbs now, compared to the past where I have no inkling of how much work to put in for my Tidal Dum project (actually I do have an idea of how much work to put in for Tidal Dum, but I need to convince myself lah).

Curse of the Golden Flower
This is one solid movie hahahahahahahha. I love the expression of the whole team after the movie ended. All 20 plus of them just stared at the screen while the tune of Jay Chou goes on. Super steam haha.

Food
Hmm KL food pales in comparison to the legendary Penang food. See all penang-kias so hensem, thanks to the food. The food in KL expensive too but I guess I enjoyed the company, not the food. The food in Ipoh is better than KL food too, as they are of the same quality but Ipoh's food is much much cheaper. I came from Penang, then Ipoh then finally joined the team in KL, thus I can tell how much the food quality differs.

It is scary that some people can eat a lot. Hoho you know who you are..chi-fei-ni-bah (eat until u fat bah). Nyam nyam nyam I is the fatty monster do you recognise me I eating so much till I put on 100 kg nyam nyam nyam.

Future plans
I want to go back Nanyang wall as that was my first time there. I got a project there le. I wish to expand my climbing moves variation as I felt that I am becoming stagnant in my climbing moves..new moves can make you attack a problem with more creativity and more seh-ness.

Also, the team that went to KL this year was different from the team that went last year..the girls this year wear shorter shorts wuahaha and they are more fierce. The girls of my batch have changed hurhur. Want to know how much more the girls of NUS team will change next KL trip? Stay tune to the 2007 KL trip report from golden boy!

i teared

Entreprises Walls

drool.

African Poem

This poem was nominated poem of 2005 for the best poem, written by an African kid!!!

When I born, I Black,
When I grow up, I Black,
When I go in Sun, I Black,
When I scared, I Black,
When I sick, I Black,
And when I die, I still black..
And you White fella,
When you born, you Pink,
When you grow up, you White,
When you go in Sun, you Red,
When you cold, you Blue,
When you scared, you Yellow,
When you sick, you Green,
And when you die, you Gray..
And you calling me Colored ??

Aly El Sahly

Eat. Sleep. Climb

This is long overdued and I have gotten my butt off the ground. So here goes, 5 things u didn’t know about Charles,

I used to be from Saint Joseph’s Instituition and I was a canoeist in Sji. Had a lot of fun canoeing. Capsizing our canoes on purpose to cool off. Discarding our paddles and using our hands as paddles to race instead. Proceeding to Golden Mile Hawker Centre for great food after trainings or going to Shaw Towers for Burger King and then catch a movie and “cool down” in the theatre at the same time.

After that I went to Pioneer Junior College. I was in Odac. One very interesting fact about my time in Odac was that we never ever went on any overseas trip before. I think all we did was sit in our room and crack lame jokes and laugh ourselves silly. My friend called us Idac, indoor activities club instead.

I like reading. It’s 1 of my favourite pastime. However that does not include my textbooks and readings. I read almost everything maybe the genre of books that I don’t read is romance. I read lesser now due to school but since it’s the holidays now I have plenty of time to read! I just finished Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. Pretty intriguing story just like most Japanese plots would be. However there’s a lot of sex in it. Pretty ridiculous. But oh well, it’s still a good read. I would recommend Haruki Murakami to anyone who wants a good read.

I like doing sports. Play soccer occassionally. Enjoy most ball games too. Used to play pool very often in my jc days. Skate too and wish to pick up aggressive inline-skating. Climbing made me realized that all sports have a tendency to destroy your body. For example climbing - your fingers, soccer - your ankle and I believe aggressive inline will ruin your knees.

And I want to use fewer vulgarities. Very immoral. Swear so much during training and especially competitions. I believe I exclaimed F*** damn loudly during the mock com when I didn’t see a good hold in front of me. During Climaprix when I missed the miniscule foothold I think I shouted F*** so loudly then the chief route judge walked over and asked me to cool it. So embarrassing. So next time u hear me swear or exclaim an expletive give me a glare or ask me to shushh. I’ll try my best to keep it to a grunt of frustration or a sigh of resignation.

Now I tag Khadijah and Youjie!

Came across this pic at moonclimbing.com (check it out if u havent, lots of good pics, videos and info) and just reminded me of the little conversation we had on monos. This pic is dedicated to those whose finger has gain enlightenment.... mmmm....

Just in case u dont know too... this is a picture on Action Direct. N just in case u havent seen a video of the climb, i think u can get it from most of the seniors. Wicked stuff.

Introduce a place that I have never been before

Since it's been a very long time the blog hasn't been updated, I'm going to share something that has bothered me for the last whole semester! It's a famous climbing place that I have never been before, even though it's in china...

I don't know if you have heared Gui Lin province before, but there got the most beautiful rivers and mountains in china(桂林山水甲天下 hehe just some chinese i dun know how to translate). However, that's not the reason that makes me thinking this place all the time because i can hardly be attracted by bueatiful sceneries. So the strange thing is that almost all the climbers in china kept talking about this place for years in their blogs or msn spaces or lots of climbing webs...

This place is called "Yang Shuo" (阳朔), a very very small town surrounded by numerous rivers and cliffs. A perfect place to relax and climb (I imagine...). I heared there is a street called "西街", west street?? which is filled by bars (most r hosted by foreigners who dun want to leave there) and climb clubs...

Is it perfect? After Krabi, I really think that all a true climber (at least a true liuli)need is just good cliffs and good bars nearby which got cheap and nice cocktails hahaha...

Here is the website for one of the climing clubs in Yangshuo. http://www.xclimber.com/ Im currently planing to go there about the end of june next year. Just cant waite!!!

Hokkien in the house.

to supplement the hokkien stuff we have on this blog.
maybe we should make this our team language instead of thai.

nice! dedicated to all those of us still having exams

verticalclimbing

Hi, to emphasise the importance of proper belaying and lead climbing (i always feel nervous when the juniors lead climb) let me show you what a rope burn is.

A rope burn occurs when the rope rubs against your flesh when you fall. It is usually due to either
1) improper belaying - the belayer stands in the wrong position and hence the rope hangs below you.
2) Reckless climbing - climbing with the rope in a wierd position (not hanging directly between your legs and below you.
3) Certain Routes have more potential of creating rope burns as well.


First the rope burn will appear white cos the skin is gone. It won't hurt at this point in time.




Then, your rope burn will slowly become red as the blood seeps out and it weeps pus and plasma. If it is at a joint like this one is, it takes super duper long to heal because the scab is constantly broken.


What is the big fuss about rope burn you may ask...scars are manly!
1) you may be a girl
2)Your team-mates will be so tempted to put qing cao you on it that they may go to great extents to do so (ask for a video of weimin being tortured in krabi)
3) It's freaking pain - the qing cai you
4) It's freaking pain (when you bathe)
5) It's freaking pain (when you walk)
6) you can't climb for 1-2 weeks!

Bluey's Blues

Dear all!
You can call me bluey and I belong to Petzl's make. Recently I've been looking at the way you all treat my metal breathen and I am dismayed at the lack of care that you show towards us. Granted we are cold and hard, but we can give you all pleasure. I hereforth present 'Bluey Basic Metal Care.'

Before use:
Check my breathen for cracks or cuts and try to identify the history of the equipment. If the equipment has been dropped many times by some goon, do not attempt to use it as it may cracks. These cracks are micro-cracks but they can lead to crack propagation and cause bigger cracks upon repeated use. The maximum strength of most metal equipment is 25 kN, crack propagation decreases this maximum weight. Heavy climbers in the team beware haha.

Falling in Nyamuk wall in KL is no joke as it is very secluded and it is difficult to rush you to hospital. Whitish deposits on equipment denote dirty equipment muahaha. It is white due to chalk lah. Please do not drop us (carabiners and quickdraws) as we are constantly being banged on the wall..dropping us only serves to increase our pain sob.

How to clean neh-neh equipment:
Before heading to that trip, visually inspect us for any dirt. Use cloth to wipe us clean. If we are stiff, it might be due to too much porn, I mean, too much dirt. Stiff meaning we cannot snap back normally. There maybe dirt stuck in our joints and use your eyes to see how much dirt is there. Your action may vary from rinsing us in warm water and drying away from heat to a mere lubrication of our parts with silicone based oil. A good oil is the Singer oil, the oil they use for sewing machines.

For those who owns us like Feng and Fen, you might not want to buy Singer oil just to oil us. The gym has singer oil at your convenience.

Maintenance:
Cleaning and lubrication must be done after use in sea based climbing areas, or after 3 months, which ever comes first. Oil our joints but just use 2 drops can already. Too much oil causes chalk and dust to be stuck to our joints. If we still cannot snap back after oiling, it means we are dirty and it is time for warm water bath or the flaking of our joints with toothbrush.

Adrian likes to hear us snap. It might be due to some fettish but weird snapping sounds means our spring is getting rusty, like got creaking sound like that. Oiling well is useful so that we can immediately snap back when you are clipping in during lead climbing.

Do treat Bluey and my friends well
or we will betray you on the wall. We all have souls, and listening to us can provide you with company while you attempt a move 24m up a cliff.

guys please take note!!! lol

enjoy...

Push Ups

Hey hey the title sounds a bit kinky hurhur but dash those pervertic thoughts from you now! (especially alvin and the torn shirt while belaying thing tsk tsk)

Something came into my mind when i was performing stretching down after training today. Someone told me before that I must do push-ups after each training session as climbing uses a lot of pulling muscles..pull yourself on wall and yank for moves. Thus your pushing muscles will be weak and we cant have one muscle type being so much stronger than the other. It may cause injuries when you attempt movement that includes both type of muscles due to the imbalance.

Do not know if it is true but from now on, I will do some push ups after training during my warm down cos i am afraid of injuring myself. Look around and i see the zombies of injuries roaming about..a tall zombie guy, a short zombie girl, a fierce zombie girl, a hall zombie blablabla. There must be a reason on why i suddenly remember this advice i guess.

street figthers

Err this has nothing to do with climbing but it brings back gd memories ya? dun blame me for wasting your time~! HAHAHAHA


And this: Make love not Warcraft (Southpark) is really funny! A must for all gamers



This is only part1 of 3 since youtube has a 100MB upload limit.

part2:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfHsSD-v9qU
part3:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq7seHx7KLY

CLIMAPRIX

With so many posts/comments on CLIMA already, PLEASE bear with one more from me haha... First off, no matter the result, I really believe that everyone gave their all in this competition n very glad with the effort, determination and sportsmanship displayed by all! We can definintely progressed further from here.

I think I should highlight some of the more serious points in the aftermath of the com too, expecially for the novice climbers since I didnt really watch the serniors climb.

1. Have an idea of what the standard of your competitors are like and what you need to improve on to progress in ur cat

2. Observation - maybe it's just nerves =] but dont jump right straight onto the start tile. Take a step back, look at the whole route, where all the tiles are and take a closer inspection where necessary; dont take too long though. In essence, dont climb blindly.

3. Time - Take a breather before you climb, helps to compose urself (at least for me). If you drop, take a rest before u attempt the route again, give urself some recovery time. And if u c that there isnt sufficient time on the clock to finish an attempt or the move is too difficult or pumpy, dont attempt. Rest may be more important to spare urself from over-pump.

4. Route reading - think the novice climbers need much more experience on this so take note on this k? always try to read routes before trying during trainings. For those who are scratching their head on what exactly is route-reading, visit http://www.planetfear.com/article_detail.asp?a_id=199 (lots of other good articles too) else can always check with the seniors ya?

I have to say this, I think all the juniors climbed more smoothly during the com than I did last time haha... keep it up people! Oh can we have a few words from the girls too? Would like to have a girl's perspective!

climbaprix - jensen's take

i learnt a lot about myself yesterday from just that short half hour competing.

i was a bit nervous before and during isolation, since this is my first competition like charles. it wasn't so much of my expectations of how well i'll climb, but more of just the fact that it's a competition. but the moment i stepped onto the mattress towards Route A, everything seemed like i'm back in the school gym. relaxed, chilled out, funky music and my teammates behind me telling me to push it. i thought i'd panic but luckily everything went so well in terms of nerves. i guess i have balls of steel. but that brings me to my next realisation(not sharma one).

i need to change the way i dyno. i tend to leave one hand on the tile when i throw for the dyno and i think thats why i slipped off the 2 endtiles (and left me falling really unglamly on the first route.basket....face down leh....already not handsome already still kena full force). must climb with grace, but must also fall with grace. i'm not sure if my dyno style is due to fear of not getting the tile or simply because i'm too cocksure that my span is long enough for every dyno. so guys, please screw it into my head the next time i dyno, "commit with 2 hands!".

and of course, kudos to the team for screaming and shouting for everyone else climbing yesterday. the atmosphere was great and i can really see how close-knit the seniors really are. but i think we juniors are quite chummy with each other too. haha. thats the way to go man. now that i have a bad sore throat from all that shouting, you guys will find the gym a little quiet without my bullshit.

well done to those who did well, to all those whose expectations fell short, that's what makes us push ourselves to improve. but let's concentrate on KL! natural rock, oh man....gets me all pumped up and palms sweaty.

reflect

I think climbaprix was a good experience. And there are a couple of things that i have learnt that is quite personal and i need to say it out.
First, i might have expected too much from myself. Thus, i was feeling very stressed out during isolation and during my climb. i jus keep wanting to perform to the standard that i should be performing. i felt that this hindered my climbing performance alot. i was not able to focus and hence perform wierdly. Yup. Maybe i should have relaxed a little cos it is not a major comp right? but somehow no matter how much one can pyscho himself to take it easy, the mind will sub consciously think otherwise.
Next, if you lose out to some of the people out there, does it mean that you are lousier than them?
Maybe we can share our views on that? i feel that maybe tt is not the case because every climbing competition has its own characteristics. Right?

At the end of the day, regardless of the results, if you feel that you have placed 110% effort during your 16mins of climbing, then you should be proud of yourself. Maybe result isn't everything. Enjoy the climb, thats what important?

i am jus feeling weird. need to do some reflection on whats wrong.

Feel free to comment about what i said. i am grateful to the team support today. It feels great to have everyone behind you pushing you on. i am proud of this team that i am in.

ALE.

Recollections of Climbaprix 2006

(note: this is going to sound really weird and noobish and even stupid to some people but hey it’s coming from a person who just participated in his first climbing competition)

This was my first climbing competition and it was certainly an eye-opener. Learnt many things about myself and my climbing. But more importantly I want to thank all those who kept cheering for me and giving me helpful hints. Among those hints are look around which sadly I did not heed, thus missing out a foothold and not completing the 1st route. Another being “COMMIT!”. I believe it came from Jensen and I really did that and I did a humungous throw and completed the last route (Sweet…..) In the midst of looking at my 2nd route, a shout from Jups saying “Come on! it’s easy!” really helped me. Not sure whether it was psychological or not, but I flashed the route =)))) Sound and logical advice from Ningfeng lik “It’s ur last route, do your best” made sense. And all the screams and shouts and cheers certainly helped.

This made me realized how all these shows the team spirit that the team has. Even the Dj mentioned that Nus was always cheering very loudly for their own climbers. Even though during the competition it is just you against the wall but I realized that there are actually a whole bunch of people behind u supporting and encouraging you to push on and to keep going. When u missed a tile and crash on the mat there will b a collective groan and when u top a route there will be a resounding cheer of “YEAAAAA”. What a great community it is.

Actually I wanted to leave after my cat was over but thought maybe I could just give back what others have so graciously given to me. Thought it would be nice if I could cheer my other team-mates on. So the novice guys stayed back and screamed our lungs out for the following people who climbed. Hope it did help u as it did to me. Kinda have a sore throat now. But not too sure why we were kind of muted during the open men’s competition. What a great experience to soak in the feeling of a climbing competition. And I am definitely proud to be part of this climbing team and I wish to continue climbing with you all.

Just some thoughts,
Charles

Ad - play

1. BMW started a newspaper ad-campaign


2. Audi replied.


3. Best of all, my fav car has a comment in place too.


4. The CEO of Bentley looked at the chicken fight and puts his opinion straight!