Tag Archives: training

Jun7

BCEP – Snow School!

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Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.


Saturday, 22-Apr-2023



I love the snow.

I love the cold, I love the smell of snow, and I love the feeling of being an arctic explorer, forging through an unexplored world at the spearpoint of civilization.

I mean, okay. We were like 500ft from the parking lot here, but you know what? Thanks to the snow and the wind we could barely see the cars. So it counts, right?

Right!



This weekend was the Snow School portion of BCEP – taking the students out into the cold, and trying some of the skills that we’d been practicing out in the “real world”. It’s one thing to learn about rope travel while on a warm hike, but it’s something again to be post-holing through the snow, having to stop and freeze every 30ft to plant a picket.

We started off easy and fun – setting up a few practice stations, and moving the students through them one by one. I mostly just manned a rappel station, but I did take a few moments to escape and play photographer… and maybe have a snack and mug of cocoa or two as time allowed.



We went through the curriculum, did some “ascents” where we roped up and explored some nearby hills, and generally had a blast. Then, all too soon, the day was done and our coursework completed. We did a quick skills test for the students (which they all passed with flying colors, unsurprisingly) and then headed back to the parking lot, with the goal of moseying onward to the Mazama’s Lodge for an evening of food, revelry, and an early evening in preparation for a possible ascent up the Palmer Glacier in the morning…



May3

BCEP – Leading a hike at Catherine Creek (Coyote Wall)

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Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.

Saturday, 01-Apr-2023


With the scouting done the weekend before, we were ready for our training hike. I’d emailed a prospectus out (a fancy “here’s the info you need” email), and everyone knew both what to bring and where to meet. We’d be convening at the trailhead, hiking, then heading to a nearby campground to sleep out under the stars before doing some actual technical rock climbing at Horsethief Butte the next day.

I have a special place in my heart for Horsethief, since it was the first spot in Oregon that I ever climbed (Ed Note: See the post below, dear readers!), so I was absolutely quite excited for the chance to help everyone lock in their skills ahead of time.

The weather was perfect when we met up at the trailhead, and we got going nice and easily on time… maybe 10min late, but that kind of fits with my style, so I’ll take it as a win.


Ohh… what to write about the hike… We walked. We snacked, we adjusted layers, and we hiked some more. We got to the spot I’d marked out, and set up our anchors and ropes. The students practiced, and further etched the skills they’d need into their memory. We discussed pros and cons to various options, and weighed when each would be appropriate out in the field.

We hiked on.

It snowed, a bit, but nothing stuck… just enough for us to feel good, and get some singularly excellent views.


I led from the front, as strange as that sounds for a hike, and was able to keep a pretty solid pace for the team. It went well, I’m thankful to report, and I was quite happy with how it all shook out.



That evening, we made camp and hit the hay early… but not before catching up with some of the other teams who were joining us at the Maryhill Campground – one of which was my team from the previous year, the Snakedogs! It was awesome getting to catch up with everyone, and hear how their BCEP sessions were going. I learned a bit about what Portland Mountain Rescue (the folks who rescue injured climbers on Mt. Hood) were up to, and what “interesting” politics they were dealing with this year.

I’d brought some pulled pork that I’d slow-cooked the day before, and then put into a battery-powered crock pot, which went over quite well. I shared my delicious creation, sampled many other peoples submissions to the group, and even got to enjoy some especially delicious whiskey.

It was a good day.


My first climb at Horsethief, and in Oregon itself!

https://talesfromthehutt.com/2015/08/31/my-birthday-weekend-the-fourth-weekend-that-im-in-hood-river-oregon-and-the-west-coast-saturday-ribs-and-climbing/


Mar8

Capoeira in Auckland

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Since I was in Auckland for a while, I decided to meet up with one of the Capoeira groups in town and get an idea of how other schools of Capoeira do it. I wasn’t actually sure what “it” was, but I figured that every school would have some subtle differences in how they trained and in what moves they primarily used, and so I was really excited about getting a chance to meet up with some new people. Mostly, I was looking forward to seeing how well I could play against these new people, and seeing whether or not Pontual’s training regime really is the hardest in the area.

What I learned instead, was… interesting, but a bit confusing and intimidating. The school that I ended up choosing to go to (via Google-search results) was focused on Capoeira Anguala, or the “original” form of Capoeira (Ed Note: See Ben’s earlier post about Capoeira for reference links). The main difference, as far as most people will see between Anguala and Regonal, the style that I had mostly learned in, is the tempo of the game. In Anguala the Capoeiristas move much slower, and thus stay much lower to the ground, thus requiring a huge amount of core and upper body strength to hold yourself up… and this left me sweating and panting as we moved through the training exercises.

I loved it, but playing the game itself as Anguala was difficult for me, and the format of the class itself was a bit alien to me as well, as they incorporated a huge amount of music into the lesson. With Pontual, we would usually have a simple iPod setup playing music in the background while we trained – both to help us keep focused, and to give us a tempo to move to. However, the Auckland group made significant use of live music, having each of us rotate between training and playing the background music. It was actually quite difficult for me, since I’m still quite new and not very good at playing and singing at the same time. But it did give a bit of a different energy to the circle and the training, knowing that there was someone watching and playing the music for us.

My biggest challenge came when we actually formed up the roda at the end of class, and started playing against each other. Instead of the normal unstructured single roda that Pontual would start up, we instead set up two rodas, with one person playing a Pandeiro in between. This wouldn’t be too bad in and of itself if the class was large, and had enough people to really support two circles, but unfortunately the class was only five people – meaning that the roda only consisted of the people playing against each other. And that meant that no one really got a break for playing; which, combined with the fact that I wasn’t used to such slow and muscular movements, meant that I was huffing and puffing quite quickly.

I did learn that, as you would imagine, many of the people who played anguala didn’t really know too many of the higher kicks or more dynamic movements. Many of the students didn’t even seem to know Keshada, my best kick, and so I was able to hold them back pretty well by putting that into my game every so often.

Overall I really enjoyed this little peak into the world of another group, but I think it just reinforced how much I do like Capoeira Regonal over Capoeira Anguala – I still think that everyone should train both to an extent, but I find Regonal to be a bit more applicable to my life thanks to the speed and fluidity of the movements.