redpoint, the UClimb clinic is coming up. they have 2 days of guided instruction and it is geared towards people who are transitioning from the gym to rock or for people who are brand new to climbing. might be worth considering.
At this point in my climbing career I just don't think I will learn anything I didn't already know from a course like that. I am not as new to the sport as you accuse me of, I'll admit I have done a couple gumby things in the past, but who hasn't during their entire sport climbing career? Ok I tried to clip the anchors directly through the hangers(because the mallions looked kind of crappy), and it took me 10 seconds to realize I shouldn't. And I didn't know you should keep using gear after you dropped it because of what I had been told by a large community of people who had been using that gear their whole lives(talking about the local vertical caving community), but I don't think that's too bad.
The only questions I might have on here is about gear, and those guides probably won't be teaching mass amounts of that kind of information. Like here is a question for you all that I don't think that trip will cover:
Why on Saturday did my rope start feeding like crap at the end of the day?
I suspected it was a combination of humidity affecting the rope, and sweat from our hands getting all over it, because it did seem kind of moist. Has this phenomenon happened to anybody else while climbing on a real hot day, or is it just that my rope sucks at feeding especially when moist(which I think the Mammut Supersafe is pretty crappy at feeding compared to others that I have used?
Here is a good example of why I don't want to take that class: Anyone I know who has taken a lead climbing class has never come out of it as a A-team belayer, you have to learn that stuff from somewhere else, and to me that is one of the most important things to learn if you are going to be a sport climber.
Do you think this class will even teach you the three different ways to clean (on repel, without having to untie, and the untying and then tying back in method) ?
Do you imagine they will go over fall factors, and what to do if you ever experience a fall factor of 1 with a fall distance of 5-7 meters (be lowered, and either: check the core and switch the rope ends, or downgrade the rope to top rope only) ?
I imagine they only go over the basics like: back-clipping, z-clipping, not getting the rope behind your leg, how to clean, clipping the anchors, and hopefully stuff like having your cleaner who is top roping a traversy route unclip as they go to prevent big swings and stuff like that.
Have you taken the course, do you have any examples of something I might learn that you suspect that I don't already know about sport climbing?
I bet you will find this unbelievable, but considering you don't even know me you shouldn't, but I have already helped a handful of gym climbers transition from gym climbing to sport climbing myself. I like to think that the next time they go out with their friends, they can point out every flaw the gumbies around them are making instead of contributing and being one themselves.
Can't believe I abandoned this thread before it got good. No wonder Redpoint is trying to transition to climbing. All of his paddling and caving friends got tired of him taking what he read and botching while bitching at them that they were unsafe.
O I'm sure they are tired of it, but that doesn't mean they gave up on me and that I am switching sports. I know for a lot of you sport climbers that climbing is all you have because you are totally obsessed with it, but I am involved with a lot of outdoor sports and can't give up a single one. A few more of them you didn't mention would be mountain biking, solo lead tree climbing, DRT and SRT tree climbing, and hiking. All of these other sports are great for my cross-training during my climbing rest days, and so I do recommend doing something other than just spraying all day about your climbing. I mean at least I am not being unsafe by sitting hear and spraying about being so good that I don't have to climb by the book (you know the books written by authors who know a lot more about climbing than you do).
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To conclude, it doesn't take an extremely smart person to learn how to master lead climbing, but from what I can tell it might take someone like that to master trad, no wonder you sport climbers hate them so much, you are just jealous that you aren't smart enough to even do it, or you are just broke all the time and can't afford the gear, which in that case you are excused from the previous.