No Hands Climbing

Johnny Dawes is a year younger than me, but climbs far harder. These days, not many people have heard of Johnny Dawes because he is old (62) and unfashionable among the rainbow lanyard, inclusive (but really exclusive), feminist kill-joy, everything is a trauma, words are violence climbing crowd. Plus, of course, he’s a white male and therefore the symbol of all that is wrong in the “grape-culture” of climbing. As an old white female.  I miss the days when we could just go climbing without needing to make a statement about colonisation or climate action or gender-wangery. If you were a climber, you were judged by how hard you climbed, and it was more common to down-grade your achievements than over-hype them. We all had a finally tuned bull-shit metre and the climbers gratuitously talking up their big sends were greeted with apathetic disdain.

Johnny Dawes is known as both a master of movement and an enigmatic thinker. He started “no hands” climbing after injuring a hand and became known for both hard and bold traditional ascents along with no hands climbs. These days, he runs a coaching business, unlike any other climbing coaching business, where in his own unique and eccentric style he teaches “declumsification.”

I’ve noticed myself becoming increasingly clumsy when climbing. Struggling with precise footwork and also those ultra-common moves where you have to step up onto a small hold with – what feels like – no good grips for the hands. Strength training was not improving these issues, so, I thought why not try Dawes’ declumsification. My home wall is overhanging so way too steep for no hands climbing – even for maestro Dawes – but I do have any number of easy featured slabs sitting on the rock platforms at my local beach.

No hands climbing is – at least for me – surprisingly hard, even on terrain where it shouldn’t be. I’ve got a good two metre high boulder just 7 minutes walk from home which I was using. It has holds, much bigger than Dawes uses, so good for someone who needs to start at the beginning of declumsification. You can watch Dawes no hands climbing here, here, and here but not me, because I didn’t shoot any video. Declumsification is not something you can do one time and assume you will have improved. Dawes mastered the art of using any and all surfaces to declumsify including urban surfaces, much like the OG of parkour before parkour was a thing.