It is said that tight cooperation among the Japanese climbers is part of their success. Everyone is participating in the sharing in order to optimize their performance which is also part of the Japanese culture. How the competition climbers cooperates during the observation is also something non-climbers are really fascinated about. This sharing culture is nice to follow and pick up on the federations Facebook pages. Almost every week, you read about how different nations have had some training sessions or have joined some local competitions. Another example of this is that four days before the World Cup in Munich, Boulderwelt invites competitors for a pre-comp down in semi mode on four problems. "After the simulation, the route setters will talk you through boulders, explain what their ideas was and give you feedback". It is free of charge and there are still some open spaces!

Are you ready to take that next step and move up a level? 8a Glossary The ABC of Climbing

Laura Rogora reports on Facebook, "Unfortunatly a little injury in my finger stopped me from trying "Biographie". Anyway, Ceuse is full of beautiful lines to climb. Today I sent "Dures Limites" 8c." In total the 16 year old has done 12 routes 8c to 9a during the last 12 months and she is #1 in the female ranking game as well as in the Age and Gender bonus ranking game.

There are now over 4.4 million star rated ascents in the 8a database. In the Ticklist, the 4,173 biggest crags and the 1,744 biggest boulder areas in the world are listed. These lists will guide you to climb the best and and most popular climbs in the world. You have different search criterias like: Grade, Onsight/Flash Rate and Stars. You can also check who has done the ascents and read their comments. In the crag Ticklist, you will also find the trend popularity ranking. For each crag you will also find the average onsight percentage as well as star rating. For each crag, you can also find who has done the hardest ascents the last month, and which grades and months are most popular.

Chaehyun Seo, who last year did her first 8b+, has done one more, The Colinator in Rifle and the 13 year old did it in only three attempts. The years ago, she also created headlines by onsighting an 8a in Kalymnos. Her father Jongkuk is a gym owner and also a successful ice climber UIAA competitor. "She climbs and trains after she gets out of school. Her training time is about 5hours a day when she does. I make her training plans and I make new climbing problems for her on the spray wall daily. I would like her to be a climber that truly enjoys climbing. Because of this reason, we go out on fairly long climbing trips every year. This trip is her 4th with me."

Giuliano Cameroni has done his fourth 8C through the FA of Hazel grace in Gottardo and the 20 year old is #7 in the ranking game. Next project is to do the logical sit start to it. "It took me around 6 days to do the first crux move, but luckily I did it only once since I knew exactly what to do on the second part. This summer was the first time I trained in a serious way (with Luca DiBiase) and I visibly see the improvement."

Given that FA Paul Robinson originally thought that Lucid Dreaming was an 8C+ and that Alex Megos calls it his hardest, it might be a contender to be upgraded, as Toru Nakajima used three years and 16 sessions. "I agree with you and Nalle Hikkataival's concept. So I can say "it may be 8C+". If it was given 8C+, I would not say it is 8C. I think grade should be determined under majority rule, so I want know what Paul and Daniel Woods think about it. Anyway I cannot say for certain "it is 8C+"." Toru who previously has done four 8C's, finishes off by saying, "Now I'm satisfied with my bouldering career, and would like to do trad-climbing or any other things."

Chuck Odette has in July done two 8b's and The Golden Child 8b+ in Logan Canyon. The extraordinary great thing is that Chuck is 61 years old and seems to have a new all time high peak again. His progress started when he did his first 7a+ being 34 years old and ten years later he did his first 8b+. In the gender and age bonus ranking, the 61 year old is #4. In bouldering, his current best is 7B. "I seem to be aging like a fine wine… the older I get the better I become."