From March 25th to March 26th we organize an international bouldercup in our bouldering-gym Studio Bloc in Pfungstadt, Germany: Studio Bloc Masters This bouldercup is opened for hobby- and professional boulderers, so that everybody is able to take part. Fortunately this cup unites bouldering as a spare time activity and that kind of professional athletics. Names like Alexei Ruptsov (Russia), Chon Jongwon (Korea) or Jan Hojer (Germany) are already registered. With an entire prize money of 10.000,-€, Blocmasters are in no way inferior to other named cups. So, there will be a spectacular day of semi-finals and finals. But this event won´t be a commercial bouldercup, all profits will be donated to "Climbers Against Cancer" (CAC).

Sebastien BOUIN, who previously has done over 20 routes 9a, half of them FAs, has done Definicion de la resistencia démocrata for which he gives a personal 9a grade. "Finish the job is important! Even if you are close, you have to stay focus. Sometime is the more important." The 23 year old French has previously suggested personal down grades for six former 9a to 9b+' included some very famous ones. (c) Jonas Wiklund

With the IFSC Bouldering World Cup season starting soon this weekend The Rab CWIF offers a great warmup comp for both competitors and keen spectators. A fantastic lineup includes competition stars such as Sean McColl, Rustam Gelmanov and Jongwon Chon as well as World Champion Petra Klinger and Melissa Le Neve. Also attending will be David Lama, Juliane Wurm, Jimmy Webb & Alex Megos. Watch the Webcast Live on Sunday 19th March at 13 with semis and 19 with finals. You can also follow the event at Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Chad Shepard has helped us out with some info in regards Tuolumne Meadows, #1 in the Bouldering trend ranking. It is located 1.5 hours from Yosemite valley at 2,500 - 3,000 meters and the potential is endless. "The past two summers, I see groups of 20-30 people at each spot every day over the weekend. It appears to be a 10 fold increase in traffic since the new guidebook came out 2014. There's 1200 problems in the Tuolumne guide. and about 300-400 problems not in there. Most of those are newer areas not in the guide, some just too far away. The guide covers an area of about 30 miles of road, and hiking as many miles away from the road as you like. Most of the bouldering on the guide is within 1 hour hike, but you could go farther and find as many new boulders as you want. The climbing season is generally from June-September, and there is no access at all from November to May. The Tuolumne Meadows area is very large (it’s a much larger portion of Yosemite National Park than Yosemite Valley. You might drive 30 minutes and hike an hour to get to the next bouldering area. One of main attractions of Tuolumne Meadows is the scenery. It’s in a designated wilderness area, so the landscape fairly wild. The granite domes and high alpine lakes and meadows make for a great backdrop for a day out bouldering. The different bouldering areas are as diverse as the rock quality. It’s my hope that climbers will understand how fragile the high alpine environment is (many of the boulders are between 8000’-10,000’) and respect wilderness ethics as the bouldering traffic increases."

Matyas Luzan has been obsessed with Action Directe since the beginning of 2014 and hsa only trained for this route. In 2015, he tried it and got injured immediately. In 2016, he destroyed his shoe once working out a new toe-hook sequence. Nowadays, he is training 10 hours per day mainly just doing boulders on the Moonboard followed by a rest day. Video doing Moonboard's up to 8B. "I just spend 10h in the gym and try to give it my best. What can I say, I love it. Honestly it's just getting through the pain but it's not so dramatic as it sounds now. It's fun, climbing with others and such." His plan is to soon start working on the AD replica again. In May, the Romanian with 8b as personal best, plans to go back to Frankenjura, living dirtbag life under AD, preparing and waiting for the best conditions. In regards the new beta, it is in the middle where he just before the crux, does a toe-hook over his head. He hangs there for some 15 seconds clipping, chalking and doing a very deep lock off, skipping the crux right mono, see right circle in the picture. "This is an easier sequence *IF* you have lock off strength and mobility." 8a interview from 2015

Matyas Luzan je od roku 2014 posadnutý cestou Action Direct 9a a trénuje špecificky len na túto cestu. V roku 2015 ju vyskúšal, no okamžite sa zranil a v roku 2016 roztrhol lezečku pri skúšaní novej sekvencie so založením špičky. V súčasnosti trénuje 10 hodín denne, väčšinou lezie ťažké bouldre na Moonboarde, potom nasleduje rest day. Video, kde Luzán lezie bouldre do 8B na Moonboarde. "Jednoducho som 10 hodín na stene a snažím sa z toho vyťažiť maximum. Čo vám poviem, milujem to. Popravde je to o prekonávaní bolesti, no teraz to už nie je také dramatické, ako to môže vyznievať. Je to zábava, liezť s druhými a tak." Jeho ďalším plánom je začať znovu trénovať na svojej replike Action Direct. V Máji sa tento Rumun, ktorého doterajší najlepší prelez je 8b, plánuje vrátiť do Frankenjury a squatovať pod Action Direct, usadiť sa tam a čakať na najlepšie podmienky. Čo sa týka nového softvéru, používa ho v strednej časti cesty hneď pred ťažkým bouldrom a vykladá v ňom špičku až nad hlavu. Následne na nej visí cca 15 sekúnd, počas ktorým si cvakne, namádžuje a nachystá sa na ťažký fix, vďaka ktorému však preskočí jednoprstovú dierku vpravo (na obrázku červeným). "Je to jednoduchší softvér, *AK* máš silu vo fixe a si rozťahaný" Interview pre 8a z roku 2015.

Jakob Kronberger has done his second 9a FA, Baumwesen in Salzburger Land. Three weeks ago the 16 year old did The Power of Goodbye 8B. "The route was shown to me by Klem Loskot in last November. Klem showed me his beta for the crux and I immediately fell in love with the Baumwesen. He said it would be totally fine with him if i made the first accent, so I went for it. All in all I spent about 10 days in the route. For the year 2017 my number one priority is to stay healthy. I had quite a few problems with my fingers the last season. I wasn't often able to try really hard routes and when I did, I usually payed the price for it the next day. Aside of that I really want to do a project in Salzburg which I started last season. I don't have many more routes on my wish list this year."

KYMY DE LA PENA has done his first 9a, Seta Total 9a in Cuenca. The route was partially bolted by local Cuco and finished by Luis Alfonso Félix and José Luis Palao 'Primo'. Both did it after the Pablo Barbero's FA and also Ramón Julián. (c) Javipec Based on his scorecard with 600 ascents, we can see that the 31 year old has had a continuous progress for eight straight years. How many tries did it take you? The route took me 4 tries this year. Last season I tried it as well after I sent El Intento (the 8c+/9a on its right) and I was very close, but I couldn't. Maybe 8 tries in total. Tell us more about your progression.. Since 2009, it has been very progressive. I started climbing in 2008 when I was 23. Yap.., I'm not Alex Megos haahaha. I think that the progress is the result of the motivation for climbing, and that is the key, enjoying the same as when I did my first 7a. Also my experience as a trainer, based on working with so many people has made me better in the last years.

Fish Autotuber is another smart belay device which allows you to feed out rope very easy at the same time it pinches any rope in between 8 mm to 11 mm. It weighs only 68 grams. It is very intuitive and it also has a lever like Grigri for making lowering down more easy and safe. You can also just put in your thumb and lift the device up to release its friction on the rope. Video All in all, it is a very user friendly belay device and the price is around 60 Euro with the Rondo crew carabiner included. The Rondo is mandatory to use and we asked why? "During the development process we found out that it is extremely important that the carabiner's cross section fits to the belay device's shape. Only in this combination we can guarantee that the correct function is given. That´s the reason why we decided to sell the FISH in combination with our RONDO carabiner only. If a different carabiner is used, it could happen that the carabiner blocks and doesn´t provide any friction to the rope."

During the IFSC press conference, the President Marco Scolaris said that it is hard to understand the scoring in bouldering but they are working on a solution that will be presented in some months. The athlete representative, Sean McColl said that the scoring with points is a possibility and it was also said that the USA method is interesting. In reality, the four IFSC representatives almost seemed ashamed in regards the scoring system and that it was ten years old. 8a has several times suggested format as well as scoring system in regards points instead of Tops and Bonuses. The changes with 6 minutes instead of 8 minutes in Lead finals, as well as 4 minutes instead of 4+ minutes in bouldering finals, were made to fit into TV. Scolaris: "At the moment, this is the solution we were able to produce under pressure. We know many people were not satisfied, not happy." "We expect to convince IOC, but not only, that hopefully before 2020 that we deserve some help, because the sport is growing to fast and we do not have the resources to manage the sport. If it goes on in this way and our income does not increase and therefore we are not able to hire additional human resources. We will become victim of our success."