Rafa Fanega, who started climbing 25 years ago, is having his best year ever. Last week he did the FA of Estado lamentable in Archidona, which is his third 8c+ in 2015. Previously, the 40-year-old did only one 8c+, which took place last year. In total, Rafa has recorded 1 410 routes, out of which one third are FAs. Most of his FAs are from Fin del Mundo outside Madrid, which has been one of the most popular crags in Spain recently, although it is closed between February 1st and June 15th.

Very few climbers do proper warming up. Instead, we warm up with super easy slow motion climbing, which is time-consuming and could create the wrong mind set. If instead you start your warming up with jumping up and down on jugs on a steep overhang where you increase the load, you save time and get a more explosive mind set. Having done some 30 moves during about 3 minutes you can start using your feet and within five minutes you can do big lock off moves. Later you can do the same on crimps meaning that within 8 - 10 minutes you can be ready to climb and give your best on the training with the right powerful mind set.

Roland Hemetzberger reports great Christmas news on Facebook and attaches a picture by Stefan Kuehn, "Oh yeahhhhhhhhh what a f***ing rad XMas present / After 20 years as a project I was able to send it today. I invested so much time in this piece of rock I can't believe it... For sure my hardest climb I ve ever done and it's a big honor for me to freed this old project from "Stefan Fürst" I don't know how hard I would suppose around 9a+ what ever rad one... cheers" The Austrian did a dozen 8c+'s previously and a couple of 9a's, and also an 8c+ on pre-placed trad gear. Many of his FAs has not been repeated yet.

Ashima Shiraishi (14) comes with amazing news on Facebook, (c) Ikuko Serata "Santa Claus gave me the best Christmas present ever🎁! I sent Phenomena V14 (8b+) in Hinokage, Miyazaki!!! This was the 2nd ascent after @dai_koyamada and the first female ascent!! I once again surprised myself by sending it after about 30 MINUTES of working on it!!!" This was the 14-year-old's second 8B+ and one of the quickest 8B+ ascents in the history of bouldering. Adam Ondra and Daniel Woods are the only ones who have flashed an 8B+. In the 8a ranking game, Ashima is #2 in bouldering but if we take in consideration both routes and boulders, Ashima has been #1 in the world since she was 12 years old.

Niccolo Ceria comes with the sad news that somebody has glued one hold of David Graham's classic The Story of Two Worlds 8C in Cresciano. Being asked about his opinion based on the fact that the breakage could have meant it would have been easier or harder, Nico answered as follows. I don't care about what it would have happened. It is not a problem if it would have been easier, harder or impossibile. I think If something has to break naturally, it doesn’t need any glue." 8a agrees with Nico that boulders should not be glued. On the other hand, 8a thinks that for the routes with artificial bolts, where often a hammer is used to clean the loose rock, it could sometimes be OK to use glue on an old line, especially as a broken hold can fall on someone's head.

Edu Marin has done Directa open your mind R2 9a+ in Santa Linya. (c) Giancola "Yesterday was a great day for me! I knew my form was good but after a week in bed because of a nasty flu, I had my doubts for my project. Nothing is further from reality ... I got to take Direct Open Your Mind 9a + R2 and signing the fourth repetition to close a long and successful season!" In a Desnivel interview, Edu explains that he did the full line and he marked it R2 to differente it from the R1 version stopping mid-ways which Ashima Shiraishi and others have done. The R2 adds an 8c after the 9a R1 anchor.

In our database there are now 3.7 million rated ascents that could help you to find the best crags and routes/boulders in the world. Selecting the next destination, you can search the crag list and analyze average stars and onsight rating etc. In the Ticklists, you can select a grade and a sector and make a list of the routes or boulders you would like to try.

Some of you noticed login problems last week. This was caused by some updates we did to the site that had needed to be done in order to support our new server for routes.8a.nu. All is solved now and login (especially with cookies) should go even faster now :). In the weeks to come we are also going to start testing with support for https and hopefully roll out a beta prototype for the new design for the scorecard. Please add your email to our list at routes.8a.nu if you would like to be included in the (private) beta.

Chris Sharma and Adam Ondra are the best rock climbers in the history of climbing and they certainly did not follow any structured training program. Instead, they just climbed wild and crazy and in fact, some old coaches said that their new techniques were not optimal. Surely, structured training fits some youngsters and if they have active coaches that follow their athletes' progress on a daily basis and do not just send over training programs, it can be equally good. The dilemma is of course that most kids just want to climb wild and crazy and for these guys a structured program may be the contrary of productive. The most important skill in climbing that never can be trained properly once being an adult is the intuition, especially in onsight climbing. The third best climber in the world Alex Megos did have and still has some active coaches with a holistic approach. In fact, his coaches actively hold him back when it comes to his training in order not to let him peak at a very young age. No doubt that in the short run structured and peak training will make the kids perform better at early ages but this may possibly be counter-productive for the kids motivation and technical skills.

Virtual Realiy is getting big and the main reason is that it can be viewed on every mobile device without need of external tools. You can automatically use the phone’s internal gyroscopes and browse the scene in 360. It also works great via your computer and the mouse. Coral Climb is a video production company that has shot outdoor and climbing videos since 1984 but lately they have opened a branch in Los Angeles and it's run by the Italian ex-Pro-climber Lucas Preti. They are testing this new technology and they've sent us an example of what looks like a VR camera on the head of a climber. Here we attach a link to a youtube video in VR (use chrome or firefox, not safari, to navigate in 360°). Try a 360° boulder video. There is also an option to watch it using mobile apps (more fun because you use the phone's position to look around). Just download the youtube app and you will get a glimpse of the amazing future!