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Sachi Amma, stopped competing after he won the World Cup in 2014. Next year he reached his goal to do ten routes 9a or harder. Midways in 2016, he took a another break from doing hard routes but now he is back with a new focus on doing hard FAs. Three months ago he did the FA of Maturity 9a+ and last week he did Soulmate proposing 9b. More info on his Insta. (c) Masaaki Maeda What have been the important aspects about your climbing and how have they changed over the years? There are so many aspects about climbing. It drags out myself from darkness. It makes connection with so many people. It is a social. It is the way how I live in this social. It is the way to express myself. Everything acts together. But the strongest aspect to me is that it is a tool to meet my existence. You can imagine that art, Yoga or meditation is the tool to meet your existence. Climbing is getting like those action to me. Why do you think they change over years? I spent so much energy in competitions. Then I shifted to hard routes in outside. I released all the energy. Then I started opening hard projects. Certainly if you see only actions in the real world, I keep changing. And my inside also transform strongly. But deep inside of me not change at all. Jens got a question about my changes and transformations. But many of my friends says that “Your spirit does not change at all.” I can say both is correct. But I would like to arrow myself to change and transform. And hope you feel really deep inside of me is taking root to my existence more and more. How do you see your climbing lifestyle will change over the coming years? I feel that life has some secret. Climbing has some secret. You know what I mean. All the changes and transformations are happening without my control. I do not know what I can do with it. Maybe I keep doing one thing for 10 years. But you must see something is changing and something is more rooted.

Alex Pucciohas done Beautification, 8A and Turbulence 8A+ in Leavenworth. In total she has done a total of 167 boulders 8A and harder which is totally superior among the female. (c) Joel Zerr "Sweet Line! Harder than most V11's, but pretty soft for V12. Went down pretty quick in the sun. First time ever trying it. Got to climb 3 awesome lines that I never got the chance to try on our last trip. :)" In two weeks, the runner up in the World Championship in 2014, will begin the World Cup season in Switzerland also with some Olympic interest. "I plan to do some Bouldering and Lead world cups this year, but not the whole seasons and I will be at World Champs for sure competing in at least Bouldering and Lead.

James Webb has done the first repeat of Matt Fultz The Expanse in Joe's Valley giving it a personal 8B+ grade. "Really unique line from Fultz! Morpho one for sure! Suited me well so felt maybe more 8B+? Time will tell." (c) Taylor McNeil In the 8a ranking game, James regains his #1 position 3 points ahead of Christof Rauch, due to an 8B flash. In total, James has recorded 14 flashes 8B, including three personal down grades.

Stefano Ghisolfi 9c+ was an April Fool's thing and we actually did get some emails showing that people believed it :) "Obviously, it was an April Fool. I’ve never climbed a 9c+ called Pelirpa (if you read in the opposite way, it is Aprile P., or April 1st in Italian), Nasa is not my sponsor and I cannot levitate for resting on a route! It was absolutely absurd, but it was very fun set up this prank. The best part is that a lot of people and websites made it bigger than expected, sharing the picture in collaboration with me. It was fun, and so crystal clear in its senselessness that I hope very few of you believed it. However, it’s time to focus on a (real, this time) problem that often our beloved sport shows. In rock climbing we have no judges, we are the jury of ourselves and for this reason it is crucial to be honest with everyone. I always try to record all the attempts on my projects (especially when nobody is at the crag). In this way, digital stuff is now very affordable and easy to use, and if you have a video proof there are no doubts about the ascent. This would be one feasible solution to avoid this problem. In alternative, if you have access to more technology (or to the NASA sponsorships), build a Hyper Gravity room and train to climb the first 9c+ of the world!"

Leo Skinner has done his first 8A+, Evil Sideways in Dinas Rock and here is the video. "Really psyched to get the 4th ascent of this boulder on my 3rd session! I’m really lucky to have some local strong climbers support me and to put up many hard testpieces like this one in my local area. The boulder breaks down into two sections of powerful climbing. The first being a 5 move V9 and the second a 5 move V8/9 with no rest in between."

The Google trend search diagram, in category Sport, shows the stats during the last ten years. Adam Ondra has on average some 60 % in comparison to Chris Sharma although the last two years, Adam has close to 50 % higher stats. We have excluded Alex Honnold in the list although he has almost as high numbers as Sharma on average. Alex peak, soloing El Capitan, is four times as high as Ondra's peak. The third most popular Google search among the sport climbers is Dave Graham which on average has some 20 % of Sharma's stat. When it comes to female, Alex Puccio is superior similar stats as Graham.

Tomasz Oleksy, one of the most experienced IFSC route setter who has won five WCs in Speed and two in Boulder, shares some interesting thoughts in regards the upcoming season. How do you deal with bigger gap in between the athletes and also much higher number of participants? In my opinion it's really the same deal. For us is important to make selection specially in qually round. We try to set problems with the level that athletes on 18th-20th position in the ranking can climb two problems out of five. Sometimes it is harder and sometimes it is easier. It's very important to not have any tie places. The numbers of athletes is not important for me. The only bad thing is that you have less time for setting and to deal with some changes. Any thoughts in regards the new format focusing more on zones? This year zones are much more important then before. This means it should be bit harder to get zones in generally. We will see how it works? More not so strong will possibly suffer with zero zones. In regards volumes and parkour, what do you see in the future? I think parkur is one of modern styles and very attractive for watching and already athletes start to understand. For route setting is very hard to adjust and you spend more time for setting but at the end is cool and for the selection it works very well. For the future I see maybe more bigger shapes, same profile of the wall for two groups for the qually round. It will be good to have new stuff for screwing holds nobody have seen before, bigger team for setting and more testers. That means we need better logistic plane and spend more money at the end hehe :)

There are several ways on how breathing could improve your climbing and here are some examples. You should try it out and even take some Yoga breathing lessons in order to best use your breathing while climbing. 1. Breath before you set of = Increase focus and concentration 2. Less nervous by thinking of how you breath 3. Get more alert/stronger by hyper ventilation (fast breathing) 4. Improved resting by slow, long and deep breathing 5. A focus on breathing will make you more relaxed while climbing 6. Hold your breath while doing the crux Just close your eyes and focus on breathing and notice what happens in your body and soul and you are half way there.