Whenever there is a knee-drop solution, my friends always out-climb me. What to do to improve this skill? Climbers who are bad at knee-drop opt for other solutions meaning that they almost never train knee-drop. The fastest way to improve this skill is just to create some boulders where you can practice it over and over again, in combination with some stretching. One way of combining this is simply to just start sitting and repeatedly do the same knee-drop move like ten times. Then you set up a new knee-drop move. I would say that, out of all climbing skills, knee-dropping is the fastest to improve following this advice. Within some weeks, your body, instead of avoiding the obvious knee-drop, will take the advantage of it but it might be several years until you can do it as Adam Ondra. (c) Pavel Zvire

Black Diamond: "Voluntary recall for inspection of Easy Rider and Iron Cruiser Via Ferrata lanyard sets, Index Ascenders, Camalots™ and Camalot™ Ultralights"

Kevin Aglae reports on Facebook that he has done the FA of L'Enfumette 9a in St Leger. (c) Jan Novak

Ryuichi Murai has done the fifth ascent of Dai Koyamada's Hydrangea in Shiobara, which actually was his third 8C in a month. "Finally I send this problem! This is ''Hydra 8B'' + 6 moves 8A/A+. It took me 4 days to climb it. When I joined ''Hydra'' after the 6 moves, I felt it's quite another thing. So, I was fell many times at the part of ''Hydra''. I'm so happy to complete all problems of ''Nodate roof''! Next, I'm going to try Epitaph 8C in Hourai or Project of ''Nodate roof'' in Shiobara." How do you train? I don't particularly training, but I do sometimes ''ABC chin-ups"which is a training that I was taught when I went to the camp in Austria before. ''ABC chin-up'' which I repeat many times. 1. To chin-up three times. 2. To keep 5 seconds with the arm full bend. 3. To chin-up three times. 4. To keep 5 seconds with the arm open 90 degrees. 5. To chin-up three times. 6. To keep 5 seconds with the arm open 120 degrees.

In the IFSC calendar 2016 there is only one Euro Youth Lead Cup whereas there are four Boulder events planned. The trend of decreasing interest in Lead and increased interest in Bouldering has been going on for several years and during the last years only Austria has organized Euro Youth Lead Cups. This means that in practice it will be more difficult for Euro youngsters to start competing in the Lead World Cup. Furthermore, as it is widely known that the focus on Bouldering in an early age is dangerous for the growth plates in the fingers, four events might create such injuries and therefore not be the best idea.

The Boulder World Cup starts on the 15.4 in Switzerland and there are 147 people on the starting list. Later the circuit continues in Japan, China, India, Austria, USA and Germany. Here is the 8a ranking for the first event but as some of these guys do not plan to do all mileage the overall is hard to speculate at this point. Who do you expect? 1. Jan Hojer - Janja Garnbret 2. Alexsey Rubtsov - Anna Stöhr 3. Jongwon Chon - Akiyo Noguchi 4. Dimitrii Sharafutdinov - Megan Mascarenas 5. Jakob Schubert - Shauna Coxey 6. Jernej Kruder - Katharina Saurwein 7. Rustam Gelmanov - Fanny Gibert 8. Alban Levier - Margo Hayes 9. Martin Stranik - Melissa Le Neve, Miho Nonaka 10. Sean McColl - Petra Klingler 11. Jorg Verhoeven - Stasa Gejo 12. Tyler Landman - Giorgia Tesio

Drew Ruana, who started climbing when he was four and who has done many headlines throughout the years, including a 9a FA, has had an amazing day in Red River Gorge. "Super fun day 2 here at the red! I flashed Kaleidoscope (8a+), managed to send Southern Smoke (8c+) after two days of effort, and I surprised myself by sending Thanatopsis (8c) in three tries in a single day of effort!" (c) Kyle O'Meara What is the plan and ambition 2016 and what about training and comps? There are a couple local routes I want to do in the 9a range, and I want to do Le cadre in Ceuse this summer. Maybe some local bouldering in the 8B range. I train 3-4 days a week. Lots of boulder training and also lots of route/endurance training. My training fluctuates a lot. I just have a coach who also coaches a lot of other people. No Youth World Championship. I am just doing the American Youth circuit.

I am afraid of falling and it often has a negative impact on my climbing. I have read some articles and fought with it for ten years and it does not get better. What can I do? There are some ways to get less afraid of falling but you have to "train" hard to trick your head and you will always have to work on it unless you are a junior or a new-comer, who can possibly be cured once and for all. Training in order to get less scared means in practice that you should step out of your comfort zone, but just barely, as often you can. Start every session with warming up also mentally by talking falls on top rope or and then steadily progress to take also lead falls. Make this a comfortable routine but do not push yourself. If you include this in your warming up to let go several times you will be less scared. The key is to do it minimal step by minimal step and do not overdo it. In practice this could mean that you start to let go on top rope when you are two meters off the ground but to do it 20 - 100 times during every climbing session. Good luck... I am in the same boat :)