The next John Gill!

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Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:03am PT

the implications are that there are going to be more and more climbers that basically blow current standards out of the water

Very funny! No doubt. I wasn't employing some disingenuous bitter trad guy attitude about the gyms; I was speaking to the age and the intensity.

And this still leaves my earlier questions about his outstanding muscle development at such a young age.
I didn't recast my post just to set up what perhaps appears as a punchline question.

ß Î Ø T Ç H

Boulder climber

bouldering

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:09am PT

coz doth protest too much, methinks.

blahblah

Gym climber

Boulder

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:11am PT

Very funny! No doubt. I wasn't employing some disingenuous bitter trad guy attitude about the gyms; I was speaking to the intensity.

Understood, I unwittingly played the role of the bitter trad guy in the other thread I suppose. I guess the intensity will be worked out by the kid climbers, parents, and coaches (I'm none of the above)--hopefully it will turn out that just standard climbing doesn't cause ill effects, and that would be my guess based on the accomplishments we've seen so far. But time will tell.

ontheedgeandscaredtodeath

Social climber

SLO, Ca

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:13am PT

Maybe I'm wrong but I say the grades are more or less maxed out. Sure there will be a push of a letter grade or a plus or minus here and there but I reckon it's pretty much done. The human body can only do so much-- look at pro pitchers, a group of people highly motivated and highly paid to throw a ball fast. No one really questions the fact that it's pretty much impossible for a human to throw a baseball more than around a hundred miles an hour. Climbing must have similar limitations, regardless of age and weight.

blahblah

Gym climber

Boulder

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:20am PT

^ ^ ^
Yeah that was part of the debate in the other thread, and of course is a subject that's been bandied about for years.
I used to pretty much agree with you, now I'm sort of "keep an open mind" and we'll see what happens. Introducing highly trained kid climbers may change the equation--I think it's possible that young teens who grew up climbing may be capable of doing climbs that no adults can.

McHale's Navy

Trad climber

Panorama City, California & living in Seattle

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:22am PT

This little boy has to be engaging in high intensity training, and lots of it, no?

I posted a link earlier that said the kid trains 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. I mean, his dad has him training 3 hours a day, 5 days a week:

http://www.parentdish.com/2009/10/29/gymnast-a-worldwide-sensation-but-at-what-price/

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:48am PT

McHale's Navy, Jim Brennan: thanks.

the kid trains 3 hours a day, 5 days a week.

My gut says it's not a good idea to use up all that green stick bone and cartilage early

There's still an elephant in the room and back lever push ups at sub kindergarten age should ring some LOUD alarm bells about what is media admirable VS what is best for a child.

To my wife and I this just seemed really otherworldly how bricked this kid is.

The salient features of this thread to me are:

#1: The facts of his strength which are absolutely remarkable and likewise raise questions, which are purely physiological and therefore easier to investigate.
#2 : The presentation, which raises flags and our responses are more conjectural, or tend more to the cultural and psychological stuff.

Both arenas are a little bit off the charts.
Never mind my thread drift question concerning climbing gyms, sorry, that just muddies the waters.

[Edit]But I hear you blah blah, "standard climbing" can't be the same as what the kid in the OP does to get so bricked.

jstan

climber

Apr 12, 2013 - 01:08am PT

Any chance I could get an apology too? Keeping everything on the "down low" is not helping.

Wednesday morning the Joshua Tree Clean Team picked up 234 pounds of trash near the
Hospice in downtown JT, More than 20 people accomplished that in about an hour. That works
out to about 3.5 tons per year. Thanks to their efforts JT is very apparently the cleanest town in
that part of the high desert. As befits any town depending on a matchless National Park to
support the economy and the value of property.

Right up the road to the East the Morongo Basin group is also putting their shoulders into the
harness. Should I tell them to keep it on "the down low" too?

I have been over the facility that cannot be named again. There was not much new trash. The
facility has an excellent crew looking after it and they seem to be enjoying themselves. Todd
Gordon, I, and others are helping with firewood. Just like ST, the campfire helps make the area
work smoothly. Just seeing what our resident sculptor is doing there is inspiring.

I think I, too, have an apology coming. If not me, then surely Robert Fonda has earned an
attaboy.

I am serious.

Being dead is the only way I could be more serious.

Jim:
I beg to differ.

nah000

Mountain climber

canuckistan

Apr 12, 2013 - 01:37am PT

referencing tarbuster's break down a few posts back:

while the build at such a young age raises serious and significant questions, it's hard for me, not having any expertise regarding childhood development nor knowledge of his day to day life, to absolutely rule out that he isn't the athletic equivalent of a five year old chess or linguistic prodigy. with very roughly about 70 million 5 year old males in the world there are bound to be some natural freaks who push our conception of what is spontaneously possible...

that said, the red flag is the delivery. as ghost and tami have directly and indirectly pointed out, giuliano is the masculine equivalent to a five year old female beauty contestant. [the kids name is giuliano stroe and thanks to his dad iulian and television appearances there are many videos of him on youtube] there is the awkward winking, the half smile, the robotic gaze, etc. given the presentation in both this and a couple other videos i watched it's impossible for me not to see a child who has become an emotional and/or financial commodity.

my aversion to the idea of children "working" maybe cultural, but it's also one i'm comfortable not questioning too deeply.

Curt

climber

Gold Canyon, AZ

Apr 12, 2013 - 01:39am PT

In terms of pushing the difficulty envelope there will almost certainly never be another John Gill. Just consider for a minute what would be required. When Gill was doing problems in the mid to late 50's that would be rated 5.13 on today's YDS difficulty scale, the hardest established climbs in the country were 5.9. "The next John Gill" would need to start establishing 5.19 climbs today to be equally as far ahead of the game as Gill was. In every sport incremental gains in performance will continue to occur, as improvements are made in training methods, etc., but it's hard to envision another quantum leap like the one Gill made.

Curt

jstan

climber

Apr 12, 2013 - 02:03am PT

There is a fundamental error in saying "the next John Gill."

People don't replicate. But somehow we feel threatened when we admit there will be only one Gill. We should not be, of course. We have Honnolds, Bachars, and others.

Our tendency for the extreme vitiates our appreciation for the richness of diversity.

survival

Big Wall climber

Terrapin Station

Apr 12, 2013 - 02:30am PT

No more Gills please.

I can only take so much humbling in one lifetime.....

Long live John Gill.

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Apr 12, 2013 - 11:00am PT

nah000 said:

it's hard for me, not having any expertise regarding childhood development nor knowledge of his day to day life, to absolutely rule out that he isn't the athletic equivalent of a five year old chess or linguistic prodigy.with very roughly about 70 million 5 year old males in the world there are bound to be some natural freaks who push our conception of what is spontaneously possible...

Thank you nah000, for taking a crack at my earlier stream of questions:

Can anybody comment on his muscle development?
My wife was thinking he must be on steroids and that to me seems a little bit much.
Anybody know about child physiology?
Can any little kid get this bricked if they do the right stuff?

nah000, What you are saying is we can only conjecture, because it's completely likely just on numbers alone that he's easily explained as just an anomaly and we do have information about his training regimen to add to this. As to whether or not any little kid can get this bricked if they follow that regimen, maybe that's just academic, but it's still an open question. As to whether or not he's doing steroids, again we can only conjecture.

Is there anyone here, such as Tami perhaps, who can authoritatively comment on the child physiology aspect of the questions I pose above?

Regarding the next John Gill portion of our program: check out Moose Drool's video of the kid getting up to the top of the refrigerator, using only one arm, while dragging his plastic vehicle up with him using his free arm! Granted he gets a little push just prior to topping out, but it's still quite something!

Curt makes a good point about the huge gap between John Gill's performances taken against the standards of his day. Now, with climbing as mainstream as it is, it would seem difficult to fault Curt's perspective that we are not going to see that kind of a jump ever again.

And lastly: with everybody's responses about how freaky this kid's theatrical antics are, to include the tongue lick maneuver, perhaps we can see what got Cosgrove going in the first place, completely independent of anything Simon intended.

Oh and: +1 for Johnny Cash!

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:00pm PT

Nice, but John Gill was unique.

JL

shady

Trad climber

hasbeen

Apr 12, 2013 - 12:36pm PT

+1 largo That moment in time has come and gone.
Long live the one and only John Gill.

Oops... that's right. Sorry to hear of your passing jogill. Do you still have to use a keyboard when you post from the afterlife?

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Apr 12, 2013 - 09:29pm PT

Tami!

Far out: someone with some direct experience finally picked up my phone call. I just read aloud what you said to Lisa, so thanks because we found this quite interesting.

She started competitive soccer in the fourth grade, which isn't so young, but then in junior high she often ran to school in a pair of Stan Smiths (an unpadded shoe for playing tennis) and the doctor told her she damaged the growth plates in her feet. Since that little adolescent athlete's hiccup, she's been a national champion amateur triathlete, professional bike racer, and world-class trail/mountain runner.

Since then, one of our jokes around the house is that she has not had more than two weeks off of training since fourth grade. She just said to me "when did I even have two weeks off Roy". So you see, what with her fantastic experience as a top-notch amateur athlete and my deplorable record with musculoskeletal issues, we are very interested in genetics, training, and recovery.

The lick maneuver: when I first saw it of course I recoiled, but I always refrain from quick judgment responses and I held my tongue, so to speak, in deference to the fact that he comes from a culture which I may not understand. How do I know what that tongue lick thing means for them? Perhaps it's his way of saying "training is like licking a popsicle".

All kinds of things just don't translate well from one culture to another. So I reserve judgment based on a certain implementation of tact which I choose to employ when I don't immediately understand things and people.

Has anybody ever messed with you and called you "Circus Lady" as a play on Saturday Night Live's much beloved "Church Lady"?

Best,
RoyBoy

Big Mike

Trad climber

Apr 13, 2013 - 12:37am PT

Most 5.13's have easier cruxes than the problems Gill was doing - most 5.14's, too. No routes (yet) primarily consist of moves that hard - that would be a quantum leap, but no one's going to make it anytime soon - it would be like doing 20-rep sets with the current world-record dead lift.

Yet it is possible! If there is one thing that i have learned while retraining my body to walk it's "anything is possible". If someone can do 1 rep of a world class dead lift, then with time, and training eventually they could accomplish two, and the maybe even three. Then their offspring could be genetically dispositioned to doing such lifts, and might be able to accomplish more.

I'm not saying it's going to happen anytime soon, but i certainly think we have not seen the end of what human beings are capable of.

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Apr 13, 2013 - 10:20am PT

Tami,

From this post by Harry Hot Dog I get that you run a circus camp? Thus: Circus Lady …

I can't wait to get them both over to Tami's circus camp as that looks like alot of fun.

...

Now then, if you were actually to do a little YouTube search on Church Lady, I certainly wouldn't want you to understand my reference as a notion that your darling visage directly reflects that kooky character in any specific sense; only a play on the moniker. If you were to engage in such research and appreciate the actual character of Church Lady, and likewise misunderstand me so, I wouldn't blame you one bit for landing a package of exploding poop on my doorstep!

Hugs,
Roy

PS,
Saturday Night Live also did a hilarious sendup of Canooks from the great White North.
Sorry, keep in mind us Stoopid Americans still haven't a clue that the rest of the world doesn't get our television piped in to fixed screens in every building the world over!