Cognate with the under-holds are ‘side’-holds, where the edge or point of rock projects and is grasped sideways. The principle of their use is the same as for the under-hold, except that the hand is turned sideways. Their commonest occasion is in the ascent of cracks, when the outward side-pull of the hand against the inside edge of the crack is set against the upward thrust from our foothold or knee-jam in the crack below, and our balance technique is occupied in compensating between them.
In cases both hands may be pulling against opposite sides of such a crack, and the compensation will then have to be made between the two arm-pulls instead of between the single arm-pull and the foot-thrust. To make any upward progress on such holds without any help from foothold or body friction calls for immense arm and finger power; but in connection with a foot-thrust or knee-jam the opposing side-pulls are often of use. A square-cut or rounded edge, without any projection, is sufficient to give good side-holding.
Push and Press Holds.
Instinct will tell us how to hang on to over-holds and pull up at the length of the arms. Practice in balance and footwork will teach us how to avail ourselves of the varieties of the more accommodating under and side cling holds. But the balance climber has to learn, for the yet greater convenience of his eye, the ease of his balance and the economy of his arm-power, to take his handholds as low as possible, and in co-operation with, not in opposition to, his foot-thrusts. He soon discovers that ‘push’ and ‘press’ holds are more powerful and accommodate themselves better to continuous upward progress in balance than any form of cling holds. I use ‘push’ of a direct upward thrust of the arm from a horizontal or inclined ledge or hold, and ‘press’ of a lateral or diagonal thrust against a vertical or inclined side-wall. (The first can be tried on any secure mantelpiece; the second, not so well, in any narrow passage.) The arm, for push holds, is used after the fashion of a leg; the hands are pushed, palm downward, on ledges at a height that will allow of the weight, with often the impulse of a spring or foot-thrust, being lifted on the straightening arms. The arms for this movement possess much of the strength and the ease in balancing usually attributed only to the legs. To lift the weight on a direct push is easier for many than to raise it by a long-arm pull. On push holds the weight of the body keeps the hands firmly in place; and a hold by thrusting friction, even if it be only on a rounded or sloping ledge, calls for less effort than to keep the same weight in suspension from the crook of a muscular finger round an ideal hold at the stretch of the arm. The strongest position for push holds is that with the fingers turned inward, the palms downwards, in front of the body, at a level anywhere between the waist and neck, according to the individual power of spring from the feet. But push holds outside the body are also useful; the fingers are then turned outwards, palms down. Either of these positions secures the help of the twisting arms as levers for retaining the balance during the upward movement.
Upon slabs or on rounded holds at awkward angles a very useful hand device is the combination of the push and cling holds. The wrist or forearm rests along or over some protuberance so as to secure a downward push hold, while the fingers are turned to cling across some edge of this hold and keep the arm from slipping off it. The arm would slip off the push hold but for the anchor of the fingers; the fingers would slip out of their awkward cling hold but for the friction anchor of the arm. Thus by a delicate compensation between the forearm pushing and the fingers clinging we obtain one sound combination hold out of two separately insecure holds. Ledges are more frequently rounded or inclined against us than square and convenient. The reinforcement of an arm push hold by a finger cling, or the giving of a right direction to a finger cling by the friction anchor of wrist or forearm, is therefore of constant service and deserving of all practice.
In press holds the flat of the hands is thrust sideways against a smooth surface of vertical or steep rock, which may be the retaining wall of a chimney, or a projecting leaf or corner. It is a help if the outer edge of the hand can rest against any seemingly valueless excrescence. With the hand so held the elbow has only to be lifted, and the arm becomes a lever, thrusting the balance inward, secured by, and itself securing, the friction of the hand. Two hands so pressed against any sloping surfaces can lift the whole weight. Pressed against vertical surfaces—the inside walls of cracks, for instance, too narrow to admit the body—they are sufficient to retain the balance, while the feet find any slight hold, or even only friction holds, to supply propulsion. How good the foothold must be to complement such handholds is a matter of practice in compensations.
Push and press holds with the hands, combined with the twist and leverage of the arms, in combinations innumerable, are the refinements of exceptionally difficult climbing. Their merit is the saving of muscular effort and the substitution for it of the mechanism of balance. Their use has inevitably grown out of the new fashion of footwork developed in balance climbing, grounded on the recognition that the more extended the body and the wider apart feet and hands are fixed, the less is the power and the greater is the effort of single movement, and therefore the greater the interruption to continuous rhythm. To keep the balance steady, the eyesight free and the rhythm constant, footholds and handholds must be taken at convenient distances well within the compass of the reach.
In Cracks.
In difficult crack climbing the extent to which pressure, the jamming of a leg, the touch of a calf or knee, or the twisting of a hand or forearm can be used to ease the muscular strain must be learned by practice. A fist or finger may be hooked in a smooth rift, or a foot slanted into a crack, with only friction attachment, and a slight twist to arm or leg converts either into a secure lever for lifting the weight. The clenching of the fist or the tightening of the muscles of a jammed forearm, or even the inflation of the chest, may at need serve the same purpose. The inexpert eye might see little difference between such movements and those of gripping or clinging. As a matter of fact, the difference is maintained even here. Where a grip climber aims at rest-points of pendent security, and struggles between them by muscular pulls, the balance climber is primarily concerned to keep freedom and continuity of movement. He is using the balance of the body, if only for fractions of a second, to relieve the direct weight on his arms or the indirect strain on his legs. His arms and legs are levers in converting proportionately slight muscular efforts into big continuous movements, making friction and the mere weight of the balancing body do a large share of the work. Consequently, to the expert eye, his body is seen to ascend on a line slightly farther out from the rock than the grip climber in the same place, and in a different sequence of attitudes. He will be avoiding at all costs the grip climber’s temptation to be too secure, to fix himself in attitudes or on holds from which he will have to emerge by direct muscular pulls. In corners or chimneys he will use a set of slighter and less attractive holds, if they exist, farther out, so as to keep his body free from friction against the rock. If such a set of holds is lacking altogether, he will be employing press holds with the hands, lever holds with arm or leg, twisted pressure-thrusts from his foot and ankle against one wall to his knee against the other—any device that will relieve him of direct pulls and will leave his body free to help him at any second with some balance adjustment. For, once the body is really jammed up against the rock or in a crack, arms and legs are usually working only against one another or against the friction of shoulders or thighs, and the mechanism can merely struggle and exhaust itself.
On Slabs.