Is Adam Ondra WORSE at crack climbing than we thought?

Adam Ondra came to the cellar. He actually came. Actually came. He climbed, he paddled, he off-wits, he hand-jammed, he even set us a new boulder problem. I was just really excited. Mainly it was the excitement and the build that was the biggest thing. It was like Christmas. You know when you're going, it's five sleeps until Santa comes. It was five sleeps until Ondra comes and he's going to come in my cellar. Down the chimney? Imagine if Ondra had come down your chimney dressed as Santa Claus. Maybe that's for next time. The build-up was quite big though. Not just with us, but with the whole community. Like people spamming our channel, people spamming Ondra's channel. Like when is Ondra coming to the Wide Boys cellar? It went big and then it actually happened. You know when we had all these predictions beforehand, did you think about those predictions quite a bit before he came down or were you more focused on how we're going to host him, how we're going to show him a good time, how we're going to reign in our fanboy enthusiasm and actually act like normal human beings here. Yeah, I was mainly thinking about the latter. I mean I was thinking a little bit about the O-grades because that's what the audience wanted to know as well and just like how is he actually going to get on these cracks. I mean that was definitely interesting to me as well. First place to start, the warm-up. Did you notice he actually warmed up for the cellar? I couldn't believe it. As in on the hand grip? No, do you remember he was outside? Oh yeah, he was. Doing all of his exercises. He was warming up. Yeah. He was properly warming up. We've never seen this before. He was doing press-ups and he was doing these kind of weird arm circles and doing his yoga stuff. It was like pro. Yeah, it was pretty professional. I was then really that I realised that he was taking this whole thing seriously. So Pete, how are you going to warm up? By filming Adam warming up for the video. I've already got my boots and I've put my gloves on and serious warm-up scenes going on. There does seem to be a slight difference. There is a big difference there. What did you think to his warm-up? There was very little shadow boxing. There weren't very many deep squats ready for the wide pony. No, I didn't see many of those things, no. I would have liked to have seen him walking around the cellar in general with his hands just in the air, simulating various paddles and rings. Oh, like outside? Like walking around the garden? Yeah, just visualising. Because you know how strong he is with visualising. So I just would have liked to have seen him just flipping and playing around with hand moves. Would have been nice. Yeah, that would have been nice. Yeah, I would have filmed that as well. Yeah, I'm sure you would. And then we took him into the back room, way at the back, where there's the monos and there's our now famous Change drop knee. Were you disappointed that he didn't think it looked like Change? I was a little disappointed because I thought he would have been... I think he saw through it, basically. He thought, here's two guys, they've whacked a couple of volumes on the ceiling. And it's nothing like Change. Nothing like Change. Like Change? Like where the **** there is a mono finger lock? I don't know. What were your guys' thoughts on his first impressions of the set? I thought it was actually quite classic when he walked through the door, that he thought it was way cleaner than he thought it was going to be. And then it was funny because you'd spent like the day before cleaning it up. I'm actually disappointed. It looks like more like a posh climbing gym. It's not enough underground. Feels almost like too clean. You should have seen it about four days ago before they started clearing it up. I can imagine. It's kind of like we should have left it as an absolute ---- tip. But then we did have run the real risk of injuring the world's best climber. People have come out of that cellar injured. I mean, James Pearson's still got the scar on his back. I think it was a good move by us, but maybe he felt slightly disappointed, I don't know. I got the sense that he did actually appreciate the history and everything we've used in the past to train on. That was kind of cool to see him actually appreciate it because we're obviously really into it and we spent a lot of time down there. And it was nice to see someone grasp what we were into really quickly. And I felt like within 10, 15 minutes, he was definitely going to be into having a good session with us down the cellar. And it was going to be a good psych session. Did we put on the warm up, standard warm up crack to start with? Yeah, standard warm up crack. I think he was the first person or first guest to flash it. 7a plus one direction, 7b plus there and back. It's very reassuring that all three of us are wearing speed climbing shoes. I did never expect that I would wear speed shoes again. What do you think of his shoe selection? Yeah, so he'd brought speed shoes, hadn't he? But he hadn't brought them flat and big enough. So I guess I was maybe a little bit surprised about that because I feel like that's a common knowledge to know you want your foot nice and flat in the crack, especially for the thin stuff. But it was quite interesting when he got the burner out and started burning his shoes. To make them softer and more supple so he could fit his feet in the crack. Trying to climb this thin crack where putting the feet is so crucial. I feel like these shoes are slightly too small. My my toes are too bunched. So I want to heat the shoes up to make them feel bigger. And hopefully it will result in my toes being more straight. I don't think I've done it myself before. I've never seen that being done before. No, I haven't. That was new. Not even heard of it, actually. No, that was a brand new tactic. Are you going to take a stove out to Indian Creek next time? I mean, why not? Yeah. So how do you think he like the sentry box? Because initially we just got him doing there and back, I think, just to get the idea and show him the technique for sentry crack, because Adam is actually one of the very few people who said, yeah, I could be keen on sentry crack one day. What do you think to that? I think I told you ages ago I'd been at Kendall Film Festival and gone out in the evening. Yeah, the dinner with him. Yeah. And he said that he was really quite keen for it. And I couldn't believe it. How long ago is that? Seven or eight years ago. It's still cooking away in his mind. It's like a simmering, isn't it? It'll finish the Olympics. It'll finish Project Big. And then I think it's sentry. Project Big, Project Wide. Maybe that's where everything's leading. I think it's where everything's leading, yeah. Sentry. That could be maybe one of the biggest tics of the year. Andra climbing sentry? Yeah. I mean, it would be way better than all this nonsense with Burden of Dreams and it would be big. Do you think you could do it? I was actually a little bit surprised, and it made me realize like sentry crack is so specific. Like here we have the world's best climber who does dorm wall in a season, who's climbed 9C, who's competed at the Olympics, won world championships. And he's coming off sentry crack, saying his shins are pumped like after a few laps. And that actually did surprise me a little bit. And it made me realize the training for it is so, so specific. Just doing this hurts like hell now. But I think if he went away now, I think he knows. He knows like, OK, yeah, this is what I have to do. And I think he would do that. And then I think he would go and do it. I think he probably grasped on this trip that there was a very high degree of specificity for that thing. And he wouldn't go there just being 9B, 9C fit. Yeah. He would prepare on some form of simulator. I think he would. And he's grasped that concept hard now. I think so. Which most people do when they get on something and try and spend five minutes continuously on that size. And they realize that all other forms of climbing don't really set you up very well for it. And you can be brilliant at that, but not very good at the other stuff. I mean, the only repeat we've ever seen is from Danny Parker. And he trained on one for two years. Two years. Yeah, exactly the same as us. Yeah, it just it really reminded me that so different to normal forms of climbing. I've kind of forgotten. I just sort of thought like, ah, you know, you can just be a well-rounded climber, actually really strong. Some specificity is needed, I think. What did you think of when we introduced the O grades? I think he thought it was not brilliant, like not like not a good system. How do you feel about the O grading system? Do you think it's got potential? Honestly, I don't think so. I think by the end of the session, we'd warmed him into it a little bit. You know, I was going to say forced. I don't know if we forced him. I think he warmed into it, you know. Yeah, I do. Verified. Oh, zero. Yeah. Yeah. Like it will. The O grades will be passed to my son, maybe. Hopefully Hugo will watch it in ten years. I do. I think he came away thinking Project Big is O17 or something, O25. You think warmed? I think brainwashed. But you are right. He did probably come round to it. Yeah. And he was embracing the concept of the numbers. And he was coming back to us when we would ask about things. And even his camera crew. Yeah, they were. They were really embracing it, actually. And we're going to leave the final words down to Adam on the O grades. What's your final opinion? I say it's just not complete bullshit. Do you think he's carried it on, like into his other climbing? Or do you think he's actually kind of forgotten about it? I don't think he's forgotten about it. I think it's hard to forget a concept that strong. But I think it's hard to accept when something is so absolute and so truthful. It just just changes everything. If it wasn't him in the grade. So if it was like a Sharma grade. No, I don't think that's the issue for him. I think he wants small little increments between things. Yeah. Whereas there's so much in O0. Yeah. And so much in O1. It's just not enough separation with that. Because, I mean, it does range from five to nine O plus. When you put it like that, potentially just seems like it's a small flaw in it. What? No, I don't think there's a flaw in that. It can appear that way. It could appear that way. Yeah. Yeah. It all just has to change according to Adam publishing more on his O grades. I wonder if we'd get him to do that a little bit more. Just like, OK, I give this nine B, but this one also was an O4. Every single flipping post that he puts out from now forward, we comment on the post and say, what's the O grade? You know, the great thing about this, the grading system, I've just realized when I said that it covers everything. Nobody has to worry about, oh, what does 512 relate to in French grades? And what does French grades relate to in a bolder grade? And what does this B grade relate to in that? It's just, oh, across the board, boulders, alpine, trad, everything. Sport. It's just a universal reference system. And it's going to be so good when his son comes through. For the second generation. Yeah, that would be big. That will be big. We've had Ondra in the cellar, but recently we've also had Stefano and we've had the Bose, Will Bosey, three of the strongest climbers that there are on this planet right now in the cellar within the last year. Ondra is the king when it comes to the cellar. I think so. I think so. I was actually quite impressed with Stefano and Will when they went down there. I know Will said he got further on his link than he'd ever done before. It was funny, actually, because he came down the cellar and then went into Bernadine. So maybe that was the key session, you know? They do say those kind of things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The cellar's got a lot to answer for. Look at all of our massive boulder ticks off the back of huge boulder ticks. I mean, the sheep. No, I never did that. I got I got called out for French starting it. Oh, did you? Yeah, I did, yeah. I don't know. Well, that's it. That's all I can think of. So the paddles, that was the one he was most psyched about, I think. Like he was really keen to try the paddles, try out the technique, because at first we got him to do hands in the crack and feet in the crack. But then he had like a slight shoe problem. Yeah, he definitely had a bit of a setback in terms of confidence and knowing what he's going to be able to do because of the shoe choice and him realising he really was not going to be able to get his feet into the crack properly. And that's a significant disadvantage on that side if you try and climb it with hands in the crack and feet in the crack. But then you could see his eyes lit up a bit again. And the kind of the fire got going when we explained that actually the harder things on the paddle hand crack are involved around footholds and little mini bicycle clamps and toe hooks and things like that. And then he did seem to get quite psyched. I thought his start was slow on it, actually, and I was a little worried. But then he found his groove, didn't he? Yeah, he did. Yeah, he got into it. I mean, he could tell he was just such a good climber and such a good climber on just standing on normal footholds. The feet looked like they came totally naturally. It looked better than me and you on the feet on the footholds, which is not surprising. Well, I thought he did anyway. It's quite impressive as well. When he goes for red point burn on something, that switch that he does where it's like Adam version one and then literally like that. It's just a completely different climber. And I'd seen it a little bit on Ray's roof on the day before. But in the cellar for going for something that really was much more at his limit physically, it was impressive to see that switch go on and then see the watch the climbing that occurred when he got in that zone. Yeah, I think for me, that was like one thing that I learned from the cellar. It was like, oh, he is really actually making every single red point count. When he was going, he was going. And I think that was quite cool. I half thought that the interesting thing about that was that if like Adam, all of us, when we have a red point go put 100% effort into it. So you're trying to operate in the best version of you as a climber. Then if after you've done that for like 10 years, every single time, you're really practiced trying to put in very, very good efforts, because I know definitely in the past I put in half-assed efforts on red points because I thought, well, I probably won't do it today. I'm just not feeling great. So I've held back a little bit. But I think it'd be more interesting if I'd actually always gone in all in. And I think you can see why he's so effective now, because he's very, very well practiced at being in that zone. I think initially, well, a lot of the audience and people watching were thinking, get him on the project, get him on the big project. You know, starting at the back, coming around the pleasure lube, coming down the hard version of the boulder out some century laps. I mean, it's just freaking hard, that thing is so. And to do that in a session, learn all the moves, still be fresh to give it a red point, go quickly realize like, yeah, OK, that's probably not happening. Let's just get him doing a few sections. And then we went on the pleasure loop, got around the pleasure loop, and then he kind of set his own version. Oh, that was such a good session. We kind of took what we'd seen him excel on, which was putting your hands in the crack, but then combining all of his modern and advanced technique and how he uses his feet, his toes, clamps, etc. But then we brought that style of crack climbing to the pleasure loop. For me and you, we've almost got a little bit jaded in terms of how we felt, how like the seller could work. Fresh ideas. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah, it was really good. Nice to use your feet in a different way, but also still working on the hands in a similar crack climbing way. We set it at a standard that was just right for going and doing and trying that session. Yeah, it never got O confirmed. So he'll have to come back and confirm it. It's either O2 or beyond. I would imagine it would be an O2. I mean, there's prizes to be had. O2s, folks. O2s. They're out there. They are. Ondra came over. He came to the cellar. That was obviously the big reason of why he came to England. But then he also did tickle around on some other things, like he went to the school room and he went out on the grit. But when he did those things, he was an absolute weapon. He basically ticked the school room. A lot of the all's hard 8A, 8A plus 8B. And then he went outside on the grit. Careless talk. Bosch. Ace. Flash. The first 8B flash on grit. I mean, that's impressive. He was on form on that trip. It's like form. Cellar. The Ace. O0. Cellar pleasure loop with footholds. Unconfirmed. But at least O2. It's interesting. There's grades flying around, which are very... I think it changes the game a lot in terms of what we'll see the next generation of young professional climbers going after as the big goals. The Ace is dead in the water, really. I mean, you've got the Ace, you've got the warm up crack. What else? Heaven crack. Heaven crack. That's damage. Yeah, there's a whole load of things which are pretty straightforward in that category. Some of that stuff in the cellar is not sitting there. He was keen on the bridge roof cracks. I was amazed by that. The next day he was messaging us about bridge roof cracks. Yep. He was sending us photos of bridges in the Czech Republic. He was. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. We're not even making this up. This is this is legit. Genuinely true. This is very true. And it wasn't even prompted like us going. Can you send us some photos of bridge roof cracks in Czech Republic? We want to check them out. He was sending them to us. Yeah, he was sending them to us. Yeah, that's great. Absolutely fantastic. We planted the seed. The seed has firmly been planted. Very firmly. If we get a million subscribers, we'll kidnap Ondra. Ferry him down to Sentry. Stick him in the cellar first. And then you have got to rate Ondra out of ten on the following points for his visit. Attitude. Attitude. He has a solid attitude towards it, I think. Ten. I'd say a nine. I struggle to give tens. Number two. Lunch choice. Sweet potato and really salady things. It's not the Morrison's deli. It's not. It's not what I would pick. It's mid of the range for me. I'd pick a five just because I love the Morrison's deli. Yeah, I was going to say five. Selection of shoes. Shoe choice. I would say he was better than the average person coming down there with a shoe choice. He still made a slight mistake. Yeah, so I'd say a seven. What would you say? Below average for the people that come down there. I thought it was outrageous. Really? Yeah, he's a professional climber. He's climbed hundreds of cracks. Yeah. And he couldn't even think to turn up and pop a pair of shoes. How much psych? Yeah. I'd say Ondra brought psych to the cellar, as in the most any guest has had really down in the cellar. But I struggle to give tens, so a nine. Ten. Gift selection. You know what? The holds made the funnest problems we've done down there. It really did. Yeah. But I struggle to give tens, so I'm going to give a nine. Ten. Likelihood of a return. Maybe if he was passing. Very, very closely. And when you say closely, he'd be passing in the street, dropping off a parcel at someone else's house. I'd say eight. An eight? I'd say an eight. That's outrageous. Is that high? That's way too high. Is that high? Yes. I'm going to go with an eight. Because he could be in Sheffield again. I'm giving an eight. Can I not give an eight for that? Mid of the range then. Five. No, I can pick my own score. I'm giving an eight. Fine, a three. No, I'm sticking with eight. I'm sticking with my guns. I said, I said if he was passing the area close by, if he was dropping a parcel, like just down the road, that would be an eight. I think he would stop for a session. Two. Low balling. I mean, of the stuff we've done down there, he maybe did 20 or 30 percent. Is it a two or a three? I mean, that's harsh. Is it? It was a great success, but I don't know how to score it. I mean, it was a great success in what he tried. I think he just did score it. It was a three. I'm going on the side. I'm going on the side of 30 percent of the cellar being ticked. That's a really good score in one session. What are you going for? Ten. You're going to ten. Really high balled it. But we're right at the other ends of the scale there. I just see success in a completely different way. O grades were confirmed as being a legit grading system. He actually turned up as a whole package. Ondra in the cellar. Then it was a ten. Yeah, it was a dream come true for me. And I think that was one of my highlights of the day. I mean, Ondra always puts in 110 percent effort. And like we mentioned before, you can see that when he's going for his red point and the focus and the determination and actually like the happiness when he managed to get the paddle hand tick. Effort was good. Passion was high. So it's a nine. Four. Century. It just let the whole thing down at the end. Really? Yeah. So out of my waiting, five of it was allocated to Century and his effort on that. And then five of it was to the rest of the cellar. The project stuff, the hard things. So I thought he he basically got a solid four out of five on the others. OK, I feel bad. No, I feel bad. I feel bad. Five. So you give a one and a four. Out on the grit stone. I mean, he flashed the hardest ever grit flash that there's ever been. I'd say it was incredible. And flashing the ace as well. Yeah, it's kind of mind blowing, like flashing that thing. So we'll give ten to nine. Ten. Hairstyle. Hairstyle of Ondra. I don't even know what he does with his hair. No, I don't. Is that a thing everybody wants to know? It's like your hair, but darker brown. I guess so. A bit curly. Middle of the road. Five. I barely even noticed it. So I'm going to go for five. OK, folks, the Ondra series in the cellar is over. Firstly, massive thanks to Adam for actually making the trip, coming to the cellar. Adam, for us, it was total dream come true. Come down there. Climb with us. Do some crack climb. Yeah, just flipping awesome. Brilliant. Adam has a video from the Y-Boys in the cellar on his channel. Definitely worth a watch. So head over to the Ondra channel. We've got some really big, amazing collaborations coming up on the channel for the rest of the year. So if you are interested, subscribe for those. Tom, anything else to say? No. Over and out.