BAFFLE DAYS - Australian Climbing

Buster Martin is a top level British climber, coach and all round nice guy. We talk to him about his recent ascent of Action Directe, his finger injury recovery, getting strong on pockets and creating a climbing coaching business which allows him to climb and work all around the world.

A totally great chat with adventure photographer Krystal Wright. She's been to 50+ countries, taken photos of just about everything, telling a stories through the image. We dig into becoming a photographer, sharing work online, finding creative inspiration, living on the road, work vs creativity, looking for new angles at familiar locations and much more.

We love Steve's ability to boil down the science to lay terms and give practical advice on how to apply it in life. To us, that’s the hallmark of a great coach.

Steve’s new book Mettle was the catalyst for this chat. The book digs into the philosophical side of climbing and those softer skills which are so easily forgotten or overshadowed by going hard on strength.

Maddy Cope is a UK climber, Lattice Training coach and self professed menstrual cycle enthusiast. We chat about her climbing, training, headspace and take a deep dive into the menstrual cycle and how you can navigate your climbing life with it.

Ollie Torr is one of the founders of Lattice Training, a Sheffield based training and research company. Perhaps best known for their research and accumulation of testing data to help predict performance. In doing so, they have helped answer the big question in climbing. How strong do I need to be?

In this episode however, we don't get buried in the weeds of numbers and energy systems, rather, we dig into the real-life side of climbing. We get into mental fatigue, the benefits of having a team around you, being kind to yourself, a little about testing and much much more.

It was a total pleasure to talk with Ollie and we can't wait to catch up again.

We chat with Oceana about her experience climbing at the Olympic games as well as her life leading up to qualification.

The climbers' Olympics! Tom O'Halloran was the first Australian male to represent Australia at the Olympics for Sport Climbing. His partner Amanda Watts helped him get there. In this episode, Tom and Amanda are joined by their good mate, John 'Sherro' Sheridan to help them tell the story from qualification to Tokyo.

Dave Jones, what is there to say other than legend! He was at the forefront of hard Australian climbing in the 90’s and early 2000’s. He established and repeated many of the hardest routes and boulders in The Grampians and Arapiles in this time. He wasn’t just a one trick pony of hard edge pulling though, his list of scary trad lines is up there as well. His ground up first ascent of Shai-Hulud, 25X is a stand out of complete mind control. Those unfamiliar with the route, it’s 45m of vertical and overhung sandpit climbing on Taipan wall. You don’t see many climbers these days as well rounded as Dave.

What does the inside of the indoor climbing gym scene look like? We sit down with Pat Banda and Dan Gordon and discuss setting, building culture, creativity, holds and much much more. Pat and Dan are head setters with Urban Climb, perhaps the biggest climb gym business in Australia. They know what's what. It's a super interesting insight to a world we really only see the top layer of.

Where is the line drawn between a clever tactic and cheating? The evolution of climbing tactics and trickery is constantly evolving, generation to generation. When has it gone too far though? In this episode Helen Day and Lee Cujes join Tom and Amanda to discuss s few current trends and where the line is for us.