Daniel Woods - Will he adapt?

Sisu Masters 2016 series continues. Interview made together with Pure8a-blog. 31st of March 2016.

”How is it going Dave?”

“It’s going! I try to make a really long boulder, because I am not the strongest guy here and everybody else is doing some freaking 8C boulders!”

Then he grabbed few slopers and continued his routesetting.

Few moments later Daniel finished his boulder. Everything is good.

c Aki H.

But is it a good time for a little chat? 

Daniel came straight from Oliana, Spain, where he did, for example, Chris Sharma's Papichulo 9a+.

First impression about Daniel was that he is smiling all the time. It almost looked like he wanted to climb those boulders immediately. Even though we were just two crazy bloggers, he was more than willing to answer to our questions. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to ask all what we thought, like has he got any tips for climbers who are married, but we hope that we have a chance to talk with him today after the event.

Hi Daniel! People look super busy here. Everybody was holding their breath while you were trying your boulder, like “no he did not! He can’t do that!”

Will it go, is it possible (laugh!)

So, how would you describe your problem?

My boulder is like... I would say my style of climbing. It’s a very finger intensive, isolated power... There is really crouchy positions on bad holds, exploding out of them and jumping to next set of holds.

Very athlete, powerful, but still accurate.

Exactly. It resembles something you might see outdoors as well. But so far all the moves go, and it climbs really well. It’s a little sharp for the skin, but it’s a good challenge I think.

When did you arrive here?

I got in yesterday at around 3 P.M. and then we went to the gym and climbed for an hour and then went to dinner: reindeer meat with mashed potatoes berries on top! Pretty typical Finnish, but it was amazing! Then we went to sleep and now we are here.

You were in Oliana, right?

Yeah. I’ve been in Spain for a month, mostly climbing in Oliana and Margalef. Tried to get some endurance and assembled all the amazing test pieces.

At this point some guy wanted to take him for a coffee, but Daniel kindly promised to finish with us first.

Did you take something from Oliana for your boulder?

Yeah, maybe a little bit. I would say the style of this climb is kind of boulder problem what you could see on a route. Holds are not big, not slopey. It’s actually an anti-world cup problem. More based like hitting the holds precise and being able to squeeze them really hard and explode out of them and hold the tension.

Nice! With Jimmy we talked about beer, fishing, with Andy about abs...

Perfect!

With Ile how handsome he is... which one you wanna choose?(laugh!)  Do you go fishing?

Actually I don’t fish that much. I skateboard!

That’s better!

I skateboard a lot, listen to music, I like electronic and rap, beer... IPA is my favourite.

Have you tasted any Finnish beer so far?

I had one... ammm... Punk IPA, but I don’t know was it Finnish a not. We were in a pool hall. We played till 2 a.m. last night! It was good.

What classic Finnish beers should I try?

We forgot to anwer. Note: Laitilan Kukko maybe? It’s gluten free and everything…if it matters.

Who is gonna win? How hard are these problems?

That’s a good question... I don’t know. We can try these for a couple of hours so maybe I have a better understanding after that. It’s cool, because everybody put up boulder with their style so when you walk around you can see that Jimmy got this really powerful and dynamic test peace. Andy got this crazy technical, fingery test piece... Ile has this like... it looks like dynamic... matches... Mine is more like outdoor style... Nalle’s looks like it’s fingery and Dave got crazy toe hooks and crazy beta style.

Is this the hardest problem in the competition? Daniel on Nalle's boulder.

We all got different style and different set up. It’s all about how you can adapt to every style and that’ll be the person who will do well... this will be a funny test, because we’ll see who can climb each other’s styles or not (laugh!)

Is this your first time in Finland?

No, second time, but the first time was only for a couple of days. So I would say this is my first real time.

What did you learn about this country, or people...?

Ammm... I would say a good amount of blond people, who wear lot of black (laugh!) People seem psyched. I don’t know if this come off weird, but I’ve also been in Norway and Sweden... little similar but definitely got it differences. I find Finnish to be more... people are so happy, smiling, and they want to show us what they like to do every day, what are their favourite dishes they like to eat... no complaints!

Have you made any good friends?

.............

And that’s it. A guy yelled “Daniel! Let’s go!” They had to hurry to eat. Thanks Daniel for the chat, and good luck for today’s event!

PS. You can watch it live here from 17.55 p.m.