http://www.pleated-jeans.com/2012/12/07/20-images-that-defy-the-laws-of-physics/
I’m talking about the gif about halfway down the page, before “like a boss”. It shows a man rock climbing, unable to reach a higher grip, flipping his body 180° until he ends up “sitting” on one hand with his back to the wall.
Is this trick useful, or just fancy?
It looks to me, in the final moment, he was really just reaching from the lower handhold to the upper one, which he could have done without flipping around. He was just going for the flashier move because he knew he could do it; he could just as easily have planted his right foot in the window-slit to the right.
It’s been years since I climbed and that was primarily alpine, but I learned the basics of rock. I vote for fancy. Yeah, it’s a solution but I think a more traditional mantling move would have worked just as well.
It’s a bit fancy, but the move gets his center of mass higher than where he started. When you have limited holds you sometimes have to contort your body because you can’t release the one good hold you have that’s in the right place. But it’s a pretty flashy move, probably intended to look good more than to achieve a specific goal.
Nah. He’s just showing off. I’d guess, if we could see the bottom of that wall there’d be a batch of tourists he’s hoping to get some generous tips from.
Or, based on me and my friends of many years ago, there’s a bunch of pretty young girls down there he’s hoping for a different kind of tip from.