Climbing
Climbing’s all about staying in touch with the rock – until it’s time to leap to your next hold.
Adventure sports like climbing are full of all sorts of insider lingo – trying to listen to seasoned climbers discuss the various features of a route might leave a layman wondering what language they're speaking.
Rather than give you an entire vocabulary lesson, today we'd like to teach one word, albeit an important one: 'dyno'.
A 'dyno' is when the climber makes a dynamic movement that uses momentum to get to the next hold. It's not a controlled reach or a stretch – and once you go for it, you're committed. Now's a good time to watch the video above.
How do you learn how to do dynos? By doing dynos
To stick a big or difficult move successfully requires power, precision, control and incredible core strength – not to mention the ability to throw caution to the wind and, you know, jump.
One of the biggest challenges is holding on after you've made contact. While a climber may get to the next hold, the extra momentum created by the climber's mass moving in another direction means they need to grip with even greater strength.
And what happens when you don't jump high enough, far enough – or simply can't hold on? You fall – easy as that.
Alex Megos holds on tight in California
While dynos certainly occur in outdoor climbing, the most spectacular ones seem to be those designed into artificial courses during climbing competition.
With a well-padded mat to fall on, climbers can really go for it. And they do, meaning there are lots of 'aerial dynos', where the climber leaves the wall completely while transitioning from one hold to the next.
That's what let the guys at Louder than Eleven put together this footage above featuring climbers Jon Cardwell, Alex Puccio, Chris Sharma, and Sean McColl among others.
Love this stuff? Check out David Lama's first ascent in a sinkhole in Lebanon – or Megos tackling boulder project 'Lucid Dreaming' in California.