La Grande Marche 7a+

Hey - has anybody a good advice for the first move? I sorted out the rest of the boulder, but I could not work out the first move properly. I had sooo many tries and sometimes I made the first move nearly perfectly and then I could not repeat it for another 20 goes... I left quite sad with bleeding fingers and still dont get, what I have to change. I am 1.71 tall and started with both hands low in the middle.
Thanx

For my part, it was a thing to understand how to hold the crack, it's like a jamming thing. I did not start as everyone tho because I did started with a right hell hook to go to the crack as I was short to do the "original beta" :) Hope it could help!

Hiya Elin, yeah! this move is brutal, but there are a couple of techniques that I found to work. I'm a bit shorter than you, so this is hypothetical, could you use a right heel hook on the right hand flake. I found this made the first move fairly solid, but I was still too short to reach the hold. In the end I used brute force and did man-beta, but the placement of the right foot was still critical!

Oh thanks for your answers - I could work out the jam and finish the boulder up from the jam, but didn't get enough time to sort my hand right with the normal mens beta. I was a bit frustrated, because my partner (about 1.85) did this move so easily (and he's not stronger than me ;-)) - so it depends on height a lot right?
A heel hook right could help to stabilize... good idea.
Thanks a lot...
And thanx for all your hard work in the forest.

Hiya Elin, I am 170cm, and I used the right heel hook beta. I just uploaded a video that misses the sit, and has my kids screaming in the background :-), but it shows the heel hook beta that Helen is talking about. I hope this helps ...

Hi Caroline - thanks for the video. So great to see bouldering-success after having a baby... :-)
I will try out to use this heel hook for the first move into the crack... up from there I didn't need it, but in the video it looked like it makes the second move a bit more stable aswell.
Can't wait to be back.
Thanks a lot

I know I'm really late with this but for the first move it helped me a lot to sit really low under that starting flake (more a lying start than a sit start really 😅), I'm putting my left foot on the good foothold under the right hand and flag the right outwards.
When my left hand is in the crack I sort my left foot to the left and put in the right heelhook for the rest of the roof 😊
Not sure if you're still on it Elin, but maybe this helps other people too

Such a cool beta Magdalena...

And your video is not too late :-)
I will try out, if it works for me. I hope, that better skin will make a difference too.

Thanks a lot.