1. Body Hardware
No matter how many pieces of protection you may have, you may still have to improvise to find holds and support on the route. Our human body is an amazingly constructed thing. The various parts of the human body provide regions of varying dimensions that will meet the size of cracks in the rock. To jam is a technique that puts an item of slightly smaller size into a crack in the rock that can then serve as a hold for moving up the rock face. Without any pieces of protection on your rack, your body in general will provide you with enough hardware to scale a rock face. Jamming will work with just about any body part: with fingers, hands, arms, legs and even the whole body.
2. Chest and Shoulder Jamming
Body jamming between rock faces is the best choice for chimney climbing. A jam is the process of using opposition forces to work your way up the rock chimney with no real lack of protection on the way. Your shoulders and chest are perfect for jamming into a crack after you have exhaled and then serving as a hold when you breathe in. A series of inhales and exhales will slowly work a climber up the face of a chimney. The series of movements release the hold when the climber lets out his breath and then sets the hold when he breathes in again.
3. Hands and Feet Jamming
Reaching up into a crack with your hand parallel to it can serve as a very strong hold if you were to turn the palm to be parallel to the ground. The hand slips into the crack and then turns to be a perfect wedge jam. This will be a firm enough hold to pull yourself up and then shove the other hand into the crack above the present hand. As you continue to work your way up, you may come to an area where turning your foot sideways will allow you to slip it into the crack. The rotation of the foot and shoe in the crack will wedge your foot forming a perfect hold or foot hold. As the cracks change size, you can use whatever part of your body to fit the gap in the rock. The name of the game is to make it to the top.



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