As many of you will know from Instagram, Matt Mendes has just climbed Realm of Tor’ment at Raven Tor, taking his hardest boulder from V15/8C to V17/9A. Matt doesn't post constantly to Instagram or anywhere else, so we had his coach Tom grab him for 20 mins after the day of his ascent to get a bif of the goss…

You can watch the video here on our youtube channel (unlisted)

Tom: Lots of people won't have been to Raven Tor (possibly, lucky them!) and seen the might of the UK lime. Can you explain what Realm of Tor’ment involves?

Matt: Most of the difficulty is in the last three moves, and most of that is in the second-to-last move. It's a big throw off a poor undercut to a really specific three-finger edge. On its own that's roughly an 8B or 8B+ single move - Will reckoned it could be 8B+. It's probably harder than anything I've done at the School Room. It might be the hardest move I've done full stop, on a board or outside.

Tom: When did you first try it, and what did the process look like?

Matt: I started trying it around April this year. It went fairly well at first. Within a few sessions I'd linked from the start up to the crux and had that pretty solid, but the crux itself just wasn't going. It took somewhere between six and eight sessions to actually do the move and link through to the top, and the rest were spent trying to send. All in, it was around 10 to 15 sessions. Even after doing the crux it was still hard. That's only part of it, despite it being the main thing that you have to unlock to do the problem.

Tom: Beyond putting the sessions in, was there anything that made that crux move happen?

Matt: That move was weird. Getting the distance wasn't the issue, and after a while accuracy wasn't either. The hard part was actually activating on the hold when I hit it, rather than just slapping the wall. That was a whole thing to learn, and I'd never really experienced that on a boulder before. I had to consciously make myself close my hand on the hold, otherwise I had no chance.

Tom: Your progression has been incredibly quick. Looking back over the last few years, what's made the biggest difference in your sessions?

Matt: Probably putting as much effort as possible into everything and not doing things half-heartedly. Quite often people will do their training but think, "I don't really feel like this, so I'll do it but not put my all in." You don't get much from that. You need to really try to make it worthwhile.

Tom: What's the biggest misconception people have about you as a climber?

Matt: Because I don't post everything, it probably looks like I just turn up and do things. That's really not the case! There's a lot more effort going in than people assume. With Realm, from the one post I put out it might look like I turned up one day and did it. Really, I'd been trying it since earlier in the year and nearly had to leave it until next year because it was going to get wet. There's just no way of getting it easy and the hard work has to go on behind the scenes.

Tom: How important is it to try things that feel really ambitious? Things that might be outside of your grade range?

Matt: It was ambitious for sure, but it's fun putting yourself out there. You have to push yourself to try something outside what you'd consider your range, and put in a lot more effort to do it. That makes it a more interesting process, because you're discovering what you can physically do. I think people hold themselves back a bit. It's always worth trying something even if it seems too hard at first. People would be surprised how much they can do given some commitment and time.

Tom: What's the Sheffield training scene like? Does it help you at all?

Matt: It's a great training scene. The best way to describe it is pure psych. When you get a good group in on the day, with loads of people who are keen and want to try hard, it's the most motivating thing you can have. You're always in that "go on, one more go" situation, and you end up trying harder than you would on your own. The School Room's open 24 hours as well, so sessions can run pretty late.

Tom: Now Realm's done, do you think you can go harder?

Matt: I'd like to think I can go a bit harder. We'll see. You can always put more sessions into something. I put 10 to 15 into Realm, and you could put a lot more than that into something else. Only time will tell.

Tom: So what's next?

Matt: I think I'll keep away from Raven Tor for a little while. It's time to go somewhere else, and the Lakes and Wales would be great. Trying Spots of Time would be amazing. That's probably next on my list. I haven't been on it yet, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Tom: You've also been filming this summer. What can people expect?

Matt: I'm working on a longer-form film with Sam about my whole year, including the training in the middle of it and a bit of everything I've been up to. It's a way to push myself out there a bit more and show people who I am. Realm is the main theme since it was my big project for the year, but there'll be lots of other stuff in there too. We haven't decided where it'll be released yet, but I'll definitely be posting about it when it's coming up.

Photo Credit: @samdj_