In reply to paul mitchell:
The American clip is on Fat/steeped out plastic ice(low down a joy). The feel of the axe going in is a thunk or thwunk, a solid shudde comes down the axe. Its been climbed a lot. A mini bucket forms and the pick wont skitter or fly out. His technique has to be spot on to get up that on the technical stuff and he's obviously strong as an ox swinging in line, nose shaft axe head straight onto the target placement. Thwack thwack step step, triangulated. Cant afford to fall. Can hang around for a very long time if pushed probably down climb it too.
In clips out there where there's a fall, there's often multiple thwacks in brittle ice of two axes at the approx. same height or ice stress point and a horizontal fracture appears after dinner plating and your gone. ta ta. They're often tired and lost technique. So stay aerobic/breathing and think to guarantee that placement if its got that hard/serious as you'll be reducing lactic.
In your vid there's very cold brittle ice. It could dinner plate in sheets up to a metre, but seems well bonded. So when he thwacks at it above his head on the steep bit he needs to be strong technique( in line nose/handle/shaft/ v sharp pick/let axe head flick into ice to get a pick down capture) to control it and stop the axe head deflecting/skittering as that will tire/fatigue. Target practice visualising a bulls eye on critical placements helps you hit the point/be accurate/minimise effort, excavate the deeper pick placement. You should be able to comfortably hit 1,2 to rid/clear dinner plate and 3 or more times for the placement at the same point because you may have to clear crud or snow. On that ice and it will be more demanding and you could ping without bomber placements and it could take all day; or choose some of the easier featured ice to turn into the step/take effort off. He gets up some steep ice in line reaching past, but the bigger moves were a little under cooked- should be practiced as long reach pasts and need some rotation in the trunk and lock off of the lower arm, possibly, but when its very cold, its also very demanding. It may allow you to overflank an obstacle with reach, but be cautious because you will need to recover. Practice getting extra reach for the over/out of reach placement. eg going into winter at the wall or around the house, when theres no ice like now, using an hooking between overhanging rock or tree branches and going around a tree one side overhanging on branches and feet moving feet up and pulling in may replicate this in safety and is like intervals. Don't damage trees/grit though. Lovely things them.
I only saw the first two screws worth...but you don't get a good captain without sailing a stormy sea...either and 4 screws in 50m shows it was hard. eh.
Post edited at 13:17