  We analyse semiclassical strings in AdS in the limit of one large spin. In
this limit, classical string dynamics is described by a finite number of
collective coordinates corresponding to spikes or cusps of the string. The
semiclassical spectrum consists of two branches of excitations corresponding to
"large" and "small" spikes respectively. We propose that these states are dual
to the excitations known as large and small holes in the spin chain description
of N=4 SUSY Yang-Mills. The dynamics of large spikes in classical string theory
can be mapped to that of a classical spin chain of fixed length. In turn, small
spikes correspond to classical solitons propagating on the background formed by
the large spikes. We derive the dispersion relation for these excitations
directly in the finite gap formalism.
