These 3 Things Could Transform Your Climbing

Today we're going to show you why thinking like a route setter could transform your climbing. When creating a climb it's really useful for route setters to be able to use terms which allow them to talk about the aspects of challenge contained in their climbs and the movement styles with a great deal of specificity. These can be broken down into three key terms. Risk, complexity, and intensity. Now before we delve further into this let's define those terms. Let's start off with the most obvious to explain, intensity. This one is probably as simple as it gets. A boulder that is set to contain a high level of intensity essentially is one that requires more strength to complete moves and this can often be found on more basic board style climbing. The example I think of when I picture a climber who favours an intense climbing style is someone like Chris Sharma. He usually chooses to do a big powerful cut loose rather than a technical drop knee or a crazy coordination dyno. Our next term to define is complexity. A climb with a high level of complexity could mean it includes a long sequence with lots of steps to it or that the sequence requires some advanced climbing techniques or that the climber has to be extremely specific about how they perform the sequence. For me Adam Ondra would be an excellent example of a climber who excels in complexity. He was the one who found a knee bar near the top of the Olympic finals route when no one else did, meaning he managed to do something complex to avoid using intensity or risk. Complexity can be viewed as how detailed the climb is. Lastly let's talk about risk. Now risk is a key part of the new school style of setting often seen in comp sets and likens to a more gymnastic or parkour style. When we talk about risk we aren't talking about danger or risk of injury. Here we simply mean risk of not completing or sticking a move. Climbers who I look up to as being particularly skilled in a risky style of climbing are people like Janja Garnbret or Tamara Narasaki. They prefer using momentum and taking risk in the interest of avoiding doing something physically difficult or complex. Right so now we all know what those terms mean I've got a couple of really good activities that I like to go through with my students just to thoroughly explore those ideas and get us talking about it a lot more. So let's go and do the first activity. Hold on before we do that can we just do a Louis fit check? A fit check? Oh yes of course you can. I'm really enjoying this jumper. Oh are you really? How funny you mention it Sam. This jumper is part of our new classy line of merch so we've got like a nice little embroidered logo a nice subtle print on the back as well. Oh the hat as well the hat I'm also wearing a Catalyst hat maybe I don't know if you noticed the massive Catalyst logo right here. So oh yeah okay very quickly then folks before we get into it we've got a Christmas sale on at the moment and it's real good. Me Christmas Louis to tell you all about the Christmas sale. We've got some banger deals for you everybody. Number one I have created a series of downloadable training plans on a load of different topics. Each of those training plans comes with a detailed session plan. You've got loads of sessions to go through with loads of drills and exercises and projecting sessions and a detailed reference document, written explanations, video demos of all the exercises and I've got them on a whole bunch of different topics. There's some on dynamic movement, some on competition skills, footwork practice, a whole range of stuff. If you go to our website now they are 20% off until Boxing Day so even better deal I think for everybody. If you buy any of the embroidered t-shirts or any of the embroidered sweatshirts, a whole range of really nice colors they are really really swish, I will send you a free training plan of your choice. As if that all wasn't good enough everything else in the shop aside from the things I've just mentioned is going to be 15% off until Boxing Day including, very exciting, those limited edition ink t-shirts that we did a few months ago. Everyone loved them some of you didn't get one they're back, they're in the shop, they're 15% off but all of those deals that I described only available until Boxing Day so as of this video coming out you've got one week. So click the link in our description, head to our merch store, get yourself some nice t-shirts, some sweatshirts, get yourself a training plan. Happy Christmas everybody, back to the video let's go. Right activity one for exploring these terms understanding them a little bit better. This one is more fun with some friends. You can do it on your own but definitely get some friends for it, it's way more fun. Sam has agreed to be my lovely assistant for today. I will be your friend just for today. So for this exercise you are going to pretend to be boulder critics. So pretend you're being a food critic but for boulders. So we're going to review some boulders. I am going to prepare a menu of climbs for Sam. I know, delicious. I will choose only the finest vintages. I'm going to choose three climbs, they're all going to be the same grade and then Sam and I are going to go around and climb them together. As you can guess based on the theme of today's video they each represent different styles of climbing. Now Sam's task is to climb the boulders with me, actually not that easy because I've picked quite tricky ones, but we're going to try and climb the boulders together. I actually would say you don't need to complete the boulder to successfully do this exercise. The whole exercise is just about thinking about these ideas a little bit more. So thank god. If you don't manage to do the climb that's fine. I've given you a get out of it. Thanks man, appreciate it. So we're going to go around, we're going to do all the climbs together and then it's review time. Right Sam, boulder one from today's tasting menu. Okay. They're all v4, it's a v4 tasting menu. I've chosen this green boulder for you. Okay. I'm not going to give any hints or anything. I'll climb it with you but I'm not going to say any of my thoughts about what style we're looking at here. My warm-up is holding the camera. Yeah I know, you're very warmed up now. Great start. Come on. Yeah man, let's go. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. Oh, that one. Yeah. That makes more sense. I didn't say anything. Boulder two of our v4 tasting menu for Sam. We're going to be looking at this blue guy. Okay. On the slab here. The main meal. You could say. I don't think this might be the course I find the most delicious. I enjoy this boulder. But I feel like that's already giving hints. It is. So I'll shut up, you give me the camera. There you go. Yeah. I see. Go on. Okay. Oh, good effort. Yeah man. Hard to stop. Yeah. In the right position. Yeah. Keep trying it. Yeah. Okay. Where is it? There it is. Whoa. Well held. Go for it. Go for the crimp. Go on. Yeah. Hand over the top. Little finger. What a finish. Okay. Our final boulder on the v4 tasting menu. Okay. This red climb, which Sam is thrilled about. Can't wait to climb this. If you could design a boulder that would likely be one of my least favorite styles, it would be this. Holds in a vertical orientation, in a vertical line. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Yeah. We'll talk about how you're feeling about it later. Yeah. Yeah. Go on Sam. Good effort. Yeah. Go on Sam. So good. Oh, very fancy. Come on. So good. Come on man. Yes, Sam. Doing it so well as well. Go on. Nice t-shirt by the way. Where'd you get that? Oh, this one? Yeah. This is the embroidered classy merch. I heard something about that earlier in the video. If you want it. Yeah. Christmas sale. Oh really? In a bundle. Will I get as strong as you? No, but you'll look good. Oh, what fun. What a nice menu. It was nice. It was a delicious tasting menu. I'm full. I'm definitely full. No more. No more please. I love the food critic analogy. It's so much fun. You make so many different jokes. Okay. So Sam has now had a taste of all the boulders and it's time for us to review them. So the way this is going to work, and you can do this with your friends, if you're doing this exercise yourself, we're going to go three, two, one, point to the boulder you thought was the riskiest. Then we'll point to the most intense and point to the kind that felt the most complex. Should we do intensity first? Sure. Okay. Uh, point to the most intense. Three, two, one. Please point that way. Yeah. Great. Okay. Uh, let's do risky next. Oh, easy. I think so. Okay. Yeah. Three, two, one. Yes. Yeah. Obviously. I thought that was such a perfect example of, it was, you fell off it a bunch of times and then when you did the move correctly, you're like, actually not that hard. So true actually. Yeah. Okay. So for me, that's a perfect example of a risky boulder or a risky move on a boulder. And so, okay, well that makes things really easy. Yeah. Point to the most complex Sam. Three, two, one. Yes. Okay. Intended. Intended sequence. Yeah. Um, oh man, I wish next to the grade tag of every climb, there was a little note that said risk high or low, whatever it might be intensity, high or low, whatever complexity, medium to high, whatever it might be. Cause it almost tells you how you're supposed to engage with the climbs. Like for example, this blue one, if you were falling off it a few times and you thought, Oh God damn it. I normally like flash before, but I've fallen off this a bunch of times. And then you looked at the tag said intensity, low complexity, low risk, high. What might you think? I might think, oh, it's, you're supposed to kind of fall off it because it's risky. Yeah. I might fall off it a bunch of times in the process of learning how to do the move. It's supposed to be a risky move. Okay. Um, Oh, okay. Maybe a really good example. Okay. Yeah. If let's say you did that red climb and you were like, Oh my God, I feel like I'm pulling so hard. Or maybe you were like getting near the top and running out of strength. Yeah. And then you looked at the tag and it said intensity, low complexity, high. What would you think? I'd go down and feel very confused because I'd be like, I'm pulling so hard. That must mean there's a different way of doing it. Bingo. Yes. So I think kind of what we're saying is if I can see roughly the intention of the route setter and I understand a little bit about the style of challenge that I'm up against, it gives me clearer expectations of how I'm supposed to engage with the client. Kind of illustrates the lack of nuance in grading, right? Because we've just completed three climbs at the same grade, the exact same grade, but the way that client, but they're completely different. Yeah. If I said we're going to do three V fours. Oh, cool. Yeah. Then if I said, oh, we're going to do a risky V4, a complex V4 and an intense V4. Ah, what a varied tasting menu. So much more nuanced. Yes. Okay, cool. Now let's go for what I think is one of the most interesting parts of this. We can also use these terms to describe our preferences as climbers, right? So, okay. Easy. Did you have any preferences of the three climbs we just did? Which one felt the easiest to you? The green. Which one felt the hardest? The red. Which one felt the mediumest? Oh yeah, I guess. I guess so. Yeah. Okay. Do you agree or not? Oh, no, completely. I thought that's what it looked like to you. And that's kind of what I was expecting. But do you agree for yourself as well? Um, yeah, I would actually also agree for myself. I think we've got a relatively similar style of climbing, but let's go into that because that's exactly what I mean by this. I think a lot of climbers, and this is also where we get on some of my mindset stuff. You know, I love talking about language and mindset. A lot of climbers. Oh, okay. Yeah. Incredibly relevant one. They'll come to lessons with me specifically saying, they'll come to us and say, I am a static climber. I can't do dinos. Teach me. Yeah. Very classic phrase. Or I would, I would used to say, I'd say, I am a really bad slab climber. Um, I'm just bad at slabs. And when I talk that way, it sounds permanent and it can't be fixed when obviously we practice and we get better at this stuff. But I, I was not practicing it because I told myself I'm just permanently a bad slab climber. Or I was other students not doing dinos because they'd already told themselves, I'm just a static climber. I think a much more growth mindset way of talking about this would be, okay, instead of me saying I am a bad slab climber, I could say I'm way more familiar with intense and risky climbing styles. And I haven't practiced complex climbing styles as much. So I often find slab climbs a little bit trickier. That is actually, I'd say truer than me saying I am a bad slab climber, but I'm a bad slab climber doesn't actually give me much information. If you what would you say? Let's see it in the chat. Um, what would you say, Sam? How are we scoring this? Uh, why don't you score yourself out of 10? So risk I think would be middle five. I think I don't, I don't hate it. I don't love it. I think you're pretty decent. I think I'm okay at it. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of room as well. I want to like reflect that in my score as well. Good complexity. Less so. Yeah. I would say three. Yeah. It's something that I don't particularly that. I mean, if we take that red, we know I didn't enjoy it. Yeah. It being low reflects me not enjoying it. And then me also being a lot of room for improvement. I think I'm sure this is the same for everybody. Those two things are like incredibly closely tied together. I think the opposite could be said for intensity, which for me, I think it's like a nine. Yes. I would agree. Yes. Sam strong boy. Well, I also think one of my superpowers in climbing is just trying hard. Yeah. I didn't really realize it was a superpower until I talked to people and they were like, oh, one of my weaknesses or something I struggle with is trying hard. And I'm like, oh, that's something I do not struggle with. And I really enjoy. So I think my school, yeah, it would definitely be a nine. I might have fairly similar to you. I really, so I would maybe give myself like a 10 for risk. Yeah. Maybe like a seven or an eight for intensity. Yeah. I'm complex, but it's definitely not like my preferred style. And I've got the least familiarity with it. So I might say like a five. Really? I think maybe it should be higher. Yeah, exactly. I knew maybe at one point it was a five. Yes. Yeah. But maybe, you know, maybe, maybe maybe a six or a seven. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's very nice. Thank you. I think it's true. But the final piece of this puzzle, I think, is to look at how we have clear choices on every time we do. And those choices are still related to the different terms that we've learned. Yeah. So really fun activity. I'm going to pick a much easier climb, specific wild ones. I say, okay, Sam, I'm going to give you as much time as you want. You need to get on this easy climb and you need to work out three distinct sequences for me. I know where you can see what's going. Yeah. One of those sequences should demonstrate a clear focus on risk, one on the intensity, one on complexity. When Sam's ready, he'll go, okay, Louis, watch this. And he will demonstrate his three sequences. I then do my best to guess which sequence is which. And if I can guess correctly, Sam has done a good job. All right. Should we do it? Let's do it. This sounds good. So Sam has prepared three sequences for us to have a look at on this white climb. Don't tell us which one is which as you do it. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. Cool. So Sam, show us sequence one. Go on, Sam. I wonder what this is. Beautiful. Okay. I'm going to keep my guess to myself because who knows, maybe I'll see some different stuff on the other two sequences. Go on. Yeah. Okay. Any ideas on that one? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty clear ideas on what you're doing there. Okay. Oh, lovely. Really nice, Sam. My answers for what you're doing there, I thought it was really clear. Sequence one was the risk sequence. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Wasn't sure about that until I saw the second lap. I was like, oh, it could be risky. He is doing some relatively intense stuff here. It's definitely not complex. Then I saw sequence two. I was like, okay, well, this is the intensity lap because he's basically climbing it like a gorilla. Perfect. Well done, Sam. And then that made it pretty obvious for the third one. It was definitely the complexity lap. You were doing some toe hooks, you were doing some drop knees, you were doing some heel hooks. Very, very fancy detailed stuff. So let me know if your guesses matched mine. And if not, start some arguments in the chat. All right, there we go, folks. That is the end of the video. Thank you so much for staying with us and learning loads of cool things. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you, Sam, for being such an excellent student. You enjoy it? No. No. As always, did you have fun? I did. Yeah. Not under pressure to say that at all. What would you say your main takeaways are from this? Because I've got some wrap-up points that I wanted to make. What do you want to say? I think if your aim is to be overall better at climbing and improve your climbing generally, then having preferences is probably quite inefficient. Oh, man, you took the words out of my mouth. Yeah. No, that's exactly what I was going to wrap up on. I was just going to say if you can iron them out a bit, you'll become a better climber, I think. Perfect. Okay, you did the outro for me. So yeah, exactly as Sam says, folks. Well done, having preferences as to how you'd like to climb things is inherently inefficient. Yeah, obviously, it's natural for us all to have preferences of a certain style that we like to have. Like I, as I said earlier, prefer to do something risky or intense to avoid doing something complex. And now there are lots of climbs where my preferences might fit the climb I'm doing. If I get on paddle dynos or muscly boulders, great, I feel comfortable. I'm making choices based on my preferences, which fit the climb I'm doing. But then if I start trying to do really intense, risky stuff, when I'm supposed to be doing something complex, well, now I'm just choosing to do harder moves based on my own preferences. So exactly as Sam says, think about what your preferences are and smooth out those preferences with some diligent practice. So the very last thing before we let you go, if you think Sam and I look extraordinarily sexy right now, which we do, you've got the sexy black t-shirt, I've got the sexy teal t-shirt. All the colours are very sexy. It's Christmas. Everybody's sexy. So if you want to, if you want to look sexy and gorgeous like me and Sam and get very strong and smart like me and Sam, get yourself one of those Christmas bundles. Look in the description. There'll be a link to the Catalyst web shop. Is that what we call it? Web shop? I don't think so. No, no, no. I've never heard that before. So check in the description. There'll be a link to the merch store. Have a look. Get yourself a Christmas bundle. Happy Christmas, everybody. And we'll see you in the next video. Bye everyone. Bye bye. Well done, Sam. You're excellent. Smart and beautiful.