A common problem for novice climbers is the inability to focus on a move all the way until it is completed. I guess we are to used to climbing stairs and no longer see the use of looking as we step each step, after all they are all the same. This does not work however, when climbing. The problem is also that this is a hard lesson to teach, it has to be learned through experience. Telling somebody to focus on only the one thing, forsaking all other perspectives, still does not work. Focus still ends up on the hands and upwards in a matter of seconds. So practice, for hours and hours, to do nothing but look at your feet as you climb. Make sure that your eyes follow your every move, all the way until the move is completely finished and the foot fully weighted. Now this applies just as much to your hand moves, but this seems to be less hard to work in as a habit.
The novice climber also tends to rush towards the next hold (above). Speed is not important, for now. There is nothing to be gained (with regards to technique) by climbing fast. You normally would not fall because you are slow, you fall because you are sloppy with the moves and miss. As footholds get smaller and more slippery it gets more and more important to be precise in your foot placement. You simply cannot aim and send your foot off and hope for the best like in a game of dart. You need to look at your foot all the way, feel how the shoe and your toes interacts with the surface, how the contact surface responds as you weight the foot, feel the rubber contort around your foot and how your foot bends inside the shoe. You need to seriously take the time to absorb these impressions if you want to excel in climbing. A good measure of how well you focus on your foot moves is the sound it make as the foot hits the hold. The more sound and the sharper the sound, the less attention is given to the foot placement. This sound is directly proportional to your climbing skills as you start to climb.
Another beginner problem is that the climber gets stuck. The inability to move on with neither foot nor hand. All seem stuck and no next move is natural or even possible. This is not the first lesson to learn, but it is nice to know a little about this as you are bound to hit this problem over and over. Don't be afraid to get stuck, just learn how to deal with it. The solution is in your head, not in your arms or legs. Learn this routine: Every time you get stuck and can't progress, step off the wall and take a step back... take a hard look. Trace your movement from the ground to where you got stuck, imagine each move. Now rearrange your hand/foot placements in the crux (still in your mind), is there a hand/foot placement that would make the next move easier? Now trace (backwards if you please) the moves from the ground to the crux in a way that will result in the desired hand and foot placement at the crux. Then repeat that exact sequence of moves with your body as you climb, and simply climb passed the crux. In time you should learn to start with this visual observation and planning before starting to climb.
A common problem for novice climbers is the inability to focus on the feet as the means to propell the body upwards. Your arms may be strong, but your legs are definitely stronger. Your legs carry your weight all day and are used to this load. How many hours a day do you spend hanging from your arms? Using your legs to propagate upwards makes sense, it is totally natural, yet we fail to do so once we hit the wall. How do you climb stairs? what do you use your arms for then? How about when you climb a ladder? Still not hoisting your body by your arms? This logic should be applied to climbing as well, use your legs and (p)reserve your arms to keep balance and stick to the wall.
As mentioned earlier, looking before placing your feet is of course essential and so is observing until the move is completed. But there are also other considerations to be made. Remember the purpose of your feet, to push you upwards. Your foot placement have to be good enough to support your weight and the additional load created by you pushing of to reach the next hold. This requires you to actually think about the direction you want to push and how to place the foot to support that push in that direction. Should you step on the inside or backstep on the outside of your shoe? How does this foot placement dictate the direction your knee bends and is this useful for pushing off in the direction of the next hold? As you get more experienced you will tend to place the foot so that the shoe touches the hold close to the big toe regardless of how you step (inside, outside or head on).
As mentioned earlier, you should use your observational skills when you get stuck. This requires some experience and practice to get into your routine, but there is something you can do in the meantime. Every time you get stuck you should force yourself to look down, on your feet. The solution to getting on to the next hold is almost certain to be below rather than above. Don't reach, don't slap desperately for a hold you can't reach, just look down... the next hold is right there, hardly a foot away.
As stated in the Hands & Feet section, your legs are much stronger than your arms so use them as much as possible. Being aware of this all the way through your climb will help you conserve energy and endure more.
Your arm muscles are a weak point and we need to take care to spare them as much as possible. The ligaments in your arms are more resilient than your muscles. The muscles work by contracting so, when contracted you spend more energy. Naturally you should strive to bend them as little as possible. You can do this by keeping your arms more straight and bending your legs instead.
Adopting a style where you hang low, you can also change your motions to be more pendular fixed from your hand. This will result in a climbing style closer to a monkey swinging in the trees, they are masters at swinging on straight arms, conserving energy.
Your thumb is much stronger than all the other fingers. As with the legs vs arms, use this finger as much as possible. You can use your thumb by pinching, using your thumb in opposition even on holds that does not immediately appear to be pinch holds. You can use your thumb as the main finger on the hold, placing it first, taking as much place on the hold as required only to fill in with the remaining fingers as they may fit. You can place your thumb on most types of holds and then use your thumb as a hold for the rest of the fingers to form a crip type grasp on top of your thumb. You can use your thumb on top of a locked crimps, but you should do this as little as possible as it puts very large loads on your tendons in your fingers and may cause injuries.
The novice climber also tends to grab holds like you would the bars on a ladder: firmly wrapping the fingers all the way around the hold as if you were grabbing a stick. This gives a good feeling of control, but is costs a lot of energy and you will tire sooner than necessary. A full on grab gives control in all directions, but it is unlikely that you will slip off upwards and slam into the ceiling? Try to concentrate on countering gravity and not to squeeze the juice out of the holds. Just enough power may be to hard to dial in right now, but not ripping the holds off the wall should be feasible.
There is a school of climbing technique that encourages exaggerated dynamic motions between moves. This is done by using your legs to perform all the work for each move, trying to time it so that your motion comes to rest as you grab the next hold. This is like almost jumping between holds, but not quite taking off. This practice is very efficient with regards to usage of arm power, but the overall power usage is the same at best. As your legs are much stronger than your arms, this strategy makes good sense. The resulting climbing style however is very jerky and fluid motion is impossible this way. This climbing style feels and looks anything but nice, but it gets the job done. Are your arm strength so bad that you have to sacrifice the nice flowing climbing experience to make that tick?
A common problem for novice climbers is the inability to stay close to the wall. The point of being close to the wall is to position your weight above your feet so that they can bear the load as directly as possible. The further your center of gravity is from your feet (on the horizontal plane) the more force from gravity have to be handled by your arms. You will simply wear out more quickly and will not be able to complete as many moves or have reserves to get passed the crux.
By keeping your arms more straight and bending your legs instead you can better control your center of gravity. Adjusting your body position with your legs, hanging from your extended arms like a pendulum is significantly easier than standing upright and having to use arm to shift your body over your feet.
The novice climber also tends to desperately slap for the next hold and to jerk the body into the desired position for the next hold. When you can't calmly extend your arm towards the next hold and slowly grasp it controlled you should reconsider. Why is it that you feel the need to shift your body in a dynamic motion? You are simply out of balance and you should correct this before attempting the next move rather than doing it all at once. Shift your body so that your center of gravity is directly below your dominant hand hold and you may freely reposition the other hand. When in doubt slowly release or extend the hand you wish to move and observe how gravity pulls your body out of position. Now repeat the same motion, but before releasing the hand, shift the body just as gravity did before and then release the hand.
There will be situations where you will not be able to shift your center of gravity far enough to equalize the pull of gravity. When this happens there are some tricks you can use. You could stop gravitys pull on your body by pushing back. To be able to push back you need to place your foot beyond the equilibrium (the point where gravity is satisfied and your body comes to rest if nothing else stops it). By extending a foot on the far side, this foot will bear the residual load as you shift your body to get into balance. This foot does not need to be placed on a hold, it can simply rest against the wall. Ths load it will take is small and it does not matter if it slides a bit, the only thing that matters is that your body finds balance before you focus on the next move. Flagging can be done in both directions, with the flagging foot on the inside or the outside of your other foot. You can even do this same trick with your hand: instead of going for the next hold, place your hand in the wall to shift your body over controlled, then reposition and make the next move with your hand.
The use of your feet has been emphasised throughout, but what's the use if they just slip away beneath you? And this is usually the case, once you finally think you really got the message and climb well, you just slip off the foot holds. This is much more of a problem if you start climbing outdoors, but it applies just the same.
Them feet can be trusted, the only problem is that it takes faith, confidence... trust, for them to be trustworthy. If you know in your very core that the feet won't slip, this will change the way you use your feet and they will not slip. There is of course a bit more to it, but trust will take you a long way.
The rubber on your rock climbing shoes is actually extremely sticky and can in fact stick to incredibly miniscule holds. You should spend a lot of time exploring these limits, try to slip off rather than sticking. Depending on the hold / rock, you will find that it is actually harder to slip off than you might think. This is exactly what I am doing in the foot-button in my logo, I am standing on a "blank" wall, trying to slip... and failing miserably.
Every time you load a foot and it slips, try to think about how your body and your weight was positioned above that foot. Try to experiment with different positions and identify what it takes to actually stick, you can do a lot with positioning and shifting the weight. Once you identify the pattern and learn how to find the trust to stick on your holds, you are set!
Could it really be necessary to learn how to move? Actually, it is. If you watch small kids climb you see them naturally pull of crazy moves, they instinctively choose the right move to progress and pull some baffling betas like mantling on holds mid wall. The problem is that you got old and you have trained away your natural instinct of motion. This skill have to be re-trained and you need to reprogram how your brain handles obstacles.
Essential basic moves:
A network of climbing technique resources. Our mission is to help climbers truly embrace climbing technique and all it's rewards. Join in, consume, contribute and help raise the bar!
I started climbing late in life, but with a technical background and an analytical eye for perfection, my progress eventually overcame my age. It all came down to climbing technique.