It’s tactics season, which means I’m spending a wild amount of time thinking and rethinking the tactical approach to climbing. While I’m driving, doing Turkish Getups, in the shower, and when I should be responding to emails.

Last week, I realized I hadn’t answered an important question:

What is the goal of approaching a climb tactically?
Is it to climb it better or to climb it faster?

It seems simple, but I had to do some mental gymnastics to sort out what I believe is the answer. So as I’ve done quite a bit recently, I sat down in front of a microphone and recorded a stream of thought episode for the patrons — a “Connect the Dots Freestyle” episode.‍ ‍

While talking it out (and through some conversation in the comments afterward — thanks JPC for the thought provoking questions), I realized that the answer is closely connected to a different climbing improvement debate: practice vs. performance.

But first, the answer itself:

The goal should be to climb the thing sooner, not better.

I know some of you just scoffed. Good. I hope you did. I essentially did the same to myself when I considered this answer.

“Of course you want to climb it better! That will actually lead to climbing it sooner!”

Well, yes and no. I’ve seen enough people take the concept of climbing it better to an extreme to know that isn’t always the case. From my perspective, it’s one of the biggest mistakes climbers make when projecting. They find a comfortable process that gets them to a point where falling is unlikely, and then they give a redpoint attempt. They send, then repeat on the next route.

And they never challenge their comfort level within their process. If that first route took 2 sessions of toproping before being ready to go bolt to bolt for 2 sessions, then that becomes the pattern for nearly every route thereafter.

But they could have done most of those routes faster. Which means doing more routes. Which means increasing their adaptability. Which means becoming a better climber.

“But, but…. sometimes you have to make a section better to be able to send.”

Exactly. If the goal is to send (performance), then you only need to make a section better if it’s in service of the send. If the goal is not to send, but to improve your climbing in some way (practice), then by all means, work that section for as long as you want to.

“Can’t you just do both?”

Not really. If you’re in the performance process, then making a section better than it needs to be is simply an inefficient process. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true.

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t try to make things better?”

No. There’s an easy solution to this. If you haven’t done the climb before, try to send as soon as possible. Regularly test your readiness by giving high point attempts. You may discover that even though you could still further iron out those three sections, you didn’t need to. Or you may find that you thought you were ready to send, but you weren’t even close. Approach it like a scientist, and look at each attempt as data. Gathering that data will help you streamline your process in the future. Then once you’ve sent, feel entirely free to go back and make it better.

If you don’t like that idea, it’s likely you were lingering not because you wanted to make the climbing better, but because you didn’t want to leave your comfort zone.

Essentially, if you are performing, tactics should always be in service of sending sooner.

The problem is that the “practice and performance of climbing” Venn Diagram is wildly overlapping.

We want to climb well, and that can easily morph into practice.
We also want to send, even when we’re practicing, and that quickly takes on all the characteristics of performance.

Particularly in this world where seasonality has been passed over in favor of trying to always be training, always be sending, and always be improving, that Venn Diagram might just be a single circle. I don’t think it should be.

“So does it even matter?”

I think it does. What we choose will shift the timeline of our improvement. If we can somehow keep the two separate more often, we stand to make progress faster.

If we practice on the moves that we can actually gain something from rather than doing the 15 other moves over and over while chasing a send, our practice is more efficient.
If we send on our third session instead of our fifth session, simply because we didn’t spend unnecessary time dialing in a sequence we could fight through the one time we need, then our performance process becomes more efficient.

It may only be a few percentage points better than the blended practice and performance model that most of us default to, but it’s certainly better.

So step one, before applying any other tactic, should always be to make a decision before leaving the ground.

Is this performance, or is this practice?

Learn. Grow. Excel.

– Kris

Related Things to Stay Current:

• Just yesterday I dropped a new conversation with Juliet Hammer onto the podcast feed. I knew that I needed to stress test my thoughts on grades with someone who doesn’t fit right into the middle of “average size”. Juliet has been doing her own experiments on grades as well, and has a fantastic approach. Listen to the entire episode on the pod, and shorter YouTube videos will be coming soon.

• Those shorter videos with Juliet will make it onto my “A Better Way To Look At Climbing Grades” video playlist. Check it out if you haven’t.

• I recently put out a video detailing what I believe is the simplest way to keep improving at climbing. Three sessions you can cycle through that will cover all the bases. I’ll be dropping a more detailed video for each of the three sessions soon.

• Season 3 of Written in Stone will be kicking off soon. We’re diving into the history of bouldering. Subscribe if you haven’t!

• I recently moved our first 100 patron only episodes into a FREE membership tier. No strings attached. Once you’re in, go to the “Collections” section and you’ll find a free bonus episode collection so that you don’t have to scroll back. If you’re on Spotify, you can connect your account and they’ll show up there as well.

• Don’t forget! If you aren’t on the email list for THE CURRENT, you won’t get the email next month. Make sure you’re subscribed HERE.

Like it or not, grades are a part of climbing, and I've recently been exploring how to have a good relationship with them. In that exploration, I've decided on a range that I believe any given grade represents. But to stress test that range, I wanted to talk to someone who is an above average climber with an above average resume, spends a considerable amount of time thinking about this subject, AND who ISN’T the height of an average male like I am. 

One person really stood above the others – pun intended. Juliet Hammer. She’s a coach, crusher, has been doing experiments concerning indoor grades and working on a resource for how to engage with grades.

And she’s just shy of 5 feet tall. Perfect. 

My entire playlist of recent grade exploration videos.

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Last week when working on a beautiful boulder in a new area that I discovered, I realized a key piece of the foundations of climbing tactics that I’ve been trying to uncover.

On my first day trying it, I sorted out the heady topout on wind polished granite above a jumbled landing and then got to work on what I knew would be the hardest section. There’s an obvious sit start, and pulling on is easy, but then every subsequent move is complicated and difficult until you’re at the obvious good hold where the stand begins. Out of 6 hand moves and 6 foot moves that get you to that good rail, the 2nd hand move is obviously the most difficult.

I spent an hour trying several options before I moved on to the next sequence. An hour later, after I’d sorted all of the other moves, I sat back down to puzzle over move #2.

Using a tiny foot in the roof, I learned I could make the span, but catching the terrible hold was another story. I tried a handful of times but never even came close enough to know if I was on the right track.

That was on Saturday, and I knew I’d be back Monday. On Sunday morning, my wife suggested we go back to that area so that she could climb a little and we could hunt for cool rocks with our 3 year old.

I decided I’d try that move a few times, then rest and wait until Monday to try the entire problem.

Once there, I was getting nowhere. Everytime I failed I’d stand and stare at the hold, searching for more microbeta. How can I make this easier? Is there a slightly better position? Is there a slightly different foot? Should I move my tickmark a quarter inch to the left and catch it with 3 fingers or is this tickmark and 4 fingers better?

Like so many of us do, I began obsessing over the details that would make the move work.

Then I did something that I thought would build my confidence enough to catch the hold. I situated myself in position under the roof, and with my feet on the ground, leaned out and slapped around the corner.

Didn’t hit it well.

Tried again.

Hit it worse.

Over multiple attempts, I never once hit the hold how I wanted. Often I had to adjust multiple times to get it how I’d practiced, but I knew there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to adjust on the go. Not a chance.

So I threw the microbeta I’d been obsessing over out the window. Instead, I put all of my focus on something else:

Macrobeta.

Tension. Position. Rhythm. Commitment. Effort.

Yes, the 5 Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement. The foundations of how we do moves.

With those ideas front of mind, I did the move twice in a row. Not well, mind you, but I did it.

Then, as I started to pack up, I realized something. I turned to my wife and said, “I think I can just do this right now.”

I repositioned the pads, sat down, and did it on my first redpoint attempt.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I made the connection with what I’d done and the 5 Atomic Elements. I’d realized long ago, while trying to boil movement down to it’s foundations, that we use the language of the 5 Elements when discussing moves, but I had really only applied them to assessing and improving our movement skills. I hadn’t realized how valuable they were in a tactical sense. I sat down and talked through this concept for the Patrons in a “Connect The Dots Freestyles” episode, and that led me to the idea of the above spectrum of beta.

We can, when needed, figure out the ratio of elements used for the hardest moves and adjust them until we get it right. In my estimation, these kinds of adjustments are going to have a bigger impact than the small details of microbeta.

That’s not to say that microbeta isn’t valuable — it definitely is — but it’s at it’s MOST valuable when the beta is sorted and the macrobeta is solid. THEN, when required, you can dive into the details.

So I’m currently of the belief that we should save the microbeta for last. Find the beta then get the general macrobeta, then make further necessary adjustments through both macro and microbeta.

I believe this order of operations works best because there is the distinct possibility of sending way before you spend time working on the tiny details. If the difficulty is well below your level, you can likely do it on step 1, the general beta. A little harder requires some extra macrobeta adjustment. The next levels up needs more attention to detail, and as you get to your absolute hardest projects, the final however many sessions may be entirely dialing the microbeta.

The Problem with Microbeta

We LOVE figuring out the microbeta, but in practice, it’s fragile. Under pressure or fatigue, it’s often the first thing to fall apart. It’s incredibly susceptible to compounding errors.

You catch the hold wrong and because of that you can’t quite get the foot right. Then because of that you lose some momentum going to the next hold and hit it wrong. And so on.

However, we often do the move anyway.

Not to mention, when we jump into the microbeta too early, we risk not realizing that we don’t even have the best beta yet. Then when something that’s clearly better presents itself, we stick with the beta that includes our hard-won microbeta because we’re human and easily fall into the sunk-cost fallacy.

That’s not to say it’s a waste of time. It isn’t. Particularly as you’re developing as a climber, following the wrong beta down the path to extreme microbeta, even when you end up not needing it, is still developing awareness.

In fact, we have to get it wrong a lot of times to get better at calibrating our awareness. To know when to quickly discard something and when to hold on to something unlikely.

I also made a video about this, using my recent new boulder and the excellent video of Nathaniel Coleman doing No One Mourns The Wicked as examples.

I suppose that officially kicks off tactics season. I hope to do with tactics what I did with movement, and find a more intuitive way to look at them versus our current method of “every situation is different.” I’m not entirely sure what shape that takes yet, but you’ll be hearing about it regularly starting now.

Learn. Grow. Excel.

– Kris

Related Things to Stay Current:

• I’ve recently gone deep, deep, deep into grades on both the YouTube and in Freestyles with the Patrons. Hate them or love them, grades are what we have, and with a shifted perspective they can be incredibly valuable AND make a lot of sense. Yes, I said make sense.

• I recently moved our first 100 patron only episodes into a FREE membership tier. No strings attached. Once you’re in, go to the “Collections” section and you’ll find a free bonus episode collection so that you don’t have to scroll back. If you’re on Spotify, you can connect your account and they’ll show up there as well.

• Don’t forget! If you aren’t on the email list for THE CURRENT, you won’t get the email next month. Make sure you’re subscribed HERE.

EXPLORE FURTHER

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Get the FREE Try Harder Toolkit!

Adapt: Lessons Learned Climbing 100 5.13's

Taped Tips | The Secret to Hard Moves that Most Climbers Are Missing

Taped Tips | The Setup Mistake Climbers Make on Hard Moves

SUPPORT + CONNECT

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Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

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The title of this blog post isn’t clickbait. I finally have a deeper understanding of a concept that we’ve all heard a million times, and I really do believe it to be a key of sorts that can open new levels. But to connect these dots, I’m first going to have to show you how I collected them.

KEYS.

This dot is more of a question. During a recent Board Meeting episode, The Mindset Shifts That Led Us To V10, I suggested that V7 was the key to finally climbing in the V10 grade regularly. I hadn’t spent much time considering why, just that it was. To my surprise, Nate had the same thing in his notes.

Not V9. V7. Why? How?

CALIBRATION.

A couple of days later I recorded an episode with Lauren Abernathy and Caitlyn Holmes for The Average Climber Podcast. Lauren has been climbing in Little Cottonwood and finding the style challenging, and wanted to talk through it. In the episode I suggested that the reason it’s so hard to switch from other rock types to polished granite is that we don’t have many opportunities to keep those skills calibrated. Most rock types and gyms provide far more friction, so the pressure needed to stand on the smears or hold the slopers seems foreign. Research shows that the calibration of skills can degrade extremely quickly, particularly if you haven’t reached some level of what we might call “mastery.” Even when it’s a skill you practice regularly, a small change can seem like a big difference. Imagine borrowing a car and having a hard time for a few blocks with the touchy brake pedal. Then you get back in your own car and have the same trouble recalibrating. Even though this is a basic skill you rarely have to think about.

EXPLORATION VS. EXPLOITATION.

In that same podcast episode, I suggested to Lauren that her best bet would be to mix up the exploration and exploitation. At lower grades, particularly if they feel harder than they should, we get to spend more time exploring. Trying things and isolating the variables. However, our best performances are usually the opposite — exploiting the skills we already have an understanding of, while the difficulty is such that a small variable can make a big difference. Most of us complain about a little extra humidity because when the climbing is really hard, we’re tuned into those variables.

COMPENSATION.

I also suggested to Lauren that while at the lower grades, she might be able to compensate for what she’s finding difficult. For instance, the smears are bad, so she might just be able to pull harder. Or when the sloper feels terrible, she might be able to grab a tiny crimp to bump past it. But that she SHOULDN’T do that.
When exploiting, yes, do it — whatever you can to send. When exploring, lean into the thing that is challenging. Explore it.

Lately, when I’ve seen a few dots that I can connect or I’ve developed interesting questions, I get on a mic and talk through it for the Patrons. I’ve been calling those “Connect The Dots Freestyles”, and there are several on our Patreon now.

For this one, I connected the above dots together to explain how some people can travel to any area and any rock type and climb roughly the same grade. Even in areas that have a reputation of being sandbagged, this holds true. They do that by building a big base. The old idea of the grade pyramid.

SPEAKING OF PATRON PODCAST EPISODES…

I recently moved our first 100 patron only episodes into a FREE membership tier. If you aren’t already a patron and you’re headed out on a fall trip, go join for free and check out some of those bonus episodes.

Once you’re in, go to the “Collections” section and you’ll find a free bonus episode collection so that you don’t have to scroll back. If you’re on Spotify, you can connect your account and they’ll show up there as well.

However, this pyramid is only a piece of the story. And I still felt like there was something missing between exploration and exploitation.
So I kept digging.

I started working on a video script about the idea of V7 being the key to V10, and while making props for the video, everything slid into place.

First, there IS a step between exploration and exploitation, and in this scenario, V7 falls into that zone.

Expansion.

We explore to find brand new scenarios and techniques and movements and grips and rock types and more. We do that mostly at an even lower level of the pyramid. V4 or V5 in this case. Yes, that can extend into V7 as well, or whatever your 4 level pyramid “base” is.

But at the next level up, we are expanding those new skills we just discovered during exploration. We are applying them to new grip types and rock types and in different conditions or in front of a crowd. We are recalibrating, over and over. We are inching these skills closer to exploitation, which happens most often in the top few rows of our pyramid.

Lauren, if you’re reading this, add that to my suggestion. Explore, Expand, Exploit.

Then when actually making my V7 blocks, I realized the missing part of the story. These blocks are multifaceted. The grade is only one facet.

If you collect enough variety (enough expansion) at this level, by doing a wide variety of blocs (is that too on the nose? blocs, blocks?) in a variety of environments and scenarios — technical crimps and slopey compression, pinchy roofs and friction slabs, high pressure and low pressure, intensive effort and extensive effort, humid heat and dry cold, granite and sandstone — then THAT is the key to the top of your pyramid.

In fact, I’m literally just realizing at this exact moment that this was the subject of a recent YouTube video we made in which Alex Megos admits to me that he was wrong about conditions, and I make the case that maybe he was actually right.

To continue playing devil’s advocate, and to further this metaphor further than I should, you can absolutely force entry into the top level. You can break in. You don’t NEED the key. But as soon as you’re in, the locks are likely to be changed, putting you back at square one.

Learn. Grow. Excel.

– Kris

Related Things to Stay Current:

• That YouTube video using these blocks will be out soon. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

• I also recently made a video about why it’s hard to transition between sport climbing and bouldering and the session you can do to take the sting off.

• If you haven’t yet, check out the FREE Try Harder Toolkit.

• Don’t forget! If you aren’t on the email list for THE CURRENT, you won’t get the email next month. Make sure you’re subscribed HERE.

• OH!! One more thing: My first climbing history book is now out into the world, adapted from Season 1 of Written in Stone!

Switching back and forth between sport climbing and bouldering can be difficult.

It's not simply because of strength and power or endurance.
It's not about ropes versus pads.

The reason is a little more hidden, but simple to address…

Going from bouldering to sport climbing? Watch THIS next!

Going from sport climbing to bouldering? Watch THIS next!

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

Get the FREE Try Harder Toolkit!

Adapt: Lessons Learned Climbing 100 5.13's

Taped Tips | The Secret to Hard Moves that Most Climbers Are Missing

Taped Tips | The Setup Mistake Climbers Make on Hard Moves

SUPPORT + CONNECT

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Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

Find Power Company on Instagram and YouTube.

Part of the Alex Megos lore is:

"There are no bad conditions, only weakness."

We all knew it wasn't true, and even Alex came clean to me about it, but he may have actually been right – at least when it comes to progression.

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

Adapt: Lessons Learned Climbing 100 5.13's

Written In Stone | Hubble vs. Action Directe: The World’s First 14d (9a)

REMIX | PROCESS

Alex Megos & Ken Etzel | Rotpunkt

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Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

Find Power Company on Instagram and YouTube.

With the popularity of physical training, it's easy to overlook the fact that without the necessary shifts in mindset, we are rarely in a position to take advantage of what we're physically capable of.

In this episode, Kris and Nate discuss the shifts they had to make in order to climb their first V10 boulders.

EXPLORE FURTHER

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Get the free Try Harder Toolkit

Board Meetings | Better Working Goes: How To Send Faster

Board Meetings | Can Everyone Climb V10?

Board Meetings | Bouldering Tactics

SUPPORT + CONNECT

Help us keep the show sponsor-free when you join our Patreon Community for as little as $3.

Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

Find Nate on Instagram and YouTube.

Find Power Company on Instagram and YouTube.

Share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.

LISTEN ON YOUR PODCAST APP OF CHOICE

We’re a proud founding member of the Plug Tone Audio Collective, a group of the best, most impactful podcasts in the outdoor industry.

PRESENTED BY THE CLIMBING ACADEMY

While making the most recent season of Written In Stone, exploring the 1980s, I took a bit of an unplanned detour to learn about the role that women were playing in a sport that was vastly male dominated. In my initial research, women hadn’t shown up as much as they had in the ‘90s, and I wanted to understand why. This segment is from an episode titled “It Wasn’t Because They Weren’t There”:

In 1971, the relatively newly-formed Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women had 278 charter higher-education institutions where women were allowed to participate in some sports. Out of over 2800 total colleges and universities. By 1981, that number was up to 800 out of over 3200. So women in sports wasn’t exactly heavily encouraged.

Despite the passing in 1972 of Title IX – which theoretically banned gender-based discrimination in educational programs, including sports – women were not allowed to run in the Olympic marathon until 1984, and they weren’t allowed to compete in all events until 2012.

So young women finding rock climbing in the 1970s and 1980s was nothing short of a miracle. And the vast majority of recorded history ignores the contributions of women in those early years, when those women were fighting to establish themselves as athletes as much or more than they were fighting for the send of some specific climb.

The entire eight episode exploration was enlightening, but one piece of what I learned has transitioned from my climbing history brain into my climbing improvement brain. Starting with British ace Jill Lawrence, several women echoed a similar sentiment:

When they stopped climbing with their much better male partners is when they really improved.

Once I fully transitioned this over into my improvement brain, I began connecting the dots back to a book I read many years ago called Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing. Among the stories in Top Dog is one that always stuck with me: a series of studies undertaken on incoming freshmen at the US Air Force Academy. In short, they had already discovered via data analysis that freshman learned better from other freshman and sophomores from other sophomores, but now they wanted to raise the level of the lowest performers, so they put them into squadrons alongside the highest performers. Makes sense.

But the lowest performers got worse.

They repeated the study the following year and got the same result.

However, when they looked at the middle performers, who had been moved into their own homogenous squadrons in order to make room for the experiment, researchers discovered that the middle performers improved dramatically. They were the only students who did.

The reason, I think, is that despite the Tim Ferris-ification of learning that makes us believe we need to hear from the top performers, we actually learn better from the people who are closer to our peer group. In general, there’s higher motivation and a psychological safety that isn’t present when the playing field isn’t exactly level.

I’m sure Adam Ondra and Janja Garnbret can teach us all a lot about climbing, but I fully believe your performance will be more affected by someone only a little better than you. Or maybe even not quite as good.

But it’s not as simple as just finding a partner around your level. They also have to want to give that assist. It also might help if there is some inherent friendly competition — something you’re unlikely to feel against Adam or Janja.

In Adapt, I wrote about Wayne Gretzky stats I had come across that I wish climbing would learn from. Essentially, when Gretzky scored goal number 802 to take the lead as the all-time goal scorer, he already led the league in points.

How?

Turns out, the NHL gives points for both goals AND assists, and Gretzky had already been the all-time assists leader for eight years.

I’ve always held that to be the best, you have to be a little selfish. But here was Wayne Gretzky — the best at scoring goals AND the best at helping other people score goals. When we look at the all-time assists leaderboard, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey, #3 and #6 on that board, were key teammates of Gretzky in his highest scoring years. Not only could Gretzky improve his performance because he had teammates willing to make the assist, but they are on that all-time list in part because Gretzky chose to take the shots he did.

They actually improved because Gretzky understood when to be selfish.

This selfless/selfish balance happens because the NHL incentivizes making the assist. It’s part of their scoring system.

Imagine if climbing had a similar system!

With these two ideas combined — that we learn more from our current peers and that getting better at giving assists can make us better performers overall — I wanted to talk with someone who worked with teenage climbers, not necessarily on a competition team, to see what they thought.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s nobody better than Kyle O’Meara for this conversation. Kyle has worked as a competitive team coach, but more importantly, he’s also coached at The Climbing Academy, an alternative high school that spends semesters in climbing destinations around the world. As part of their Core Values, they say they’ve “adopted a team approach” to “a sport that is perceived as an individual endeavor.” They claim that “being part of a team that is centered around a dynamic and challenging sport helps students understand the value of working together and of making sacrifices that serve the community as a whole.” 

I wanted to know if they actually tried to teach this in their curriculum and how it affected the students’ climbing performance as well as their overall experience with climbing.

SPONSORED BY THE CLIMBING ACADEMY

When I approached The Climbing Academy about making a video focused on how partnership could affect performance, they not only agreed to contact students and alumni for me, but decided to sponsor the video and this issue of The Current. They believe in their mission, and after hearing stories from several students as well as talking with Kyle about his time coaching there, so do I. Mentorship is alive and well.

Also in their Core Values, they say that one of their main goals is to “enrich young lives by providing learning experiences that help students develop in character, as well as academically and athletically.”

I think that’s what we all want from climbing.

The 30-minute video that resulted from talking with Kyle, digging into the research, going down the Wayne Gretzky rabbit hole (he was recently passed on the all-time goals list — more about that in the video) and hearing the story of Sylvie, a Climbing Academy alum who was trying her hardest route ever, is up on the YouTube right now. In it, I cover three main surprising takeaways:

1. We can potentially learn more from other climbers around our own ability level, rather than always looking to the pros.

2. Friendly competition can be a valuable tool to promote higher effort, faster motor learning, and better decision making.

3. Being a little selfish is actually being a GOOD partner.

I always enjoy talking with other good coaches who understand that climbing goes much deeper than finger strength, and Sylvie was particularly open when talking about feeling competitive and the realization she had while talking with her partner, Lena.

Maybe most fascinating for me is that while recording the interviews and going over submissions, there was an overlapping story. I almost didn’t connect the dots — that happened during the making of the video. For that though, you’ll have to watch.

I’ll see you again in a month or so.

– Kris

Related Things to Stay Current:

• My last couple of months have been focused on tiling our shower and finishing the first Written in Stone book. Looking at some of the most important ascents of the 1990s and what we can learn from climbing in that decade, it’s available for pre-order for the WIS Patrons now. It’s free to join.

• The full conversation with Kyle O’Meara that I used to make this video will go out to Power Company Patrons soon. Nate and I also recently spent several hours discussing which training interventions are theory, tradition, or tried and true. Some might surprise you.

• If you haven’t yet, check out the FREE Try Harder Toolkit.

• Don’t forget! If you aren’t on the email list for THE CURRENT, you won’t get the email next month. Make sure you’re subscribed HERE.

We - the collective we - talk a lot about climbing better. Without fail, one major component of climbing improvement is very often glossed over. Even though we all have the potential to master this skill – we just don’t discuss it’s importance. 

It’s not more finger strength. 
It’s not devastating power. 
It’s not great technique. 
It’s not intense effort.

Now don’t get me wrong. Those things are important, of course, but they aren’t glossed over. However…

There’s another thing that has the power to positively – or negatively – affect every single day of climbing for the rest of your life. 

Let’s get into it. 

Here’s the craziest part of it – the person who might understand the importance of this skill better than anyone else on earth isn’t even a climber. He’s a hockey player. The Great One: Wayne Gretzky.

On March 23rd, 1994, Wayne Gretzky scored his 802nd goal in the NHL to break Gordie Howe’s career goals scored record. The thing is, nearly five years earlier he had already taken the lead as the highest scoring NHL player of all time.

How does that work?

Well, the NHL gives points both for goals and for assists. And when Wayne Gretzky broke the goals record, he had already been the career assists leader for nearly eight years. The best at scoring goals and the best at helping other people score goals.

Can you imagine if climbing had a similar scoring system?

If we got points for a confidence inspiring spot or for giving up a potentially good working session on our project to belay a partner on a send of their season goal? 

I think climbing would look pretty different. 

The fact is, things like finger strength and power are incredibly important, but situationally can be rendered nearly useless. Partners are the same. Some are only good in certain conditions. But…

A great partner transcends style and specifics.
They — or you — are a performance asset every single time climbing together. 

Now, If you have great partners, consider yourself lucky. I hear from a lot of climbers that I consult with and coach that the single biggest hurdle to meeting their goals is finding good partners. They can get finger strength and power in the gym, but that partner – someone to consistently provide the assist – is much harder to come by. 

It should go without saying that if you expect to have great partners, it helps to first be a great partner yourself.

But what does that mean? How do you do it?

A good partner should be trustworthy, safe, have good communication skills, be dependable and flexible, and provide positive support. Maybe most important is that they are adaptable. We all have our checklist of things we look for. 

We’re going to go over three often overlooked ways that focusing on partnership can actually improve your climbing performance, including a revelation that I find incredibly counterintuitive – a trap that many of the best partners fall into regularly, myself included.

I wanted to talk someone who’s worked with a wide ranging population of climbers and hear their thoughts as well. Enter Kyle O’Meara. Lifelong climber. High-level boulderer and sport climber who has also been a coach at The Climbing Academy - an alternative high school that spends semesters in amazing climbing areas around the world, teaching kids about life through climbing and travel. 

I wanted to talk to Kyle — and students from The Climbing Academy, like Sylvie Cressman— because as part of their Core Values, TCA says:

They've “adopted a team approach” to “a sport that is perceived as an individual endeavor.” They claim that “being part of a team that is centered around a dynamic and challenging sport helps students understand the value of working together and of making sacrifices that serve the community as a whole.” 

To be clear, I love this mission statement, but can it go hand in hand with better performance?

Full transparency here, when I pitched this idea to TCA, they were so confident that their mission makes better climbers as well as better partners that they decided to also support the making of this video and episode, and provided me with whatever I asked for without ever asking to know how I was painting them.

They really believe in this mission.

You can learn more about them, what they do, and how to apply at the link below.

And if you want to learn about three ways to get the most out of your climbing partnerships, check out the full video below.

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

Intentional Mentorship with Kyle O'Meara

Board Meetings | How to Climb and Train Effectively with Different Level Climbers

The Coach/Climber Dynamic with Taylor Reed and Bella Jariel

Being Good Climbing Partners with Scott Pagel and Tyler Algeo

Mentorship with Dru Mack and Lee Smith

SUPPORT + CONNECT

Help us keep the show sponsor-free when you join our Patreon Community for as little as $3.

Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

Find Power Company on Instagram and YouTube.

Last month, I said that I felt like I had reached the deepest part of the Effort rabbit hole and could now branch out. That was wishful thinking.

Just this past week I climbed with three different people across three different sessions, all starting on the same mid 5.10, and all resulting in the same (but slightly different) issues. It was a minor hurdle, frankly — one easily passed by in just a few attempts — but also one that proliferates so much of our climbing.

It also illustrates an interesting connection to several ideas I’ve been playing with recently.

SCENARIO:

The first 4 or 5 bolts of this warmup are very easy climbing up a slabby and juggy right-leaning flake to a ledge that you can stand on. From here, the bolts angle to the left across a steep wall, creating a real sense of exposure the second you step off the ledge. The holds, while still good, are no longer jugs. Two finger pockets, a slopey flat hold, and a slightly incut three-finger get you setup for a big move to a wide pinch. The next hold is a jug that you take with your left hand. You bring your right hand to an undercling immediately beneath the jug. It’s not a great hold until you build your feet high, at which point it becomes a mini jug. You then stand to a bucket with your left hand. I’d call this move position intensive - it’s easy to get wrong if you try to climb it straight on or by keeping your body low.

This is where the issues arose.

CLIMBER ONE:

Having not climbed much for many months, she was already feeling nervous. But physically she is plenty strong. After working through the exposure in stepping off of the ledge, she got to the undercling move without too much trouble, touched the undercling a few times, and dropped off.

“That was hard!”

“How do you know? You didn’t actually try it.”

“Well, it felt like it would be hard.”

When she committed to trying the move, she did it first try. In fact, she never fell on this move. It wasn’t actually hard for her at all.

CLIMBER TWO:

Coming off of an injury, she was climbing with a little trepidation, but got to the ledge with no problem. Surprisingly, the sudden exposure didn’t seem to be much of an issue. She tried the sequence that Climber One had used, but didn’t like it and found a different way that added moves but also added security. When she arrived at the undercling, she touched it and immediately deemed it too difficult.

She began to search for other options, trying a few different moves but always coming up short. When she finally committed to the undercling, she did the move with what seemed like ease. Still, she tried other options. Eventually she finished the route using the undercling method.

After lowering, she commented that she still wasn’t sure that the undercling method was the best way, even though it was the only way she’d done the move, and multiple times at that.

CLIMBER THREE:

Having recently climbed his hardest grade – and planning to try an even harder grade on this day – the warmup was over two full number grades below what he can climb. He was in total control until he got to the undercling move. He grabbed it several times trying to find the good spot, kept his feet low, and lunged. I honestly don’t remember if he did the move or not on that first try. What I do remember is that it didn’t look easy, and afterward he repeated the move several times, trying to work out why it felt so hard to him.

By my estimation, when done well, this move is somewhere around 5.10a or b.

So why was it so challenging for three different climbers, all of whom have climbed multiple 5.12’s?

ANALYSIS:

If we use the Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement to break this down, it becomes simpler to understand. If you need a refresher of the Five Elements (Tension, Position, Rhythm, Commitment and Effort), you can watch this video. However, we won’t get all of the answers there — for that we’re going to have to consider a few other connections.

Like I already mentioned, this move is position dependent. We can start there — none of the climbers found the position on their first attempt. But that isn’t all it represents. Had you asked me when I first did the move if it was committing, I’d have said it wasn’t, but I’d have been wrong for several reasons.

I recently made a video about the fact that sport climbers often have trouble when faced with unstable moves. It’s easiest to imagine a big dynamic move in which you have to relinquish control in the middle of the trajectory. But this was different. This move wasn’t even 20 inches.

This was an unstable transition.

While taking the undercling high and walking the feet up, the instability is magnified. It’s not until you get stood up in the right position, leaning away from the undercling rather than relying on the downpull of the left hand jug, that it becomes stable again.

Climber One often relies on her power, so she’s accustomed to being unstable, but not in this manner. After the emotional toll of dealing with the exposure and then getting to an extremely stable position – left hand on a jug and huge feet — it was just too much for her to leave the security of the jug and commit to the instability of the high undercling.

It felt “hard.” It wasn’t, but it felt that way simply because she craved stability in that moment and was being forced to get unstable. This low commitment level bled into her effort (these two elements very often work in tandem) and she let go without even trying the move.

Climber Two doesn’t like to be unstable at all, but deals with it in a different manner. She looks for other options. More often than not, at the 12a level and below, there ARE other options. She plays to her strengths and finds things that fit her. This is good tactics.

Except, it isn’t.

On a warmup level climb, there are nearly always going to be several sequences that will work for you and feel roughly the same — provided you have a complete set of skills. So when you find a sequence on a warmup that feels harder for you than you expected, you should lean into it.

Instead we’ve been taught to leverage our unique abilities to avoid this kind of difficulty. In this case, a lack of position and commitment skills led to immediately opting for “better” tactics that reduces the likelihood of improving position and commitment skills – AND robs us of an opportunity to exercise effort in an unstable moment. When I watched her do that, I remembered I had a video script ready about how we often use tactics as an excuse for not trying hard. It’s up on the YouTube as of right now.

Climber Three came in with expectations, like we all do. While we may not realize it, those expectations are often about how much control we’ll be able to exert over this particular piece of rock. He knows that there are positions he has trouble with, but on this grade he’s not likely to encounter being forced into one of those positions. The transition felt unstable, he rushed it and tried to exert control in the way he understood when on a big hold — with muscle and not much concern for position.

Later in the day on a much harder route, he was having some of the same issues with unstable transitions — on much more difficult holds, resulting in unstable moves. Probably easier to learn how to confront that instability on the warmups, which he did a good job of.

It’s all ridiculously connected. The mental and emotional side. The tactical side. And of course, movement — the tension, position, commitment, effort, and rhythm.

In fact, I’m starting to think that effort and commitment will show up in big ways when we fully work out the Atomic Elements of Mental Focus and the Atomic Elements of Strategy and Tactics. At this point, how can it not?

I’ll see you again soon.

– Kris

Related Things to Stay Current:

• Speaking of position, I made an in depth video on toe hooking. It’s a funny technique — people either are masters of it or suck at it. I’ve not met many apathetic toe hookers.

• I also recently put out a video about the three types of climbers when it comes to effort. We all land somewhere in there, but one category is nearly always better at climbing than the other two. Where do you land?

• A lot of my own effort recently has been on my climbing history podcast, Written In Stone. My recent Snowbird episode resulted in uncovering the video of the finals of Snowbird. It didn’t exist on the internet before this, but I’m glad it does now. Being able to compare high level climbers on the same route from 1988 is fantastic. Go watch it.

• Don’t forget! If you aren’t on the email list for THE CURRENT, you won’t get the email next month. Make sure you’re subscribed HERE.

I am 100% an advocate for using good tactics. Always.

In fact, I’d say most people don’t use good tactics often enough, and I’d go as far as to say that most of you could send more things if you’d just use some basic tactics.

HOWEVER…

It’s entirely possible to learn the power of a good tactical approach and then overdo it – applying it to every situation – and actually slow down your sends.

What you should have done instead of employing more tactics is try really effing hard and then you might have gotten the project done weeks earlier. 

Is that you?

Are you the person who always says that it felt hard until you did it – and then it just felt easy? Are you downgrading everything you send because you’ve worked it into oblivion? 

Then yes, that might be you. You might be abusing tactics. Or maybe a better way to look at it would be that you’re actually skipping the absolute MOST important tactic of all. 

So I’m going to go over why you shouldn’t abuse the tactical approach, show you the tactic you’re actually skipping, and help you learn how to recognize when you should employ it – and when you should maybe hold back.

Let’s get into it. 

If you’ve watched The Climb on HBO, then you probably remember the scene where a contestant, Deco, drops off after he’s made it to the next round, rather than finishing the climb. He then catches some heat from Chris Sharma. And if we’re honest here, Deco was just exercising good tactics. But this is Chris Sharma. The guy who is well known for trying harder than just about anybody, in every situation. He expects people to give their best. Plus he probably had producers breathing down his neck about needing some exciting moments and wishing Jason Momoa was on screen for more than 35 seconds an episode, and then Deco just takes the easy way out. 

I’m not mad at him. But it DOES highlight an important issue that a lot of climbers fall victim to. Over time as we explore a more tactical approach, we realize how things can go from impossible to possible to dialed to easy. It seems like a miracle when it happens. And we want that every time.

We want it to feel easy. 

But there is this strange incongruity in sport  – yes, we celebrate the athletes who clearly are trying really hard – but even more so, we celebrate it when an athlete makes a difficult thing look easy. We love it when someone walks something. And the best way to absolutely walk a hard rock climb is to work it to death. To wait until the send is imminent to really go for it. Tactics.

But is that really a good thing? 

Sure, sometimes. But…

Saving your top level effort for only sending means that either you are rarely giving it your all, or you aren’t climbing things that are actually very hard for you. 

There’s a good balance somewhere in the middle, between an all out scrappy effort and a worked-into-submission send. If you can find it, you’ll send more things faster AND you’ll get better at climbing – not just better at applying tactics. 

But how do we find that balance?

Age old question, right? Do I look for better beta or just try to do it? More links or start making redpoint attempts? Do I try hard now and potentially waste energy, or do I keep working it in hopes of finding an easier method?

The answer to all of these questions, really, is both. You can do both. It’s not an either/or issue.

HERE’S THE KEY:

You need to look at redpoint attempts or hard send efforts as testing your theory.

You think that maybe you should go ahead and try it from the ground?

Test your theory.

Give it a good honest effort. If you don’t send, it’s likely that something will be illuminated. A sequence that is too hard on the go, a rest stance that just isn’t restful yet, a missing foot move that you hadn’t quite connected yet but forgot about. Trying hard – if you can do it honestly – will highlight where you aren’t ready, where your theory still needs more work. 

Sidenote: if you aren’t sure if you really try as hard as you could – and let’s be honest, most of us don’t – my new Try Harder Toolkit can help you learn how. It’s an entirely free, one hour video series that will help you learn what both science and experience say about how we can access our top levels of effort.

Once you’ve tested your theory and come up short, then you can go back to a tactical approach.

Address the things that were highlighted. Be systematic about it. When you’ve checked those boxes, whatever they are – better beta, learning a rest stance, that missing foot move, whatever – test your theory again. 

Whenever I hear climbers talk about the redpoint process, they do so as if it’s a linear thing. You learn the moves, you link the sequences, you start giving send attempts, and continue until you do it. And that’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t always work that way, particularly if you’re climbing on something that is near your upper limits. In those scenarios you might have to give send attempts and then rewind to an earlier point in the process, even all the way to learning how to do moves a different way. You might do that multiple times throughout the entire process. 

So if you plan for that by knowing that you’re going to develop a theory and then test it, then fix those issues and test again, you’ll already have a headstart on how the process actually works. 

THIS CAN HELP YOU IN TWO DIFFERENT WAYS:

First, if you’re the type who rushes into the send attempts and then spends the next 30 tries falling off of the same move, you’ll already have the framework in place to help you reverse back to an earlier step, work the thing out, and you’ll likely send faster. 

Or, let’s say you’re the type of climber who has done the moves and the links, and wants to do bigger links, and every possible overlapping link, and then try alternate beta and a slight knee shift at the rest stance so you can get 1% more back… all before you start from the ground with intention to send. Instead of that, if you plan to regularly test your theories, once a session or every two to three sessions, you might find that you send much sooner than you thought you could. 

Keep in mind that we’re all trying to find out how good we can be at climbing. For most of us, that’s the ultimate goal. If you only come at it from one angle, when there is an entirely other tool that you could be using, will you ever really know the answer?

Probably not. 

There’s no harm in being a tactical master. But it’s even better if you also know how to try really hard. 

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

Try Harder Toolkit

The Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement

Climb Your Project Sooner | The Art of Execution

Taped Tips | The Most Underrated Climbing Movement Skill

SUPPORT + CONNECT

Help us keep the show sponsor-free when you join our Patreon Community for as little as $3.

Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

Find Power Company on Instagram and YouTube.

Are you, or do you know someone who is, the type of climber who seems to just send everything they try without ever training? Or do you know someone who trains constantly but rarely has any big sends to show for it? Or is that you?

I suspect that a lot of you are shaking your head yes and that you know both types of climber. And both are putting in high effort, but getting different results. Why?

Most of us recognize that trying harder, or at least trying at a level more appropriate for your specific goal, is generally a good thing. But there are a lot of places and times to apply that effort, and when it comes to that, we all fit into one of three categories. Each category has its upsides and downsides, but…

Nearly all of the best climbers fit into the same category.

They may not have started there, but at some point they found their way in and they stayed. Frankly, it’s really the only way to get anywhere near your potential in climbing.

Let’s look at the three categories, the pros and cons of each as well as the psychological traps inherent to them, and how we can, over time, move ourselves into the one category that is nearly always better than the others. 

HOW AND WHEN WE APPLY EFFORT FALLS INTO 3 CATEGORIES:

Type 1: Putting all of your effort into PREPARATION.

Pros:

1. Good preparation leads to confidence. Confidence leads to success.

2. Good preparation means building good habits and a more resilient body overall. Not only for climbing, but for general health, that’s a big win.

3. Confidence, success, and resiliency in one area of life easily translate to other areas of life.

Potential Traps:

1. Training and preparation become the goal.

2. The lines start to blur between training and performance.

3. The people who put all of their effort into preparation often expect the performance to come easy because they’ve prepared.

Type 2: Putting all of your effort into PERFORMANCE.

Pros:

1. Getting more things done means you get to climb on more rock climbs and learn more about what those different climbs have to offer and challenge you with, and that’s by far the best way to improve. 

2. Learning how to try really hard when performing is the KEY to making sure that any of what you do in training or practice can transfer to the performance environment.
   

Potential Traps:

1. It often leads to this idea that training is unnecessary because we are already getting things done without it.

2. Without training, it’s going to be incredibly hard to get anywhere near your potential, particularly if you don’t have unlimited time to try hard rock climbs outside.

3. Particularly as you get older, the repetition of climbing alone is going to be tough on your body.

But the absolute best climbers always fit into the final category:

Type 3: Putting equal attention and effort into PREPARATION AND PERFORMANCE.

No matter how much time you have or what your goals are, you’ll get bigger returns on your investment if you are smart about when, where and how you apply the most effort. You can still put high effort into your preparation even if it’s only a small amount of time. Or you can put high effort into select performances instead of going hard all the time. In fact, that’s a key part of giving appropriate effort.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Determine where you are putting the most effort and where you are missing opportunities. 

Step 2: Take steps to change those things, one at a time. Be smart about the steps.

Step 3: Reassess at least once a year.

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

Try Harder Toolkit

Metrics for Climbers | Strength and Endurance Standards

How to Climb Harder: What Data From Over 600 Climbers Tells Us

The Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement

Climb Your Project Sooner | The Art of Execution

Taped Tips | The Most Underrated Climbing Movement Skill

SUPPORT + CONNECT

Help us keep the show sponsor-free when you join our Patreon Community for as little as $3.

Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

Find Power Company on Instagram and YouTube.

Not all training needs to be indoors.

If you're lucky enough to be able to spend a large amount of your climbing time outside, it might make sense to use some of that time for training rather than performance.

Kris and Nate discuss examples of how we can do this without sacrificing our performance time.

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

Climb Your Project Sooner | The Art of Execution

Patron Question: Climbing Improvement and Training vs. Performance in the Same Environment

Board Meetings | Outdoor Climbing Lessons You Should Take Indoors

Board Meetings | Indoor Climbing Lessons That You Should Take Outdoors

SUPPORT + CONNECT

Help us keep the show sponsor-free when you join our Patreon Community for as little as $3.

Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

Find Nate on Instagram and YouTube.

Find Power Company on Instagram and YouTube.

Share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.

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I consider toe-hooking to be a superpower of mine. Nearly every double digit boulder I’ve done has involved a toe hook. Partly because I can use my toe hooks in the same way that some people use heel hooks, and partly because I don’t often find the toe hook to be the crux that others do. 

This is largely because I spent an entire training season focused on learning to use toe hooks because I was terrible at using them and even worse at spotting them. Over that season I learned how technical toe-hooking can actually be.

For our Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement course, I wanted to focus on the general principles of movement, knowing I’d eventually dive deeper into individual techniques. I’m starting with toe-hooking because:

Toe-hooking is very often misunderstood in two ways.

And these days I hear a lot of people lament the fact that they aren’t strong enough to do toe hooks, and they end up doing these tibialis workouts that ultimately do very little, if anything, to help. 

So I want to first explain what those two misunderstandings are, how this confusion leads to toe hooks seeming harder and more like sorcery than other techniques, and finally, I’ll break down a few toe hook boulders so that you can see exactly how to apply better toe-hooking techniques.

Let’s get into it. 

The first misconception comes from the name, because if you’re taking it literally, it might just throw you off.

Look at kneebars – I’ve seen dozens of climbers try to use their knees during a kneebar because they took the name literally. If it were called a thighbar, then maybe they would have gotten it quicker. Same with toe-hooking, though if we called it a dorsum hook nobody would have a clue what we were talking about. But I see people literally try to hook their toes onto things when what you should be doing is more of a foot hook.

The second misconception comes in what you actually do when you’re using a toe hook.

If you aren’t well-versed at toe hooks, then having a lot of options for placement makes it easy to get wrong. Anytime I see people fail at this, they act as if they want to go straight to those tib raises. They say they aren’t strong enough. But that isn’t true. You’re probably just going about it the wrong way. I’m not saying that making your shin muscles stronger is a bad thing, but in my estimation, it’s rarely the problem. Most people don’t need to get stronger. They need to get better. They need a better understanding of the move itself. 

If I asked you which of these techniques toe hooks were more closely related to, heel-hooking or drop-kneeing, you’d probably say heel-hooking. And in some ways you’re right. But if we look at the why of choosing to use a toe hook, I might have to go with drop knees as the closer relative. Here’s why:

Heel hooks are really versatile and are regularly used two distinctly different ways: for stability and for propulsion. Drop knees are usually used for stability – to put your body into a specific space and hold it there while you move an arm. This is the same for toe hooks:

Toe hooks are usually used for stability – holding your body in position while you move an arm or your other leg. As such, they are rarely about applying more force, particularly when learning them. 

In situations that heel hooks are used for stability, they are often interchangeable with toe hooks. I nearly always choose the toe hook over a difficult heel hook when used in this more static manner, but that’s me personally – doesn’t make it better for everyone.

This versatility of heel hooks and the fact that we think toe hooks and heel hooks are so similar is where many people get tripped up. Heel hooks are much more common, and when using a heel hook to move, we are actively pulling with the hamstring. It’s a movement we’ve gotten comfortable with. So naturally, when we place a toe hook, we actively try to curl our toes into extension and pull with them. We flex hard at the ankle and start pulling with the hamstring. And the toe hook holds for like two seconds and feels like it takes absolutely everything we have to keep it on.

Why?

Maybe because you’re actively trying.

Let’s get into how to improve your toe-hooking. We’ve already established that toe hooks are usually used for stability, so if you’re in a scenario where you need to keep your body from falling away, a toe hook can be helpful. This doesn’t need to be on super steep terrain. 

Now, placement:

Some people will tell you that you’re looking for surface area contact: the more the better. And that’s sort of true, but it might not work how you think it does. It’s more like you’re trying to fit a puzzle piece into a void. Your shoe has a certain profile. Different shoes have different profiles.

What you’re looking to do is fit the profile of your shoe onto the hold.

As with any other foot technique, some shoes are going to work better than others for certain toe hooks. To be perfectly honest, there are several toe hooks that I’ve done every time in one shoe that I’ve literally never been able to do in another shoe, and obviously I haven’t tried all shoes, but I know what works for me when I need it. However, I don’t want to oversell this idea. The vast majority of the time, it’s not the shoes that matter most. It’s the skill. The right shoe just allows me to apply the skill in a very limited, very specific context.

While we’re on the subject, wouldn’t a shoe with no toe bump maximize the surface contact and be better? Well, sometimes, maybe. But probably not that often. The toebump can actually be pretty helpful – as long as you aren’t overemphasizing it – for two reasons. Number one: it creates this concave space in what would otherwise be a mostly convex surface. Number two: if the toe hook is shallow, it might become the dominant surface area. If you can find a divot where that knuckle bump might land, even better.

But don’t get caught thinking that the toebump is what makes all the difference for every toe hook, because frankly, if it doesn’t have to be shallow, deeper can be a lot better – even if it means, as it often does, toe-hooking all the way up on the laces or velcro. If you overemphasize that bump in scenarios where you can get a lot more surface area on an appropriate surface, you might just be making it harder. Put simply:

Experiment with the placement – shallow or deeper, swiveled from one side to the other – and see what works. As you find different placements working, you’ll get better at recognizing what you need to do. 

But what about the rest of your leg? What are you doing with that? 

Well, I’m almost never actively pulling. It happens, of course, but most of the time we want it there for stability. I place it, stabilize it, and then move the rest of my body around it. Straight legs, if the geometry works, is best. Which means lowering your hips out to allow for the straightening and to let gravity pull against the toe. If it’s a closer toe hook, you might need to bend a little at the knee to hold tension. I find this easiest if I rotate my leg internally, sort of dropping my knee. Even then, usually, I try to hold that tension stable and move the rest of my body around it. Something to consider is that:

Difficult toe hooks are rarely just about dangling like you would in a bat hang – more often, they require some level of compression, some force opposing the toe hook.

Easier toe hooks can let gravity do this, or a bicycle can do it sometimes, but difficult toe hooks often require you to compress between the toe hook and the opposite hand. In these situations it might help to imagine that you’re trying to pull the two holds together. The strongest way to do this is to contract at the core like you would for a hollow body, rather than bending at the elbow or knee. This kind of compression can stabilize you and allow you to move the other foot or hand freely.

Now back to the idea of lowering your hips out. Particularly when it’s something like matching hand foot with a toe hook, this part is key.

A toe hook is usually not going to feel great until you lower your hips out and find a really stable position.

What you do with the other leg might be a big help with that. Sometimes opposing the toe hook with a bicycle works really well to allow you to let go and lean into it. Sometimes dropping a leg off and letting it help pull your weight onto the toe will give it the opposition it needs. These moments can feel really unstable, and will take some getting used to in order to anticipate where you’ll need to get to and how fast you can do it. You’ll only be able to anticipate it if you practice it.

But what if that stable position is great for staying on the wall, but isn’t really helping us get where we’re going?

Assuming you’ve created stability through your core and compressing, then oftentimes we can advance the stable position by using the other leg to sort of kickstand it, and we often don’t even need any kind of foothold for this – just a smear will work. The position is far more important than how good the foothold is.

Find the position and use the foot that works for it – not the other way around. What you’re looking for is the advantageous position that will allow you to reach the next hold.

If possible, making a sort of tripod with both legs straight is ideal, and it gives you the option to adjust with your kickstand leg, by lowering your hips out, and by either bending the pulling arm or just pivoting at the shoulder. 

But even doing this, we’re usually just moving through relatively stable positions for that brief moment that we are reaching. Our lower body tends to make very little movement while our arms are moving.

Occasionally, you’ll need to use a toe hook and actively pull with that leg to make a move. In this scenario, I suggest experimenting with ways to pull without changing the positioning of the toe too much. Usually this is going to revolve around internally rotating your leg and pulling with your hip – again, like a drop knee. 

Usually this happens when you’d rather have a heel hook but just don’t quite have the reach to get it there. Which brings me to an important point:

When where you are considering a heel or toe hook is distant, it might take more effort to pull yourself toward it enough to place a heel, so the toe hook might be easier to place. And if you’re traveling away from the heel or toe anchor position, a toe hook can give you more reach and is easier and less violent to release. 

If you’re in a scenario where it’s hard to release, if you can reach back and find any kind of hold, no matter how terrible, to oppose the stabilizing hand – almost acting like a replacement for the heel or toe, the release will often be easier. 

If you’re using the hook for propulsion, oftentimes the heel will give you more versatility and distance. But if the toe is easier to place and can get you the distance, it might still be the more efficient option. 

To get better at all these things you’re going to have to practice them. Don’t wait for the toe hook boulders or for the setters to put up the perfect toe hook crux. Instead, substitute toe hooks whenever you find a stability-type heel hook or a drop knee. As you get better at recognizing when a toe hook will work for you, try making up harder versions of that. How do different holds change how you place the toe hook? How do different orientations change how you compress or turn your hips? If you have a home wall, make sure to have underclings and side pulls, otherwise you’re setting yourself up to not have many toe hook opportunities. Once you have the opportunities, explore them. 

You can’t hack your way to improvement in these techniques. They take time and experience and awareness and intention.

If you want to go deeper into learning about and assessing your movement, check out this video about our Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement course or this playlist with more videos just like this one.

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

The Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement

FOCUS | Q & A Part 2: Movement Solutions, Finding Better Beta, and Toe Hooks vs. Heel Hooks

CONFLICTED | Kneebarring on Boulders

Climb Your Project Sooner | The Art of Execution

Taped Tips | The Most Underrated Climbing Movement Skill

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Over the past year or so, I’ve talked a lot about the idea of connecting dots rather than just releasing a stream of disparate content that adds to the information overload. I think I’ve been largely successful in sticking with that, though it’s sometimes hard to tell when I’m deep in a rabbit hole.

Often, I think I’m going in an entirely new direction, only to realize that I’ve looped around and connected back to one of the rabbit holes I’ve already spent considerable time in. I suppose, in some way, this justifies the time spent in these rabbit holes. It’s all connected in such a deep way that I just can’t untangle it. Frankly, sometimes I think we shouldn’t even try to untangle it – that the entire idea of isolating one aspect from another is going in the wrong direction. In which case, maybe “Just climb more,” is actually great advice.

But it isn’t. Because we’re human and we will, very predictably, trend toward our comfort zone. For the most part, we are wired for safety and homeostasis. And if we ever want to improve, we need to push against that. As a coach, I have to stay in these rabbit holes longer than is comfortable to make sure I’ve seen all of the hidden branches.

I recently came across a video of psychologist, leadership professor, and former NBA player John Amaechi discussing a concept that he calls “Paying the FEE.”

FEE: Focus. Effort. Execution.

This concept, while simple, tied a lot of loose ends together. In talking with Josie McKee about the mental side of climbing, she had landed on the idea of Focus. Everything we lump into mental training, ultimately, is to improve our focus. To get past distractions – whether fear or anxiety or whatever. More on that down the road.

And as I’d started to dabble in sorting through a framework for climbing tactics, I’d realized it’s all about improving Execution.

So basically, I’m finally understanding that all roads (or rabbit holes, as the case may be) lead back to Effort. Off the wall, on the wall, in preparation, in practice, in performance, all the time.

How are you allocating and regulating your effort?

I thought I’d explored this deeply in my REMIX podcast episode. Then I thought I’d gone even deeper in the Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement course. But when I looked back at it, the entire thing was still a little abstract and amorphous. I’d touched on each dot, but hadn’t really connected them in an actionable way.

Now I have. And it’s FREE.

Well, it’s free of a monetary investment. It’ll cost you an hour to watch all six of the videos, and if you want to lean in the way I have, it’ll cost you more time in sorting out how to best apply it to you and your climbing. It will be time well spent.

My goal in creating this toolkit – the first of several to take on abstract concepts – is to answer a few simple questions about effort:

How can we cultivate the ability to try harder, or softer, or longer, or just plain better?
How do we teach someone else to do it?
Can we do it on command?

So if you’re someone who learned from the Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement course that effort is something you could be putting work into, then this course will be a game-changer for you. Same if you’re a coach (also, expect some updates to the Coaching for Mastery course in the coming months).

Beyond drills, the Try Harder Toolkit details actionable methods regarding the psychology of effort, goes into ways to use Bill Ramsey’s Pain Box concept, and walks you through what the research says about creating a pre-performance routine and regulating effort mid-climb to give the appropriate amount when it counts the most.

Finally getting this out into the world feels like I’ve reached the deepest part of the effort rabbit hole. I certainly haven’t, but for now I can at least branch off and connect it to the other rabbit holes. Thanks for exploring them with me.

Headed back into the goals rabbit hole now, and hope to have a free toolkit for that in the coming months.

– Kris

Related Things to Stay Current:

• The Power Company Podcast is back in action. This past month we released a great Board Meeting about how to improve your working goes on projects.

• A short segment on common mistakes made on working attempts made it onto our YouTube as well. While this format is a departure from what I’ve been doing on YouTube, I think its value is that it’s jam packed with actionable info.

• The parenting and climbing docuseries episode that I was featured in is out on YouTube. If you are a parent, you’ll find a lot in this series to relate to.

• Don’t forget! If you aren’t on the email list for THE CURRENT, you won’t get the email next month. Make sure you’re subscribed HERE.

Pretty much all of us want to send more things.
And we want to send harder things.

So we pick a project and our heart is set on it. Maybe it’s a mini project that takes a few sessions or maybe it’s a mega project that is going to stretch across several seasons. The thing is, the length of time we spend working it often depends on the strength of our projecting game – particularly what we do on those important working attempts. Many of us either keep working things when we should have sent weeks ago, or we cut off the working goes and start redpoint attempts way too early.

The best climbers put themselves into send position with fewer working attempts, and know when they are ready to get it done.

So the question is:

How can we make better use of our working goes and send hard things faster?

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

Climb Your Project Sooner | The Art of Execution

The Projecting Strategy Most Climbers Never Learn

Board Meetings | Top 3 Redpoint Tactics

REMIX | PROCESS

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Share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(01:47) What is a Working Go?

(09:24) First Steps for a Good Working Go

(13:18) Notes, Tips, and Tricks for Easier Clips

(20:45) Intention, Nuance, and Attention to Detail

(29:22) Hoping To Get Lucky

(32:30) Not Enough Attempts

(34:18) Avoiding the Questions

(36:10) Trying To Do Too Many Things

(39:46) Cues and Intuition

(43:23) Never Improving the Process

(53:07) Punt Prevention

LISTEN ON YOUR PODCAST APP OF CHOICE

We’re a proud founding member of the Plug Tone Audio Collective, a group of the best, most impactful podcasts in the outdoor industry.

Hand Holds: Climbing after Parenthood is a free-to-watch series featuring well-known climbers discussing their transitions into parenthood and what it’s meant for their climbing.

The second episode features Kris and is out now!

And in case you missed it, be sure to check out this conversation between Kris and the creator of Hand Holds, mother and climber Allyson Gunsallus!

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

Training for Pregnant Climbers with Joy Black

Climbing and Parenting with Beth Rodden

Raising Them Right with Constance Lightner

Climbing Training and Pregnancy: My Journey, with coach Jess West

Many years ago I was climbing at The Motherlode in the Red River Gorge with a friend. He wanted to get on a classic 13a called Snooker, and that day, the lineup was three or four people deep. He walks over and pleads with the people in line to allow him to jump in front. He says he’s likely going to redpoint and has to leave soon, and even though he lives two and a half hours away, he is laying it on thick. They let him cut in front of the line. 

He gets on, solidly climbs through the crux, and arrives at the jug rest just below a little roof and a bit of a redpoint crux. 

And then he says, “Take!”

WHAT?!?

First off, you can’t take at a rest on a redpoint attempt.
Second, you can’t cut in line and then take.

You just don’t do that. 

But he did.

And it’s because he was missing the one simple thing that can result in the biggest performance gains in your climbing, no matter what level you’re at. And you can implement it right now. If you’re watching this at the gym between burns – then, literally, right now. 

The best climbers already do this, and in my experience, it’s one of the things that separates them. Because I’d bet that 90% or more of the rest of us just don’t do this. I’m going to tell you not only what this simple superpower is, but I’m going to tell you what the sports research says about how you can give it an even greater boost. 

Let’s get into it.

Let’s be honest for a minute. Think about how many times have you tied in below a route or chalked up sitting at the start of a boulder and thought – or even said out loud – something like, “Let’s just see what happens.” A lot of you say that. I’ve heard it. I’ve said it myself. 

And maybe that’s marginally better than something like, “Oh man, this is going to be hard,” or “I just don’t think I have enough left,” or “Oh well, there’s always another day.” But only marginally better. And I’ve said these things, too. So have you.

Or you might think that some sort of positive self-talk or affirmation like, “I’m going to give it all I’ve got,” or “I’ve got this,” or “Let’s just do it this time,” is the best way to go about it. And that’s certainly a step in the right direction, but it’s still not quite there. 

We’ve talked a lot about the things you can do to improve your movement, your strength, your tactics, and even your response to failure. And we’ll continue to talk about those things because it’s all important and we all want to get better. 

But when it comes to performance, there is one simple change you can make that might very well produce the biggest gains in your climbing in terms of how many hard things you actually get done. And you can apply that simple change right now, whether that’s to your 5.11 project or your V15 project. And if it’s something you’re not already doing, then I guarantee it will be more effective for your climbing performance than any amount of fingerboarding you can do this year. 

And yes, you can say these things to yourself or to your partner before you pull on and then send. Occasionally, “just seeing what happens” or “trying your best” results in doing a climb that’s hard for you. But I guarantee you that:

The person who pulls on every single go with a specific intention is getting more done. 

So, it’s simple, right? Just set an intention and pull on.
Well, not exactly. “Let’s see what happens,” and “I’m just going to do my best,” are, essentially, intentions.

We can do a lot better than that. 

I’ve been reading a lot of the research around goals and intentions because I’m in the midst of a deep dive on how we can set better goals. And I recently came across a term:

implementation intention (or if-then intention)

Put simply, you add a sort of checkpoint and effect to your intention: 

“If I get to that jug rest, then I’m going to try to send.”

And that’s pretty good. It gives you a sort of on-route cue to reinforce your intention: to keep going to the top. But we can still do better. Sending is the outcome, and we want to stay in the process for longer. The outcome is absolutely important, but you can’t skip steps and still get there, so let’s stay in these steps for now. It might be better to say:

“If I get to that jug rest, then I’m going to try my hardest.” 

This gives you the on-route trigger, but also gives you something to control afterward: your effort level. Now you can stay in the process for longer. However, the research indicates that the more specific the if-then intention, the better, usually. So:

“If I get to that jug rest, then I’m going to try my hardest to climb well and stay on the wall.”

…is probably even better. Now you have the on-route trigger and a directive for afterward. But we can take it one step further.

If we start by asking what exactly it is that might cause us to need those cues in that moment, then we’ll know how to better construct the intention. 

For instance, if my friend had left the ground saying, “If I get to that jug rest, no matter how pumped I am, then I’m going to try my hardest to climb well and stay on the wall,” he’d have had a much better chance of success. The fatigue at that rest stance wouldn’t have gotten to him the way that it did because he was already anticipating the fight he might have. He wasn’t focusing on it – he didn’t say, “Oh man, this is going to be a major fight, but…” Instead, he was focused on getting to that rest. Once there, he could have checked in, recognized the fatigue, and had his answer at the ready. 

Research also shows that physical fatigue greatly reduces our cognitive abilities, so we don’t want to spend time and energy up there reasoning with ourselves and doing the mental gymnastics it might require to not just take. Instead, have your response ready to go. “I’m going to try my hardest to climb well and stay on the wall.”

This can be applied to the hardest single moves on the shortest boulders as well. Let’s say it’s a hard boulder with a low percentage, really precise, two-move sequence. We might be tempted to say, “I’m just going to try hard,” or the time and battle tested “Grip it and rip it,” which, again, might work.

But if you apply the same rules:

• Stay focused on the process while on the way to the outcome.

• Recognize the limiting factor and anticipate it.

• Give yourself a trigger moment and then a controllable action.

…then maybe it’s more like:

“If I hit that first hold, no matter how poorly I have it, then I’m just going to put all of my effort into making it work.”

Now, the usual “Oh, I just didn’t have it right,” has been cut off at the pass. Most of the time, you’re giving yourself a much greater chance. I know… you think you have to have everything perfect to do this really hard thing. But how many times have things gone wrong and you’ve still done the thing you thought needed to be perfect? If you’ve been climbing for awhile, then I bet it’s a lot of times.

We usually have more margin than we think. 

Now, I want to address a question that I know is going to come up. You’re thinking it would be better to say something even more specific like, “If I hit that first hold, no matter how poorly I have it, then I’m going to tighten my core, pull my elbow down, push hard off of my right toe, stare down the big span and latch it.”

Well, the answer is no, probably not.

Research shows that if-then intentions generally result in positive change (or no change) to the outcome except when you try to control the motor sequences.

Then it often results in a negative change in outcome – at least at first. This often eventually levels back out and can move into the positive, suggesting that it can be effective as a learning tool, but not so much as a performance tool. 

The research has also shown that athletes who use an effective if-then intention often perceive the difficulty of what they’re doing differently.

For golfers, the hole appears to be bigger. For basketball players, the hoop grows. For climbers, it’s not unreasonable to think the holds will feel bigger and easier to use, or the chains will seem closer than they actually are. 

And like I said, there’s not really a downside, and it’s ridiculously easy to add into your process.

Every time you pull on, have an intention.

When it’s moved past learning and into performance, use an if-then intention on every single attempt.

It’s likely that means you’ll have fewer attempts before you send. 

And if you get stopped regularly by hard moves and never even get into sending position, then watch this video next. 

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

The Atomic Elements of Climbing Movement

The Projecting Strategy Most Climbers Never Learn

Climb Your Project Sooner | The Art of Execution

REMIX | EFFORT

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Many years ago I was climbing on a 13b at The Motherlode in the Red River Gorge called Cut Throat. Just right of Cut Throat is a classic 13a called Snooker, and that day, the lineup for Snooker was three or four people deep. A friend of mine walked over and pleaded with the people in line to allow him to jump in front. He said he was likely going to redpoint and had to leave soon, and even though he lived close enough for an easy day-trip, he was laying it on thick.

They let him cut in front of the line. 

He got on, solidly climbed through the crux and arrived at the jug rest just below a little roof and a bit of a redpoint crux. 

And then he said, “Take!”

WHAT?!? First off, you can’t take at a rest on a redpoint attempt. Second, you can’t cut in line and then take. You just don’t do it. 

But he did. And it’s because he hadn’t clearly defined his intention.

My exploration of goals, to be honest, has been somewhat sidetracked by putting time into turning my popular REMIX: Effort podcast episode into a video (and along with it, building a free “Try Harder Toolkit” that will help climbers sort out the pre-performance routines and triggers that can improve their effort). I’m hoping to have all of that finished by the end of this month, but no promises.

Anyway, now that the Effort video has sidetracked me yet again…

Through the course of this exploration of goals, I’ve realized that some of the concepts that were coming up while writing Adapt were more backed by science than I expected. Particularly my use of long-term, short-term, and what I was calling “immediate” goals. It’s a well-known goal hierarchy, but I now think that if we relabel the immediate goal as an “intention,” then we might have an easier time not just leaving it on the ground when we are forced to confront something uncomfortable on the wall.

Which brings us back to my friend, who we’ll call Andrew (because that’s actually his name, but pretend you don’t know that). I assume his goal was to send, but that isn’t enough. That was a short-term goal that had become an immediate goal… sort of. Because there’s still a lot of work to do before you can check that box.

These short-term-turned-immediate goals might just pull us out of the process if we aren’t careful. They inherently put the focus on the outcome. While I will always preach the importance of valuing the outcome, I also recognize that remaining in the process is necessary.

And I recently came across a tool that might help: “Implementation Intentions.”

Also known as an “If-Then Intention,” these intentions come with a baked-in process cue that, when combined with a quick interrogation of what the biggest roadblock to your immediate goal is, can keep you rooted firmly in the process for longer.

Let’s take a look at how it might work:

I imagine that Andrew’s intention before he left the ground with a line of climbers waiting patiently behind him was something like:

“I’m going to try to send.”

Or maybe we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he realized there was still a chance he’d fall at the crux, in which case he might have thought:

“If I get through the crux and to that jug rest, then I’m going to try to send.”

And that’s ok. It gives you a sort of on-route cue to reinforce your intention – to keep going to the top. But it’s not great. Sending is the outcome, but there’s still a redpoint crux and several bolts of not trivial climbing to contend with. You can’t skip steps and still reach the same outcome. It might be better to say:

“If I get through the crux and to that jug rest, then I’m going to try my hardest.”

This gives you the on-route trigger, but also gives you something to control afterward – your effort level. Now you can stay in the process for longer.

However, the research indicates that the more specific the if-then intention, the better, usually. So likely even better is something like:

“If I get through the crux and to that jug rest, then I’m going to try my hardest to climb well and stay on the wall.”

Now you have the on-route trigger and a directive for afterward. But we can take it one step further. If we imagine what it is that might cause us to react by taking, then we’ll have a better idea of how to construct the intention. In this case, the big roadblock was going to be the pump, or more precisely, how we respond to that pump.

In which case, Andrew’s chances would have soared had he left the ground saying:

“If I get to that jug rest, no matter how pumped I am, then I’m going to try my hardest to climb well and stay on the wall.”

The fatigue at that rest stance wouldn’t have gotten to him the way it did because he was already acknowledging and anticipating the fight he might have.

Instead, he had set himself up with the expectation of a quick send. And so when he arrived at the rest stance feeling worse than expected, he bailed.

Research has shown, time and time again, that physical fatigue greatly reduces our cognitive abilities. We don’t want to spend time and energy up there reasoning with ourselves and doing the mental gymnastics it might require to not just take when the send feels miles away. Instead, once you’ve gotten through the crux and to that jug, even though the pump is real, you can have your response ready to go.

“I’m going to try my hardest to climb well and stay on the wall.”

This can be applied to the hardest single moves on the shortest boulders as well. Let’s say it’s a hard boulder with a low-percentage, really precise two-move sequence. We might be tempted to say “I’m just going to try hard,” or the time and battle tested “Grip it and rip it,” which again, MIGHT work.

But if you apply the same rules:

• Stay focused on the process while on the way to the outcome.

• Recognize the limiting factor and anticipate it.

• Give yourself a trigger moment and then a controllable action.

…then maybe it’s more like:

“If I hit that first hold, no matter how poorly I have it, then I’m just going to put all of my effort into making it work.”

Now, the usual “Oh, I just didn’t have it right,” drop-off excuse has been cut off at the pass. By using an if-then intention, most of the time, you’re giving yourself a much greater chance.

And really, that’s what we all want:

A chance.

An Intention Turbo-Boost?

I’ve always been a proponent of putting my goals out there, despite a widely publicized 2009 study that suggested sharing our goals could be counterproductive. I’m also a fan of telling your belayer your intentions every time you tie in. Or your spotters before you leave the ground.

But if intentions are goals, does that 2009 study contradict my idea?

Well, a 2019 study from Ohio State determined that you’re actually MORE likely to reach your goals if you share them with someone important. Someone whose opinion you value or whom you hold in high regard.

You know who is important to me? My belayer. My spotters. The people who are both helping to keep me safe and can hold me accountable right now.

See you all in a month or so. Maybe with a “Try Harder Toolkit” ready and a “Goals Toolkit” in the making.

– Kris

Related Things to Stay Current:

• I’ve been purposely neglecting the podcast while I focused on learning YouTube. Now that I have a better handle on what I can and cannot commit to, we’ll be posting on the pod again. New episodes, as well as audio versions of our YouTube videos for the pod people.

• We followed our best month on YouTube with an even better month. Thanks to all of you who are watching!

• The parenting and climbing docuseries that I will be featured in, Hand Holds, has started rolling out, beginning with Beth Rodden. Watch that episode HERE and keep an eye out for my episode coming soon. Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out my podcast episode with the series’ creator Allyson Gunsallus HERE.

• Don’t forget! If you aren’t on the email list for THE CURRENT, you won’t get the email next month. Make sure you’re subscribed HERE.