I have always naturally felt more comfortable with static climbing as opposed to more dynamic, “big” movement. Part of it comes from my desire to maintain control over my body’s movement, as well as some fear of injury if I were to flail wildly and land poorly. In the beginning, I actually held a (naive) view that dynamic climbers were somehow “less skilled” because they appeared to just rely on brute power to accomplish climbs, as opposed to utilizing techniques like flagging, heel hooking, etc. It’s definitely taken me some time to come around to the idea because I’ve avoided it for so long, dynamic movement is a serious weakness for me, and something I must work on if I want to climb harder/more varied styles of climbs.
So when I recently made a trip home to North Carolina, I tried to actively find climbs that would help me work this weakness. It definitely helps that the local gym there (Triangle Rock Club) happens to set much larger moves than my home gym in NYC, which is probably why I always thought their grading was a little sandbagged. The video above shows my efforts working through a boulder problem around my typical project level, and figuring out how to land the dynamic crux move.
The problem starts off by forcing a toe or heel hook to set up both hands, and after a few more setup moves, you’re forced to launch for a pinch off of one foothold that’s placed quite close to your hands. With your body forced into a small box, it was difficult to generate power from such a compressed position. I knew that the key to sticking the move was to concentrate on my right foot, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I needed to do other than press harder. Trying the move in isolation, I was able to stick it but always cut feet and wasn’t 100% that I would be able to replicate it successfully from the start. I finally managed to keep feet one time when I pushed with my right foot in the direction of my movement instead of directly up (timestamp 0:54). After a few more tries, I sent the problem a little messily as I still cut feet.
I feel the movement I learned while figuring out this problem can be applied to many different boulder problems from v5 and up. I originally thought that I just lacked commitment to the big movement, but after failing multiple times it turned out that I needed some small adjustments in beta/mental shift. Although I still cut feet on the send go, the adjustments I made leading up to that definitely helped me reach the pinch in a better/higher position to grab it solidly and hold to swing my feet back onto the wall.
Richard Zheng 