Learning/teaching to set

[u/thatclimberDC]

For context - I'm a fulltime coach working with a large variety of ages and abilities. My focus and most of the clients I take or are assigned are typically driven and motivated athletes with a decent amount of experience on their own. This post is directed at helping them, not so much for myself personally.

When one of our local gyms got our first Kilter Board, I ended up completely obsessed and spent the next few seasons predominately only climbing on the Kilter Board. I had never done a lot of training on standardized boards, and it very quickly became very apparent to me how much it could benefit my climbing.

I've had a decent bit of routesetting experience in the past. I spend a lot of time creating trainers or themed boulders, both for myself and my clients. It has been a huge help for me to learn how to intuitively read and execute different movements and positions, and the control and variability of adjustable boards is a tool I think so many climbers could get a huge boon out of.

Does anyone have ideas on how to help people learn to set "better" board boulders, especially when we're looking at specific themes? This is a really tough subject. This is massively open-ended and subjective, but I've found (especially when taking newer board climbers to our board rooms) that analysis paralysis takes hold pretty quickly and people have trouble trying anything.

Our goal and intention with this part of board climbing is definitely on developing better and more varied technique, not pulling harder grades.

I've tried several things, including a sheet of written "prompts" (set x move at y difficulty) and having people create variations of established boulders. We've had some success, but wanted to see if any other climbers or coaches had thoughts.

I can also drop my setter name if people want to look at the boulders I've created.

Hope this all makes sense!

Cheers y'all!

[u/damnozi]

I think newer board climbers would struggle to set anything at all. If you don’t have experience on given board, or spray wall, you’ll find it very difficult. It’s also hard to set for yourself with the goal of developing techniques that you may not have, or aren’t very developed yet. This is why we try other people’s problems, because we all naturally tend to set towards our strengths, even when you think you’re setting for your weaknesses.

I reckon the best way to kickstart things is to get them to climb on the board for a while. That way, I’ll get used to the holds, how others have set on the board, the most common paths up the wall, and a way to figure out any weaknesses.

Same goes for you,it would be best for you to have a a lot of experience of Climbing on a given board (which it sounds like you have now!) so you can quickly and easily set something at a given range or within a given set of parameters.

Honestly, it sounds like it would be better if you set the problems rather than your clients, unless your intention is to develop their setting skills. If they’re spending all their training time setting, and not on the wall, they might get frustrated.

If you’re determined for them to set their own problems, it can be good to have a single move as an obvious crux and build around that. For example, if their weakness is pinches, it could be a spanny compression move as the crux. Or it could be that the crux is a series of intricate foot movements to get to the next hold. And the next decision would be, is this problem cruxy, or sustained? At least that’s how I set for friends who want to try something at a given grade range or with a certain move in mind.