An essay on route setting from Nikolai Galadza, written about 1998 and given to the first setters we tried to train. Some things no longer apply, since we don’t set using tape to mark holds and we don’t focus on child climbers. The document is an ‘insider view’ but we think those of you who read this will find it interesting to see how we think and talk about this important part of Crag X.
ROUTESETTING IS AN ART
First and foremost it must be said that setting is an art. It requires time and dedication – practice makes perfect. Although setting is largely inspiration and visualization, the information covered here should help.
Know yourself as a climber. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Know your ability level at different styles of movement; understanding your own abilities is possibly the most important factor to being an effective setter.
Determine your personal setting style, and deliberately avoid it occasionally. Unless you’re god’s-gift-to-setting you probably tend towards a certain style of problem. It might be statics, dynamics, power-fests, technical nightmares, slopes, pockets, crimps – whatever. We all have strengths and weaknesses; just don’t make everyone conform entirely to yours.
In gyms, keep an open mind and listen to your audience. Remember - you’re setting for them. Their input is important and should be heard. Take the time to listen and you might even learn something helpful.
Climbing outside is the most valuable source of ideas for setting. Mother Nature has formed rock in infinite variety and much is to be learned from her creations. If your future includes a lot of setting, do yourself and your climbers a favour - travel as much as possible. While Mother Nature has infinite resources, you have only what you’ve seen, touched, and climbed on. Climbing on different rock – granite, sandstone, limestone – gives you different experiences to draw from.
Hold Selection
There is no formula to choosing holds. Enough variation in climbing movements prevents any standardized sizing. However, several factors dictate what usability is needed:
- Difficulty of problem
- Surface angle of wall
- Orientation on wall
Handhold usability combines it’s size and positivity. A half-pad incut and a three-pad slope might be similarly useable.
Set some easy problems with bad holds; help beginners learn to use them. Take weight off bad handholds with large feet; relieve bad footholds with generous hands. Knee-bars, heel-hooks or the plain old big-honking-jug-foot can make miserable handholds feel great. Opposition moves make tiny edges and smears more tolerable.
Set some hard problems with good holds. Hard problems do not necessitate tweakers; give advanced climbers a break. Use bad (or non-existent) footholds to make large handholds feel worse. Turn big holds into underclings, dyno to them and force climbers to match all over them.
Choose holds that force what you want, no more. Extra features on a hold mean extra options. Multi-directional holds and large matching holds give competitors ways around your sequence.
Be careful when using large, high-profile holds. They shouldn’t obstruct other problems.
Variety
Mix it up. Good variety within a gym or comp is essential. Customers and competitors come to be challenged, and to send. They bring their own skills, which may be drastically different than your own. A good setter puts up problems for everybody.
A problem’s style is reflected within it’s crux(es). These, in turn, create the overall effect of the problem. Ask what makes the problem hard? Does it require power, endurance, or good technique?
The word technical gets thrown around a lot when setting. What is it for a problem to be technical? Answer: to require good route-reading and creative use of the body. A technical problem requires knowledge and proficiency in movement, and the ability to decipher sequences.
Watch the flow of difficulty throughout a problem. Indoor problems are normally internally consistent - cruxes tend to be within a few grades of the rest of the moves. Early cruxes, while possibly realistic, leave us deflated for the finish – spread the difficulty out. Problems that continually get harder, or have several successive cruxes, are perfect for weeding out competitors. Avoid good rests in boulder problems for comps – competitors will hang and shake versus falling and letting the next person go.
Good variety includes:
- Power, endurance and power-endurance problems
- Obvious and devious problems
- Static and dynamic problems
- Smooth, comfortable problems and awkward, realistic problems
- Hard slabs and easy overhangs
- Underclings, gastons, and sidepulls
- Slopers, crimpers, pockets, and pinches
- Big right-hand moves and big left-hand moves
- One-move-wonders and enduro-fests
- Sit-starts and jump-starts
Individual problems can include much of the above, or little. Theme problems (e.g. pocket or gaston problems) reward climbers’ strengths, and isolate their weaknesses, and shouldn’t be avoided.
Remember, hands and feet working together determine a move’s difficulty. Don’t get trapped into making all cruxes hand-cruxes. Use evil smears, tiny edges and scummy heel-hooks as cruxes too.
Nobody argues if excessive power or endurance is needed for a given problem; send or get stronger, most say. But what about the reaches short climbers can’t make? Likewise, the sit-starts where tall climbers can’t get off the ground? Answer: that’s life. Indoors and out, climbers get shut down because of height issues - it’s the nature of climbing. Moderately used, size-dependant problems provide realism indoors.
Good variety evens the playing field. It demands a climber to be well-rounded to excel. At competitions, this is the goal. Ensure a fair fight; set good variety.
Forcing Moves
“Hey, that’s not how it goes!” Setters hate it; there’s seemingly always another way to do a problem – a testament to variety in abilities among climbers. However, skipping sequences is often preventable.
Before grabbing the wrenches and attacking the holds, question the necessity of a change. Often good problems (indoors and out) are done with alternate sequences. Given that the different methods are similar in difficulty, does their difference actually matter? One person’s easiest way up is sometimes another’s hardest. If the sequences require contrasting techniques, more variations make the problem more accessible.
Every hold on a problem provides an option, sometimes several. Too many holds can mean too many options. Generally not an issue with hands; most setters don’t put extra hands on a problem. Many do, however, include superfluous footholds. Extra feet, while often increasing your problem’s overall sendability, reduce the chance competitors will use your sequence. Only holds needed for a send should be on the wall (by people of differing heights of course). Avoid unnecessary multi-directional holds and holds large enough to match.
Make your sequence the easiest way up; the easiest to those for whom the problem is intended. If another sequence or way to grip a hold is possible, try it. Back-step vs. toeing-in; gaston instead of crossing-through. Most problems can go differently, but at vastly different grades. If the alternate is harder you’re okay. Easier, and it’s time to grab wrenches and tweak.
Climbers like to jump. They will, and right past your moves if you let them. Never underestimate the airtime of a psyched-up climber. Especially watch problems that cross back over (above) themselves. Where dynos are possible, put the feet low or to the side. The dyno becomes more awkward, and less likely.
Height
“I tried, but I just couldn’t reach the next hold.” We’ve all heard and probably said this. Outdoors it means turn it on or find a new problem. Indoors there are many implications. Luckily we have the opportunity to prevent height dependent indoor problems, should we want to.
Most problems should not be height-dependant, to make them fun for everybody. Especially with the growing number of youth coming to gyms, it’s financially unwise to trounce them with reaches. However, if everything goes for kids, what’s left to challenge the rest of us?
Some problems should be height-dependant. I might get shot for saying that. Don’t get me wrong - we all want little Johnny to send. We also want him to appreciate problems he can’t do. If you can’t get away with having height dependant problems, offer alternative holds for Juniors and give them boosts to high starts.
The ignored cousin of the reach, the scrunch, is equally disabling. We normally don’t worry much about tall climbers; things always seem easier for them. Abundant in the form of low traverses and butt-dragging sit-starts, scrunchy problems should not be overdone.
Several distances to keep in mind, any one of which can cause height dependency:
- Hand-to-hand
- Hand-to-foot
- Foot-to-foot
Prevent height dependant problems with additional feet. Place extra feet high, low or to the side, where only tall or short climbers will use them. Make long moves easier with high feet, low-starts easier with wide feet. Occasionally extra footholds become hands for the small-fingered; we all know that local 45-pounder who monos bolt-holes.
Good Problem
It’s a big bite to chew. Who really wants to define a good problem? Every problem is a good problem! If you don’t think so, you aren’t looking at it right. However, I’m going to take the user-friendly stance of the commercial climbing facility in describing a good problem.
A good problem thinks of its audience. Everything about a good problem is mindful of the needs and abilities of the climbers that will be on it. This includes hold selection, body movements, height dependency and of course, difficulty.
A good problem builds better climbers. For many climbers the entire purpose of indoor climbing is to get better. Setters are in the unique position of creating the tools to achieve this. Good problems improve strength, technique, route finding and precision.
One climber’s favorite problem is another’s worst nightmare. Admittedly it’s impossible to set problems that everyone likes. However, there are certain aspects of a problem that are, more-or-less, universally admired.
An enjoyable problem has interesting moves. Creative movement is probably the hardest thing to learn, yet the most important. It’s a product of indoor and outdoor experiences and personal insights into climbing movement. Varied and thought-provoking movements help make an enjoyable problem.
An enjoyable problem is comfortable to climb. If it hurts, most people won’t like it. This means holds that tweak your tendons, moves that mangle your body or falls that aren’t fun to take. While those are all important aspects of outdoor climbing (and should be represented indoors in moderation) they seldom are enjoyable to the general indoor crowd.
Labeling
Mark all holds and features clearly. Nothing causes as much mayhem as poorly labeled problems. All natural features should be labeled “in” or “out”. Special instructions (e.g. sit-down start, any feet, arête is in) should be noted clearly at the start of the problem. Beginning and ending holds should be designated.
Labels need to be seen from all vantage points on a problem. Handholds used later as feet need must be visible from the higher position. Use two labels if necessary.
Avoid situations where the label will be worn off with traffic. Foothold labels especially are prone to being rubbed off. Labels that wear off are great fuel for picky climbers.
Mark problems that overlap with obviously different colors. Not hard with so many colors available. Also, using sponsor stickers as problem markers adds spice to the appearance, and gives recognition to your supporters.
For comps, every problem should be labeled with it’s number, total point value and the two point deductions for 2nd and 3rd try ascents (90% and 80% of the original score). The labels should be written in large, clear print with a bright colored marker.
Forerunning
Forerunning consists of attempting, critiquing, altering, and grading a problem. The focus is improvement; a well-forerun problem achieves the desired movement at the desired grade.
Ideally, grades represent a problem’s consensus difficulty. This means how hard it is for a climber of average height and weight, with average flexibility, finger strength and technique. For anyone else it could feel vastly different. Several people, with different styles and strengths, should forerun each problem.
It’s hard to grade problems well below your ability. Continually think about the effort needed to grab onto and move between the holds. Don’t underestimate your finger strength, power or technique. Consider the appropriateness of moves. Sure, that rose-move is rad, but on a V0?
Work out as many moves as you can on projects. Put a jug ladder nearby to avoid working it ground-up. Think carefully about every move, and every stance. After working it, compare it to the other hard problems. Try to rank them in order of difficulty, and then guesstimate the grades.
While the V-system is widely used, its interpretation varies. One region’s V8 is another’s V6. No matter – the real deal is to have internal consistency. Two problems given the same grade in a gym should be the same difficulty.
At competitions, achieving consistency is like pulling teeth. With limited time and energy, it’s difficult to accurately grade everything. Fresh forerunners, who come in later in the setting process, can help that consistency happen.
For competitions, every move of every problem should be forerun. Too many comp problems never get sent, or are improperly graded, because of assumptions. It may not be necessary to actually do a move to educate a guess about its feasibility and relative grade. However, guessing how a move will go, without trying it, is unacceptable.
This job isn’t easy.