10 Steps to Better Pattern Recognition

Sometimes, the difference between hours of frustration and quickly unlocking a challenging sequence comes down to where you’re standing.

When trying a problem, most of us only stand directly in front of it. We analyze the moves from this frontal perspective, we rehearse them in our minds from this perspective, and we look for new solutions only from this perspective. By doing this, we are dramatically limiting ourselves. 

Being able to quickly recognize familiar sequences is a crucial ingredient to harder climbing. The issue is that boulders or cruxes don’t always present themselves in the same way as each other. Even if you’ve previously done moves exactly like the one that’s stumping you right now, it might be that you aren’t seeing the similarities because of your perspective.

If you want to improve your ability to recognize movement patterns, take a walk. Start in front of the climb and take five steps to the right. Study the climb from there. Now go back to center and take five steps to the left. Reanalyze the problem from there. If you want to step further back or gain some height to look down at the climb, do that too.

Pay attention to how your brain wants to solve the problem based on which direction you look at the climb from. Sometimes moves will look significantly harder from one angle compared to another. What appears to be an impossible jump move from the right could present as a hard cross move from straight on, and might reveal itself to be an easy layback move when viewed from the left. 

You have to rest between attempts anyways. You might as well take the time to get a better look at what you’re trying. It might turn out that you’ve already solved this problem before.

---

If you feel like no matter how many different perspectives you get you regularly struggle to solve challenging sequences you should look into our course of movement fundamentals The Shape of Power. In it, we use video tutorials and discussions to break down the core mechanics of climbing movement and teach you how to incorporate them into your own climbing.