Welcome back,

As cliche as it is, I really enjoy the start of the year. It forces me to hit pause and reflect on the last twelve months. 2020 was a rough one. I’d like to think that in a few years I’ll look back and think that it was great for “character building”. Even if most of that character building was in video games.

My motivation both with climbing and coaching has been growing over the past few weeks, and I’ve even been able to make a few short day trips to Austin to try this thing. It was put up by Keenan Takahashi recently and has some of the hardest foot moves I’ve tried on a boulder. Hopefully I’ll get a few more cold weather opportunities to try it before the Texas heat rolls in. It’s been a while since I've tried a boulder that felt this hard, and I’m really psyched to keep getting after it.

On the coaching front, I’ve got a bunch of projects that I’m excited for for this year that I can’t wait to share with y’all.

Also, if you haven’t seen Kris’s most recent video on Quick Send Boulder Tactics you should check that out.

Around the Internet

This article fully feeds into my confirmation bias about teaching. The idea is that smooth-talking professors can leave college students believing they learned more than they did in comparison to active learning situations.

A "crucial difference" between the two groups, according to the study, was whether students "were told directly how to solve each problem or were first asked to try to solve the problems themselves in small groups."

A "superstar" lecturer could make some students feel good about learning at the expense of demonstrably more effective active experiences. But most importantly, the study says, "these results suggest that when students experience the increased cognitive effort associated with active learning, they initially take that effort to signify poorer learning."

Compared with students in traditional lectures, students in active classes perceived that they learned less, while in reality they learned more. Students also rated the quality of instruction in passive lectures more highly, and expressed a preference to have "all of their physics classes taught this way," despite their lower test scores.

For climbing coaches and climbing partners, the easiest way to “coach” is to tell people all of the answers. If I tell someone all of the beta on the thing they are falling on, tell them the micro-adjustments they need to make to their positions, and spoon feed them the necessary tactics, then I’m going to look like a superhero. The problem is that they won’t have learned much from that interaction. I would have made that coaching session all about myself. I got the benefit of showing off the things that I know, but the climber’s development will be significantly worse than if I had directed my efforts towards putting them into the types of situations that will teach these lessons to them.

This method takes more upfront work, and it doesn’t provide immediate success the way that telling someone all of the answers will. I think we need to look at what we define as success though. Topping a plastic boulder in the gym that’s going to come down in another month isn’t the goal. The goal is to get better. If you coach or even if you climb with people who look to you for advice, try to avoid giving the quick and easy answers.

One of the most common mistakes I see people make in climbing is not planning for success. Often this shows up as not rehearsing the top of a climb well enough or not even looking beyond the crux on the flash go of a boulder. I recently came across this video of Liam Andrews-Bancroft walking us through one of the worst punts I’ve ever seen (Starts at 4m and 35 seconds into the video). I really appreciated that he narrated the whole incident and that he shared it in the first place. Seeing a v15 climber punt on a v2 move goes to show that it can happen to any of us if we aren’t prepared.

If you enjoy this video, I recommend the rest of the things on his channel. The Las Vegas Story video is also worth watching for how it finishes.

The first comment on this youtube video is “The most wholesome V15 send ever”, and those were my exact thoughts after watching this. Done by fellow Houstonian Nicholas Milburn

This is an incredibly well made 40 minute video of Aiden Roberts climbing in the UK. This has been the best hard climbing video I’ve seen in quite some time. Good storytelling and well shot hard climbs is always a winner in my book.

Final Thoughts

I don’t have any profound final thoughts for this month, but I did want to bring up one of my favorite exercises for climbers, rows. It’s an exercise that I wish more climbers would do whether they are using rings, barbells, dumbbells, or a cable machine. The only thing I wish more than for climbers to do rows is for them to do them correctly!

I see this exercise done poorly all the time, and I find myself sharing the video 8 ways to screw up a row from Eric Cressey to people all of the time. So watch the video and do some quality rows. Your climbing will thank you for it.

Until next time,

Nate Drolet and Team Power Company