Passive or Active: Discussions on Teaching Climbing Technique

Special thanks goes to Steffan Jacob for his assistance in developing both this piece and these concepts

Back in 2023, I began running BMC FUNdamentals courses; coach education courses to teach other, junior coaches how to coach climbing. Learning from noted coach educator Andy Swann, it was down to me how I ran each activity to hone in closely on each part of the course. When it came to teaching handholds, Andy asked me how I was going to do it. I smiled at him and said “I’m going to cause a fight”

Now I misspoke slightly, it wasn’t a fight I was after, it was more of a debate. Since then, I’ve created a pack of 52 Hold and Technique Cue Cards; every possible hold type and technique I could think of or find, listed one after the other. [Note: Subsequently, friend Holly Peristiani has created Climbing Cards: a much more professional version. Others will doubtless have their own versions too.]

For many climbing coaches, this is how they teach climbing. Essentially, if they teach their charges all of the climbing techniques then they’ll be able to climb better, no? Well, yes and no. The sad truth is that things are a little more nuanced than that and the more I consider it, the more I think the way we view techniques is in of itself slightly flawed.

So do we ignore them? Clearly not and I make the point on every course that shared language is important. But perhaps that’s exactly what it is and we should be viewing ‘climbing technique’ in a slightly different way.

Technical Skill

Let’s start, as I often like to, with some nice, academia and in this case, let’s distinguish technique from skill. There are umpteen citations for this, far too many for me to read through for the sake of this argument, especially considering the majority seem to create the following distinction:

• Techniques are the movement patterns in the chosen sport/activity
• Skill is the ability to select and apply the right technique in the right way at the right time

Suddenly we see the logic in using techniques to teach sport. If we can identify each individual technique for, in this case, climbing and we teach someone how to do each of these techniques well in isolation, it means they are fully armed to be able to use them when the time comes. In fairness, this seems to be how the British education system seems to function these days; except that there are plenty who argue that the British education system is not working these days…

We could argue that we need to focus on the skill aspect but the response would then surely be that without an armoury of techniques to choose from, we haven’t got the tools to select from and we’re back to square one. And it’s hard to argue too much when this approach works so well in other sports. But then we’re not other sports…

Yes, I know, every sport says that and no, none of them are entirely unique. It is at this point that I turn to Msrs Fitts and Posner.

Why the Approach May Be More Successful Elsewhere

[Note: this takes what is known as an ‘Information Processing’ approach, rather than an ‘Ecological Dynamics’ approach. It is worth investigating the differences for yourself but here, I will stick to IP.]

Fitts and Posner are often cited as having written seminal texts around skill acquisition and championed various theories that have become cornerstones of this field. Among them are the idea of their ‘stages of learning’ whereby learners go through three stages of ‘cognitive’, ‘associative’ and ‘autonomous’ but while interesting and aguably relevant, I’m instead going to focus on their work on what are known as ‘open’ and ‘closed’ skills.

It’s fairly easy to understand, especially once aligned to other sports:

• Closed Skills occur in a stable environment that doesn’t change, with minimal variables to allow the participant a minimal amount of change to contend with. Examples would include gymnastics (the pommel horse never changes) or darts (it’s always the same ocke)
• Open Skills have what is known as a variable environment, or one that is constantly changing and forces the participant to react. For example, most team sports such as football, basketball, rugby etc. are classed as open sports, as players are constantly having to adapt to their opponents

So take something like swimming. In this very closed sport, there are four main techniques to be learned (the four strokes one can swim) that occur in the same environment in the same conditions. So in essence, if we teach swimmers how to perform these four ‘strokes’ – which are in essence four ‘techniques’ – then sploosh! in they get and off they go. It’s only when they decide to go wild swimming that things begin to change.

Therein lies the crux of the issue when it comes to climbing. Crucially, notice how all of these sports mentioned so far all occur in a fixed, stable environment. Yes, the open skills involve the player/participant reacting to other players but the pitch remains largely the same. Now take a look at any two climbs and, unless they have been deliberately set as such (for example speed climbing which is an attempt to close the skill of climbing entirely, hence some of the opposition to it) no two climbs are exactly alike.

One could argue that any adventure sport is the most open you can get – perhaps Fitts and Posner could add wide open skills – but none more so than climbing. Indeed, even when a climber is armed with ALL climbing techniques, there is still often ambiguity when it comes to which one to select. Don’t believe me? Nalle Hukkatatival was given new beta (of a different, not new, technique) for Burden of Dreams 9a that unlocked it for him.

[NOTE: consider that when people wish to improve, nobody goes straight to open skills, they stick to closed skills; in all sports. So what does your average climber have in terms of closed aspects of climbing? Physical training, such as deadhangs and pull ups. Perhaps that is why so many default to simply ‘getting stronger’ when they wish to improve.]

An Infinite Array of Techniques

So where does that leave us as climbing coaches? If we can’t teach climbing techniques on their own for people to get better, thanks to the infinite array of techniques we need, than how do we do it?

This is the point I return to a model of my own design known as PrinFrAp. As a brief overview or a reminder, here’s the diagram for the model:

So where do techniques sit on this diagram? Let’s logic our way through this:

• We’ve already established that techniques are effectively movement patterns that we repeat as needed
• If climbing is an open – or in our own terms, wide-open – skill, we require overall guiding principles that always apply, rather than intermittent principles for each specific movement
• Therefore, while each technique may have it’s own specific principles, when viewed against climbing as a whole, these techniques don’t stand up as principles
• Ergo, ‘climbing techniques’ are frameworks and therefore NOT core principles
• As frameworks, they remain useful things to teach to student climbers
• However, for quality coaching, coaches should look deeper than individual techniques, seek the shared principles underpinning them and focus their attention of teaching these core principles, perhaps through technique but not exclusively

A New Way To View Techniques: Descriptors

Clearly, though, even in climbing, techniques are not just different frameworks we can use to teach a movement principle; we can’t simply lump them in with ‘games’ as the same thing. They need to be different.

Perhaps that is why they’ve been held with so much sway in the past? You know, other than the historical antecedents to teaching movement we’ve seen above. After all, they are distincitve, largely unique patterns and we can use to verbalise a movement pattern to others without the need for specific demonstration.

So we’re left with a Catch-22: techniques are different enough that they require their own classification; but they remain poor principles to be followed and should not be treated as such. Therefore, we need another classification.

And so, behold! I am suggesting the following to distinguish ‘climbing technique’ from any other framework

Techniques in climbing become descriptors of movement principles
occurring at any one time

So where does that leave us on our PrinFrAp model? Well, perhaps our techniques aren’t Frameworks after all. Perhaps ‘climbing techniques’ are actually descriptors during the application phase of climbing! Or perhaps they are actually separate from the model entirely. As every good academic paper states, further investigation is needed.

Two Categories of Technique

If we assume this is true, we’re almost back where we started: we still need to teach individual techniques as specific movement patterns to be utilised as and when they are required. Yes, we have proven that they are not the climbing principles we should teach but they remain an important part of our sessions.

So with such a massive array of techniques to teach, are we stuck with teaching each in turn? Perhaps not, perhaps we can break them into smaller categories.

Elsewhere, I have shown my HOT/POT/MOT model of teaching climbing movement. The concept is that any given climb can be broken down into a series of individual movements between static positions, with each position being made up of a series of holds.

But climbing techniques aren’t solely ways of moving. Some involve maintaining static positions on the wall. Which leads us to a new distinction of two different categories of technique:

We could go further, and perhaps we will but for now, separating out techniques into these two distinctions aligns much better with either Position Optimisation Theory (using Passive Techniques to maintain a static position) or Movement Optimisation Theory (using Active Techniques to move between positions).

By separating them out, we are left with a much better delineation as to when each in turn may be useful to be taught, freeing us to instead concentrate on teaching core climbing principles.

Summary

Historically, climbing coaching has often focused on teaching technique, with the hope that the climber will then be able to apply a skill element to their climbing and select the right one when they need. However, this approach is fundamentally flawed insofar as it fails to incorporate solid movement principles required to successfully move efficiently on any climb.

The ‘teach technique’ approach in climbing specifically fails to comply both with well-established learning theories – owing in part to being a wide-open skill/sport/environment – and to my own PrinFrAp Model. Yet, it remains clear that climbers still need a repertoire of climbing techniques in their back pocket.

Thus, we arrive at a new definition of climbing technique as ‘movement descriptors’ which act as shared language for specific movement patterns; thus allowing climbers to select from previous similar experiences and for coaches to offer accelerated suggestions when required.

Furthermore, we then distinguish all climbing techniques into two categories: passive techniques being those that require the climber to maintain a static position; and active techniques that aid a climber to move between two distinct positions. This approach then frees us, as climbing coaches, to focus on returning to the most fundamentals principles of climbing: moving from one position to another using as little effort as possible.

If You Enjoyed That…

References/Further Reading

Depending on the topic at hand, this might be a good idea or not

Collins, L., & Collins, D. (2011). Conceptualizing the adventure-sports coach. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 12(1), 81–93

Fitts, P. M., & Posner, M. I. (1967). Human performance. Brooks/Cole.