Grades, information-gathering, and leading near your limit as a short/tall/non-"average" climber

Anonymous wrote: I'm 6'5".

I've been shut down due to things being too "scrunchy" and not being able to hold the bad position that it puts me in. If I could reach the next move I'd just skip the scrunch and carry on but, I still need that extra 12 inches or whatever to make it, so I'm forced to go small and scrunchy. 

This is exactly why Lena's comment regarding the need for large scale data set is so important! - You describe putting yourself in hard positions, but the question is whether it is the best beta available. I occasionally climb with Lena - she compensates with technique and strength and different beta were I cop out just reaching "stuff" - I am a few inches taller than she. Sometimes she just reaches "stuff" because she is strong enough to use it, while I have to figure out different beta. But, over number of the same climbs we did, I generally have an easier experience trusting suggesting grading for the route. 

L Kap wrote:

Most of the time height doesn't matter, but for sure sometimes it does, and the negative impacts are more likely to fall upon short climbers. 

This thread has gone round and round without reaching conclusions.    I think the main crux of the matter is contained in L Kap's statement above.   Here she calls it negative impacts.   In other posts she (and others) say a move or route is harder.    What does harder mean when leading near your limit?     

At one point I asked L Kap about her curriculum vitae.  Not to belittle her in any way, but to (try to) point out that higher grades and different rock require more technique and strength Independent of height.   For example, if a knee-bar is required to free a hand so you can reach over a roof and you don't know how to knee-bar, that move will be "harder".     And if you need to stand up into an overhanging undercling and you don't have the core strength to do that, that move will be harder even with unlimited footholds.

The common idiom is: If all you have is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.   People who also have wrenches, screwdrivers and saws aren't going to pound on nuts, screws and boards.   Is it harder to remove a nut with a wrench than with a hammer?  Of course not.   If all you know how to do is reach, then certain routes will be harder.

Additionally, harder routes and different rock often require more strength and/or different strengths.   For example, core strength for overhanging routes and calves-of-steel for slabs.  Trying to reach past that nasty undercling because you don't have the core strength to undercling makes it harder.  Trying to reach past that thin section because your calves are baked makes it harder.   

I not sure if dynamic movement should be a technique or strength   but it certainly makes particular moves easier!!!  And if you watch World Cup climbing, it's required for Speed, Boulder and Lead comps.   How many mandatory dynos do you find on 7, 8, 9 and 10s?


The redpoint crux is the her phrase more likely.    That's complete nonsense.   The size and spacing of edges, cracks, side pulls, pockets, tufas, et cetera is completely random averaged across the planet and for the grade.  Since we're talking about leading near your limit, of course the holds will be smaller and further apart than you are used to!   It is harder.  Doh!

And finally, L Kap and others discount the advantage short climbers have from being lighter and smaller, which is complete nonsense as well.   I'm 6' 1" and one of my regular climbing partners is 5'5", not that short for a woman, but I out-weigh her by 70lbs!   I don't think she could, or would even attempt to, pick up a 70lbs bar-bell!    As grades go up, the angle gets higher and holds get smaller, regardless of spacing.  I'm constantly envious that she sinks three fingers into pockets I can only get two tips into.  Or that she gets a full pad on an edge where I get tips.  And on overhangs she's lifting a LOT less weight.    This alone, ignoring the technique & strength issues above, often compensates for lack of reach.

So, I may reach high to get a hold large enough for me to use but she can use a much smaller hold closer to her with the same effort and to the same effect.   People who whine about being short and how tall people have such an advantage definitely need to re-evaluate themselves.   Maybe they'd be happier in gymnastics.

P.S. In the artificial environment of the gym, the above does not always apply.  

John Byrnes wrote: 
I'm 6' 1" and one of my regular climbing partners is 5'5", not that short for a woman

Actually, above average for a woman :) It is also "not that short" for the population overall (a quick estimate puts it around the 37th percentile in the US--i.e., more than 1 in 3 people will be shorter than that).

FWIW I put this caveat at the end of my original post, although it seems like it didn't do a lot of good:

(Preemptively, yes, there are definitely moves that are easier if you're small. However, pulling a move that is easier than the grade generally feels pretty chill :P. Also preemptively, yes, grades are subjective, but the fact that we all use them suggests people get some kind of useful information from them; so I'm interested in strategies for dealing with situations where this information is less reliable than it might otherwise be.)

I don't disagree that often what feels like a reach issue is actually an issue of technique and/or route reading. However, I've also heard from several people on this thread around my size who climb much harder than me and have had similar experiences struggling at grades they'd expect to cruise--or bailing/aiding on grades they'd expect to be able to project somewhat successfully--at least in part because of size. I'm inclined to think this is a real phenomenon that happens disproportionately (albeit still rarely) to people who are morphologically significantly different from the population that tends to have the greatest input in establishing grades.

I also agree that it is easy to default to thinking that this is the problem when it is not, and in my OP was looking for strategies to avoid this default thinking. Being told not to whine and to be a better climber usually doesn't do much for me--I berate myself enough when I'm flailing not to need any help with that from my partners :)

Etha Williams wrote:  I've also heard from several people on this thread around my size who climb much harder than me and have had similar experiences struggling at grades they'd expect to cruise--or bailing/aiding on grades they'd expect to be able to project somewhat successfully--at least in part because of size. I'm inclined to think this is a real phenomenon that happens disproportionately (albeit still rarely) to people who are morphologically significantly different from the population that tends to have the greatest input in establishing grades.

I also agree that it is easy to default to thinking that this is the problem when it is not, and in my OP was looking for strategies to avoid this default thinking. Being told not to whine and to be a better climber usually doesn't do much for me--I berate myself enough when I'm flailing not to need any help with that from my partners :)

To build off of what Jon and others are saying, and to respond to the first paragraph I am quoting: 

What matters is not only the frequency with which a shortie who 'climbs 10c' can't pull a 10c move (this is obvious and frustrating when this happens) BUT ALSO the frequency that being short makes a 10c move into something easier for them (not very obvious, and not at all frustrating). I believe, as Jon seems to, that this happens just as often (and actually happens more often when routes get overhanging). Why there is so much pushback against this idea has to do with a fundamental attributional error that people are prone to making--we make excuses for perceived shortcomings and we pat ourselves on the back for things we do well, even if that success (or failure) was really just due to luck. 

It's documented in human psychology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_bias#Self-serving_bias 

So, When a 10c move feels easy to the 10c short climber, they think "I am a good climber, my technique/power is improving" but when the 10c move feels hard, they think "I am too short and this move is too reachy". Vice versa with tall climbers bitching about something being scrunchy (I've been guilty of this!).

A couple of caveats: First, 10c is not a very hard grade (not even considered a warm up at many areas) and is a grade that any climber can reach with some practice and attention to their technique. Second, certain types of climbs (vertical faces, slabs) can certainly be reachy, and being tall does help. The New River Gorge features blank rock panels with long reaches between crimps, which is what makes it good. It also makes it similar to a gym where not many footholds are set. So yeah this does make being taller easier. But at the Red, if you are tall, then you are heavy as fuck and forget about endurance climbing! maybe it helps to be short! So if you look just at one area, you can blame height, but if you take both areas together, the advantage disappears.

So, to respond to the second paragraph of what I am quoting. I will give you 2 strategies that worked for me, and helped me a lot. One is cognitive, and one is tactical, so maybe I have something to offer you beyond pontification about psychology and BS.

The cognitive:
I really like something I heard on a power company podcast. A cognitive strategy Kris Hampton suggested: When a route feels hard, it is because the route has something to teach you. So rather than an obstacle, the difficulty becomes an opportunity. And remember that for performance oriented climbing, we do it because it is hard, not because it is easy. I used to get really frustrated with my climbing when I didn't perform to my expectations. It affected my climbing experience and some people didn't like to climb with me because of that. But I found that this helped with the frustration a lot. The other thing I can do is decide on a given day whether my mindset is going to be 'performance' or 'fun'. On performance days I show up ready to try hard, and be a little frustrated, but not let that get me down because that is what I came for. On fun climbing days, I go out and cruise a moderate multipitch or a series of easy-for-me routes at the crag, and if I run into a hard move and fall off when I don't expect to, I can laugh about it because I'm not too invested, I'm just playing on the route.

The tactical:
When you think about climbing this way, it helps to focus on climbs that you are interested in doing, that you put up on lead or hang the draws on. If you are TR'ing stuff that others put up for you, because leading it is too hard or too scary or whatever, just remember that you didn't pick that climb. The person who put it up did. So the challenge might not be right for you. If you put up your own routes, you control the difficulty and you can pick something out that is the right level of challenge for where you are at on that day. Also a lot of frustration for me used to come from comparing myself to others, and getting competitive about it. This can be fun, but it can be a really negative thing too. Search your feelings and ask yourself if the frustration of failing on a reachy move would feel the same if everyone else failed on it too. Now when I go sport climbing, my friends and I all have our own projects. I don't expect to perform well on my strong friends' projects, and I know that they can send mine in a couple tries if they want, since they are better climbers than I am (and usually they are shorter than I am too, haha). They don't expect to be challenged on my projects, so they don't try them. We might each go up a different route each time we climb, and each clean the draws after leading if the others in the group don't want to climb it. For the most part, every person leads every route that they climb, every time they go out. Maybe this is already how you climb but it wasn't when I was a beginner.

Another funny thing that someone told me is that in climbing, everyone sucks at their own level. So if you feel like you suck, it is because you do--but so does everyone else. If your friends pull the move with ease and you can't do it, maybe they should be climbing something harder (or you should climb something easier). At the end of the day this entire activity is pointless. Frustration is rarely a helpful emotion, and if climbing is too frustrating then maybe try approaching it differently.

Last, If you are flailing about on a route, constantly hanging and trying over and over and over and not making progress, and berating yourself, you are on the wrong route. There's a time and a place for a little bit of flailing once in a while, but when the frustration sets in it's not gonna help anyone. Progression happens incrementally. Find your own challenges that are right for you. Failure is OK. Being in over your head is OK. that is how you grow. But if you push yourself too much, have too high of an expectation of yourself, that progression is gonna be super slow, painful, and unpleasant for you and the people you are climbing with.

Good luck and climb on!

PS--Next time at Rumney, try Know Ethics at Main Cliff, early early in the morning before it gets hot. Try Waimea. Try the routes at Bonsai starting on the right and work your way left. Lead everything. Whip. Send. Get psyched!!!!

TLDR:
Self serving bias is a thing
When a route feels hard, it is because that route has something to teach you
Lead your own routes and don't compare yourself to others
If you are really flailing on a route then it is probably too hard. Climb something different.

Anonymous wrote:

Like your post  but there're options...

Now, imagine there was no hold to reach and you're in this position. The only thing you could do is get your feet up higher and this so you're in a better position to make the reach. Even another 6 inches up with your feet can get you there.

Just to illustrate my point about additional technique, there are other possibilities: 1) making one hold a side-pull and backstepping will extend your reach and keep you close to the wall, 2) turning one or both holds (momentarily) into underclings, 3) a combination side-pull & undercling.  

And this brings us to her third picture. I can't get me feet up that high like she is doing with her right leg. I definitely couldn't do it and still be that close to the wall. (

Exactly right.  You (and I) would need to already have the higher holds to get to this foot position but as above, there may be other options.  Are they "harder" than what she's doing?  Don't know, but what she's doing is impossible for someone our height and weight.   Hey, let's start a thread and complain that short people have all the advantages.    

Outside, my biggest issue, which is related, has been high-stepping and getting up onto a foot hold. Any time my foot starts getting close to or above my other knee I'm going to be squatting "200lbs". I assume this is mostly relative, though, and effects most (newer) climbers; unless they are lighter, very flexible and already have very strong legs from the get go.

I think the weight aspect is proportional/relative.  In other words, if you're bigger your leg muscles should be strong enough to push you up with help from your hands, other foot and some momentum.   

However, it is certainly true that given any set of handholds, a shorter person will be able to step to a higher foothold than a tall person, all else being equal.

John Byrnes wrote: Like your post  but there're options...

Just to illustrate my point about additional technique, there are other possibilities: 1) making one hold a side-pull and backstepping will extend your reach and keep you close to the wall, 2) turning one or both holds (momentarily) into underclings, 3) a combination side-pull & undercling.  

Exactly right.  You (and I) would need to already have the higher holds to get to this foot position but as above, there may be other options.  Are they "harder" than what she's doing?  Don't know, but what she's doing is impossible for someone our height and weight.   Hey, let's start a thread and complain that short people have all the advantages.    

I think the weight aspect is proportional/relative.  In other words, if you're bigger your leg muscles should be strong enough to push you up with help from your hands, other foot and some momentum.   

However, it is certainly true that given any set of handholds, a shorter person will be able to step to a higher foothold than a tall person, all else being equal.

I feel that short people have an advantage on true mantles.  Getting 36" of leg up and then rocking over it is painful for me. Dang short people...

I think everything Eric says is pretty much spot on. Someone earlier had asked for routes where being short makes things easier. I recently climbed Tweedledum at the Gunks. Flashed it as a V2, and about a month later went back and climbed it as an 11a. Both times the crux felt really easy for V2/11a. I've had to try harder on a lot of 10s, and the Gunks isn't known for being soft. 15' to the right is Tweedledee, another V2/11a which I haven't been able to do yet. Lots of things factor into the variable perception of difficulty of a climb, including technique, luck, conditions, time of day and when you try it in a session, etc. I can, however, say that the crux of Tweedledum is standing up onto a slab with your hands around foot level while the crux of Tweedledee is a big reach to a jug. Maybe in a world where short people were in charge of grading Tweedledum would be SV1 and Tweedledee would be SV3, but I don't have anything against calling them both V2. When a climb is personally easy, you celebrate, and when it is hard you set it aside as a challenge.

John Byrnes wrote:

This thread has gone round and round without reaching conclusions.    I think the main crux of the matter is contained in L Kap's statement above.   Here she calls it negative impacts.   In other posts she (and others) say a move or route is harder.    What does harder mean when leading near your limit?     

I can’t speak for L Kap, but I’ll attempt to answer this the way I think of it. I think that any talk of harder/easier MOVES is only really possible within the realm of comparing similar moves. 

E.g. if you and I both use a kneebar, but it is a secure kneebar for you, while I barely get any kneebar action while fully pressing up on my toes, that knee bar is probably harder for me. (Conversely, if it is a comfortable kneebar for me, while you have to twist your hip almost out of your socket to get your leg to fit in —it’s likely harder for you)

But if you are doing a kneebar, while I use a heel-toe cam two feet to the left, and wedge my shoulder into the spot where your knee goes, we are no longer in a situation where the sequences can be meaningfully compared for difficulty. 

If we both make the same move, but one person uses worse holds for feet or hands, or needs to step higher/wider relative to their COG, it could be compared. 

But if the sequences are very different, then the comparison is no longer between the individual moves and sequences of moves, only between grade-feel of the entire route. 

The comparison becomes: did this route feel like grade X to you? And to me? And what is that X relative to consensus grade? 

If you feel that the route is 11a, and I feel that it is 11c, and we both are proficient at the grade,  and have large experience on the same type of rock, then this would be an example of a route that is HARDER for me. 

At one point I asked L Kap about her curriculum vitae.  Not to belittle her in any way, but to (try to) point out that higher grades and different rock require more technique and strength Independent of height.   For example, if a knee-bar is required to free a hand so you can reach over a roof and you don't know how to knee-bar, that move will be "harder".     And if you need to stand up into an overhanging undercling and you don't have the core strength to do that, that move will be harder even with unlimited footholds.

The route near your limit is not a good litmus test of easier/harder, because you are right, you may simply not know a certain technique, or not think creatively enough to use it, and without this specific technique you are stuck, because the route at your limit requires everything you’ve got, otherwise it wouldn’t be at your limit. 

But this is why I asked you earlier to think of routes that are within your onsight range, rather than the top of your redpount pyramid. 

On routes in my onsight range, I can generally make a move multiple different ways, even the crux move, so I can compare how different move sequences feel to me. 

I would call a move “reachy” if I cannot reach a hold/do the moves that average-height people do,  AND I also think that the sequence I end up doing, instead of reaching for the hold, is significantly harder than the typical moves on routes of that grade. Both of these things have to be true in order for me to consider a move/route reachy. Just because the move that my taller partner does is something I can’t reach doesn't automatically make the sequence I end up using any harder than the grade. but sometimes it does.  

I feel that when it comes to onsight grade, rather than a redpoint grade, I have the variety of skills/technique that allow me to be a better judge of the comparative difficulty. Saying that a move is reachy in this context doesn’t mean that I can’t Do the route — I can, and usually I can do it in multiple ways, since we were talking an easier route, relative to my climbing ability. But that’s exactly why I CAN legitimately say that it is harder than a typical move found at that grade, because I have a good sense of that grade, as well as harder grades.

The redpoint crux is the her phrase more likely.    That's complete nonsense.   The size and spacing of edges, cracks, side pulls, pockets, tufas, et cetera is completely random averaged across the planet and for the grade.  Since we're talking about leading near your limit, of course the holds will be smaller and further apart than you are used to!   It is harder.  Doh!

The spacing of holds on all rocks around the planet, averaged out, is, indeed, random. But the GRADE and quality ratings given to those routes are a lot less random, and go back to the point I made earlier — who is the FA? Who are the people giving consensus ratings? How different are they from me?

If a route feels like 11a to an average-height climber (and it can feel that way for a cumulative number of reasons, distance between holds being only one variable), is it going to feel like 11a to me also? Or will it feel like 10b? Or 12a?

I think that for people of average height, the +/- of how the route feels, relative to consensus, is about 1 letter grade. For people farther away from average, that difficulty spread is larger. The peak of the distribution is still at 11a, just the +/- are bigger. 

People who whine about being short and how tall people have such an advantage definitely need to re-evaluate themselves.   Maybe they'd be happier in gymnastics.

Where does whining come into it? Who decided, in this thread, that OP, or L Kap, (or I?) are whining? Go back and re-read what the OP started with. It boiled down “I know this is largely in my head, and I’m looking for effective strategies to get better at leading at my limit”. 

You seem really bent on convincing us that tall people have it hard, too. Nobody is arguing with the fact that sometimes things are harder for taller people.

It is really not about tall people vs short people. It is largely about the expectation of how difficult a consensus grade feels to a specific person, vs how a specific climb of that grade feels to the same person. And how to deal with the uncertainty you face when you have no idea how the route is going to feel. 

This is fun!

@John, I whine getting out of bed some days....and my "excuse" list is long, lol!

However, all of us know grades just give you a wildass guess at routes in one area ​and maybe not even that. I know to look at the developer ​and the year​​​​ ​​​when I go to City of Rocks, and that YMMV. Hugely, even dangerously!

So? Eric's snippets are my favorites. I will say, as a really not good at all climber, stubbornness and getting pissed off have helped a lot. That applies to life in general, but climbing is what taught me that skill. The fire matters, it really does. When your head starts being an asshole? Time to talk back, tell the pinhead to sit down and shut up, because you are ​going to do this....whatever the this may be.

No, I'm not very good at it....yet.

But just showing up and giving it a half-assed shot is better than knitting, by far.

And John? At 4'11" and an old lady? Nothing pisses me off faster than people assuming I can't do something or need help, just because they see a dinky old lady. I hope you meant your ​friend couldn't lift 70 pounds. Because I was hucking 80 pound concrete bags, 90 pound roofing, etc long before I became a climber!

I'm also been known to pick up guys at the gym. Literally. ;-)

Best, Helen

Eric Chabot wrote:

To build off of what Jon and others are saying, and to respond to the first paragraph I am quoting: 

What matters is not only the frequency with which a shortie who 'climbs 10c' can't pull a 10c move (this is obvious and frustrating when this happens) BUT ALSO the frequency that being short makes a 10c move into something easier for them (not very obvious, and not at all frustrating). I believe, as Jon seems to, that this happens just as often (and actually happens more often when routes get overhanging). Why there is so much pushback against this idea has to do with a fundamental attributional error that people are prone to making--we make excuses for perceived shortcomings and we pat ourselves on the back for things we do well, even if that success (or failure) was really just due to luck. 

It's documented in human psychology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_bias#Self-serving_bias 

So, When a 10c move feels easy to the 10c short climber, they think "I am a good climber, my technique/power is improving" but when the 10c move feels hard, they think "I am too short and this move is too reachy". Vice versa with tall climbers bitching about something being scrunchy (I've been guilty of this!).

I totally agree with this, and I tried to acknowledge it in the quoted paragraph from my original post (just before the two you quoted). Although like anyone I can be victim to self-serving bias, I think that I may also sometimes have a tendency to overcompensate for this: often when I do well on a route, I tend to attribute my success to size. This is probably partly a recognition of real advantages, partly a result of being socialized to be modest about accomplishments, and partly something that may actually interfere with recognizing what other factors contributed to my success. But, that's a different issue.

The point of my post was less "life sucks because I can't tick the grades I want," and more "it can be difficult mentally to experience a substantial disconnect between a given route grade and my experience on that route, and I sometimes find it hard to judge when this is real and when it isn't." In a way, having routes that feel substantially easier exacerbates this issue, since it reinforces the feeling that grades have a greater tendency to be inconsistent at my size. What I've gotten from some of the comments here--and it's consistent with my experience at easier-for-me grades--is that this kind of variability actually happens quite rarely, so it probably isn't worth spending too much time and energy worrying about. Just deal with it if it happens, and don't let it mess with you mentally in the many situations where it's not an issue, or where you aren't yet in a position to evaluate whether it is. What you said in your earlier comment about the nature of Rumney cruxes also makes a ton of sense, so I'll keep that in mind too.

So, to respond to the second paragraph of what I am quoting. I will give you 2 strategies that worked for me, and helped me a lot. One is cognitive, and one is tactical, so maybe I have something to offer you beyond pontification about psychology and BS.

The cognitive:
I really like something I heard on a power company podcast. A cognitive strategy Kris Hampton suggested: When a route feels hard, it is because the route has something to teach you. So rather than an obstacle, the difficulty becomes an opportunity. And remember that for performance oriented climbing, we do it because it is hard, not because it is easy. I used to get really frustrated with my climbing when I didn't perform to my expectations. It affected my climbing experience and some people didn't like to climb with me because of that. But I found that this helped with the frustration a lot. The other thing I can do is decide on a given day whether my mindset is going to be 'performance' or 'fun'. On performance days I show up ready to try hard, and be a little frustrated, but not let that get me down because that is what I came for. On fun climbing days, I go out and cruise a moderate multipitch or a series of easy-for-me routes at the crag, and if I run into a hard move and fall off when I don't expect to, I can laugh about it because I'm not too invested, I'm just playing on the route.

The tactical:
When you think about climbing this way, it helps to focus on climbs that you are interested in doing, that you put up on lead or hang the draws on. If you are TR'ing stuff that others put up for you, because leading it is too hard or too scary or whatever, just remember that you didn't pick that climb. The person who put it up did. So the challenge might not be right for you. If you put up your own routes, you control the difficulty and you can pick something out that is the right level of challenge for where you are at on that day. Also a lot of frustration for me used to come from comparing myself to others, and getting competitive about it. This can be fun, but it can be a really negative thing too. Search your feelings and ask yourself if the frustration of failing on a reachy move would feel the same if everyone else failed on it too. Now when I go sport climbing, my friends and I all have our own projects. I don't expect to perform well on my strong friends' projects, and I know that they can send mine in a couple tries if they want, since they are better climbers than I am (and usually they are shorter than I am too, haha). They don't expect to be challenged on my projects, so they don't try them. We might each go up a different route each time we climb, and each clean the draws after leading if the others in the group don't want to climb it. For the most part, every person leads every route that they climb, every time they go out. Maybe this is already how you climb but it wasn't when I was a beginner.

Another funny thing that someone told me is that in climbing, everyone sucks at their own level. So if you feel like you suck, it is because you do--but so does everyone else. If your friends pull the move with ease and you can't do it, maybe they should be climbing something harder (or you should climb something easier). At the end of the day this entire activity is pointless. Frustration is rarely a helpful emotion, and if climbing is too frustrating then maybe try approaching it differently.

Last, If you are flailing about on a route, constantly hanging and trying over and over and over and not making progress, and berating yourself, you are on the wrong route. There's a time and a place for a little bit of flailing once in a while, but when the frustration sets in it's not gonna help anyone. Progression happens incrementally. Find your own challenges that are right for you. Failure is OK. Being in over your head is OK. that is how you grow. But if you push yourself too much, have too high of an expectation of yourself, that progression is gonna be super slow, painful, and unpleasant for you and the people you are climbing with.

Good luck and climb on!

Thanks, this is super helpful! Expectations and comparison (which I think are related) are things that I have been working on, as has approaching climbing with the goal of learning rather than meeting certain pre-set expectations. The comment "ask yourself if the frustration of failing on a reachy move would feel the same if everyone else failed on it too" is pretty revealing, haha.

PS--Next time at Rumney, try Know Ethics at Main Cliff, early early in the morning before it gets hot. Try Waimea. Try the routes at Bonsai starting on the right and work your way left. Lead everything. Whip. Send. Get psyched!!!!

TLDR:
Self serving bias is a thing
When a route feels hard, it is because that route has something to teach you
Lead your own routes and don't compare yourself to others
If you are really flailing on a route then it is probably too hard. Climb something different.

I'll be there on Friday, so I'll try to give some of these a go :) Also really psyched to get back on Millenium Falcon, and to push myself outside my comfort zone with some climbs at easier grades in styles I'm less comfortable with (War and Peace comes to mind as a good candidate).

John Byrnes wrote: People who whine about being short and how tall people have such an advantage definitely need to re-evaluate themselves.   Maybe they'd be happier in gymnastics.

This is how you talk to short women who are discussing their experiences with climbing? "Suck it up", "stop whining", "stop making excuses", and "maybe [you]'d be happier in gymnastics"? I expect a certain amount of boorish trolling on MP,  but not usually from the admins. 

Anonymous wrote:

Ha! There that's thing again, where people give area admins some extra clout and think they should be held more accountable, should be more responsible while carrying the title and set a better example for the rest of us; or something.

Note: this isn't specifically directed at you L Kap. It happens all the time. I suggested it be addressed somehow but, people didn't agree and or didn't believe it was even a thing.

No worries, Nate. Yes, I assume that being a designated admin means that you're a representative of the site in some way (have some delegated authority), and that your conduct on the site reflects on site administration as a whole. Sounds like you're saying that's not the case on MP.

Lena Chita wrote:   
If you feel that the route is 11a, and I feel that it is 11c, and we both are proficient at the grade,  and have large experience on the same type of rock, then this would be an example of a route that is HARDER for me.

...

I feel that when it comes to onsight grade, rather than a redpoint grade, I have the variety of skills/technique that allow me to be a better judge of the comparative difficulty. Saying that a move is reachy in this context doesn’t mean that I can’t Do the route — I can, and usually I can do it in multiple ways, since we were talking an easier route, relative to my climbing ability. But that’s exactly why I CAN legitimately say that it is harder than a typical move found at that grade, because I have a good sense of that grade, as well as harder grades.

The spacing of holds on all rocks around the planet, averaged out, is, indeed, random. But the GRADE and quality ratings given to those routes are a lot less random, and go back to the point I made earlier — who is the FA? Who are the people giving consensus ratings? How different are they from me?

If a route feels like 11a to an average-height climber (and it can feel that way for a cumulative number of reasons, distance between holds being only one variable), is it going to feel like 11a to me also? Or will it feel like 10b? Or 12a?

I think that for people of average height, the +/- of how the route feels, relative to consensus, is about 1 letter grade. For people farther away from average, that difficulty spread is larger. The peak of the distribution is still at 11a, just the +/- are bigger.

Where does whining come into it? Who decided, in this thread, that OP, or L Kap, (or I?) are whining? Go back and re-read what the OP started with. It boiled down “I know this is largely in my head, and I’m looking for effective strategies to get better at leading at my limit”.

...

It is really not about tall people vs short people. It is largely about the expectation of how difficult a consensus grade feels to a specific person, vs how a specific climb of that grade feels to the same person. And how to deal with the uncertainty you face when you have no idea how the route is going to feel. 

Thanks--this is what I've been trying to get at, but put more succinctly.

There are a lot of comments on this thread emphasizing the fact that grades are subjective...yes, but...

...I imagine we've all made comments like:

• I need to try to work out some better beta, because whatever I did up there was definitely not 10a.
• Hmmm, this doesn't feel like 5.8 climbing, I think I might be off route...
• Yeah, it's R-rated, but it's 5.6 so I should be fine.

Sure, you should prioritize your own decision-making skills over what somebody else in a guidebook or on MP says, and sure, you shouldn't climb into a bad-fall zone without being able to downclimb out of it before you're in too much trouble, and sure, bailing is usually a safe option that one should take when appropriate. But having to bail on something isn't anyone's first choice, and grades are often a piece of information people use to help try to avoid this outcome.

...that said, on the few occasions I've entertained serious runouts (arguably one of the cases where this kind of thing should matter most), the question of whether a move might be harder at my height never crossed my mind, because I was entirely focused on the situation at hand. Hmm, maybe there's a lesson there after all....

L Kap wrote:

This is how you talk to short women who are discussing their experiences with climbing? "Suck it up", "stop whining", "stop making excuses", and "maybe [you]'d be happier in gymnastics"? I expect a certain amount of boorish trolling on MP,  but not usually from the admins. 

Hey, I'll expect more from John because he's old and cranky (like me) and I like him, go figure. Get off my grass, geezer! Wait. Needs mowing....

So, my serious rejoinder? Those extra moves at the anchor. ​That, is a real issue I personally ​have to deal with, on specific routes at my local crag.​​​ Standing on the ledge at the top...and crap. Here we are again....  But, I'm waaay short. All of my life, I have never cared at all, or wished I had extra height, any more than wishing I had five arms or something. I've noticed "short" (old, whatever) seems to be more of an issue if you are a bit more toward the middle. 

As with everyone, I have my own specific list to deal with, and it varies day to day depending on how many working parts show up. It isn't a given that the walk up will go.

There's a really simple answer to this, ya whiners. Ice climbing! Strap the holds to your feet and carry them in your hands! YEAH BABY!!!

Best, Helen

The best part of being short is that You get more moves out of every climb. And people tell me the holds are bigger for me, not sure I buy that. 

june m wrote: The best part of being short is that You get more moves out of every climb. And people tell me the holds are bigger for me, not sure I buy that. 

I like what one of my very tall partners said to me once: "You know, sometimes I'm kind of jealous of you, because you get to have more fun with big moves."

John Byrnes wrote: No.  This is how I talk to anyone, of either sex, who cleaves to a false concept, and strives to make it "truth" by asserting it over and over,  in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.   

Perhaps I missed your evidence. I recall reading your personal anecdotes as a 6'1" climber and strongly held opinions about, and advice for, short climbers. The only datasets or analysis of data I saw in this thread were from a pair of respected and experienced coaches and trainers who took measurements from 500 climbers and don't share your conclusions. Was there something else?

A quote from many years ago:

"Byrnes' presentation of the truth more closely approximates the response
you will likely receive from gravity - sure, swift and unforgiving."

Whom are you quoting?

If you really believe that admins are at some higher level, maybe you should believe them when they tell you that you are right, or wrong.

I don't expect admins to be right all the time. A slightly higher level of conversation than "suck it up" and "maybe you'd be happier in gymnastics" would be welcome.

There seems to be a lot of tall and average size climbers who have their knickers in a twist. Why all the butt hurt over the OP's question? I'm short (5 ft 3 on a tall day). Sometimes being a short woman works to my advantage - climbing in corners and under certain roof climbs. There are a lot of times though when I have to do 2 or 3 moves to a taller climber's single move. Sometimes those moves are off of much smaller holds and they can be burly. Sometimes this means that the beta in a route description is not particularly useful. I'm not sure why a statement of these facts would be considered whining. It's a gd fact. Jesus, my saying a particular climb is harder for me isn't taking your man card away.

The thing that does pose a problem for shorter people isn't necessarily the moves in and of themselves. I think when sport climbing the issue is clipping the bolts. I think more about my size when sport climbing than in trad. In trad, at least at the level I climb, I can protect where it is comfortable for me. While sport climbing I am stuck with having to clip where someone, usually taller, found a good stance. That may mean that I have to clip at my head rather than my waist - making my fall potentially larger. I've been a bit worried about that lately and I'm trying to figure it out. I have a Kong Panic on order and I'm trying when on TR to climb each move as I would if leading so that I get used to looking for more appropriate stances.

Another issue is the one OLH brings up. The position of anchors can sometimes be a real pain in the ass for short people. This is maybe a place where someone who is bolting an anchor may want to take varying heights into account. I'm not saying that I expect anyone to retrobolt an anchor for me but I do get a little pissed off when I have to hang off a not-super hold and lean way back so I can get to full extension to get the anchor on a 5.7.

Deirdre wrote:The thing that does pose a problem for shorter people isn't necessarily the moves in and of themselves. I think when sport climbing the issue is clipping the bolts. I think more about my size when sport climbing than in trad. In trad, at least at the level I climb, I can protect where it is comfortable for me. While sport climbing I am stuck with having to clip where someone, usually taller, found a good stance. That may mean that I have to clip at my head rather than my waist - making my fall potentially larger. I've been a bit worried about that lately and I'm trying to figure it out. I have a Kong Panic on order and I'm trying when on TR to climb each move as I would if leading so that I get used to looking for more appropriate stances.

Another issue is the one OLH brings up. The position of anchors can sometimes be a real pain in the ass for short people. This is maybe a place where someone who is bolting an anchor may want to take varying heights into account. I'm not saying that I expect anyone to retrobolt an anchor for me but I do get a little pissed off when I have to hang off a not-super hold and lean way back so I can get to full extension to get the anchor on a 5.7.

YES!!! Reachy clips annoy me way more than reachy moves (on real rock). And also seem to happen more frequently than reachy moves. 

Rock is just rock, but bolts were placed by people, and some bolters are way worse than others in this respect. And in most cases there is no structural reason why the bolt/anchor couldn’t have been placed within reach, just lack of awareness or care.

Artful Dodger wrote: People place bolts according to what they see not to fit your idea of what a line can or should be. Feel free to bolt up some great lines that omit the errors others have committed.

I’m not disagreeing with the line these bolters chose, in most cases— just some bolt placements. And there is no need to be snarky. Bolt placements on rap-bolted lines are often less than perfect for a variety of reasons, and often get moved on rebolting. 

Some bolters are much better than others at bolt placements for/from convenient clipping stances. Just because they had time and desire to bolt routes doesn’t mean that they automatically become infallible.