The 5 Basic Principles of Climbing

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When you’re learning how to climb, you get a lot of suggestions on what techniques to use on certain parts of a route. While having specific beta for a specific climb is useful, the implementation is often narrow. Climbing is better sensed through broader strokes of movement patterns, common techniques that you can use most of the time.

The Pareto Principle states that roughly 80% of outputs come from 20% of inputs. In this video, I’ll go over the “vital few” 20% of techniques that account for 80% of the moves you do in climbing. These will be split into 5 basic principles.
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[minifireball]

1: Opposite hand and foot 1:12
2: Counterpressure 2:55
3: The 90 degree rule 4:14
4: C.O.G. inside B.O.S. 5:40
5: Move away to move toward 7:13

[ranjit]

I have never heard those ideas expressed so clearly and well structured. This is not just a good climbing lesson, but also a lesson in teaching done really well. Impressive!

[julessbader]

The 5 principles:
- Opposite hand & foot (when reaching for a hold with one hand support yourself with the same-side foot and the opposite hand, imagine a diagonal line going through your center of gravity)
- Counterpressure (Push + pull)
- 90° rule (always apply pressure at a 90° angle to the hold edge)
- COG inside BOS (Center Of Gravity always inside our Base Of Support)
- Move away to move towards (use your body like spring, create tension until deadpoint and then jump to the next hold)

[gearupaaron]

Chill music, chill voice, solid script - way to go, man! Thanks for doing this!

[RaymondSequenza]

Love the methodical approach you're taking. Definitely helping me think more deeply about beta. Climbing is still a young sport, this is definitely the right direction for the instruction/"theory" of climbing to take.

[edwinlai]

My favourite thing about your videos is how well you articulate what you’re doing. Thank you for explaining it so patiently

[tydondero]

This guy really explains the physics of climbing well.

[jonathanrolfsen]

This is easily in the top 1% of climbing videos people need to see, and not only for climbing; every one of these principles applies to many moves that I teach in parkour (vaulting, bar-moves, and dynamic wall moves). I see similar connections for dance and martial arts too... These could more broadly used to describe principles of most movement arts...

[NWRinehart]

I work in sales, so I was so stoked to hear you mention the 80 20 rule. I can't believe I hadn't applied it to climbing yet. Also, I can totally picture myself using the five points as a checklist to help me figure out what's going wrong on future climbs. Thanks again for another wonderful video.

[tenkaichi]

As a starting climber that has a decent physique, but *very* bad balance and spatial awareness, this video has been a real blessing!
The explanations are super clear, but the graphics that are showing with the slow and clear examples make it so much more intuitive. Thanks a bunch for your effort, I'll be taking this to the gym today! :)

[doubleducky]

This is so well done. I'm recommending this to all my friends who I'm trying to get to start climbing. Thank you!

[kingdaka]

Gonna be forwarding this vid to so many new climbers, perfectly encapsulates everything about learning how to climb

[xslcdsh]

I work in sales, so I was so stoked to hear you mention the 80 20 rule. I can't believe I hadn't applied it to climbing yet. Also, I can totally picture myself using the five points as a checklist to help me figure out what's going wrong on future climbs. Thanks again for another wonderful video.

[MrChaluliss]

Solid video here for beginners. I feel like I really did get better when each of these techniques became more natural for me. Though I honestly noticed some points of these techniques which I could still learn to do better from the video too. Thanks for the thoughtfully constructed content!

[josefsbeach]

that Anchor Man easter egg line cracked me up! Great video!

[lennardvanloon]

This is a great video, a couple of my friends recently got into climbing and watching this really makes me feel able to give advice to them with logic and motivation behind it rather than "do this because it works and eventually you can get a feel for where it will work"

[sardj]

Your explanation is the BEST. I just started bouldering and I really want to ensure I understand the principles so I'm more comfortable. This was much needed. You're brilliant

[sabaca]

This is by far the highest yield video of climbing advice I have watched so far

[interestedinstuff]

I've been climbing long enough to know this stuff now, but I still congratulate you on producing such a smooth video for the basics. Very well done.

[saltycherrypie]

Absolutely love these videos! Production value is high and the information is very well divided and digestible. I also found the music to voice volume ratio was better compared the other few videos i watched. The music was not as distracting. Please keep these coming!