BIGGEST MISTAKES Coach Louis Sees at Every Grade (V0-V9+)

As a Catalyst Climbing performance coach, Louis Parkinson has seen a LOT of climbers climb. He's coached many different climbing approaches and techniques, and today, he shares the most common mistakes he observes across climbers of all grades.

In this video, Louis breaks down the key stumbling blocks that climbers frequently encounter, offering practical tips and solutions to overcome them.

From mastering motivation & maintaining climbing confidence to overcoming doubt and climbing plateaus, we've broken down this episode into different grade ranges and included climbers of different abilities to help demonstrate the common errors and bad habits that could be holding your climbing back.

00:00 Catalyst Climbing Introduction
01:30 Maggie, V1 - V3 Climber
07:30 New Hannah Morris Bouldering T-Shirt
8:45 Sam, V3 - V5 Climber
14:45 Hannah, V5 - V7 Climber
25:30 Nathan, V7 - V9 Climber
29:00 Louis, V9+ Climber
30:00 Summary

For beginners and experienced climbers, this video is packed with valuable insights to help you climb smarter, and harder.

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[mlindquist]

Finally, Magnus' disguise is on point this time

[itsqueendebae]

I clicked on this for rock climbing advice and got a life lesson about believing in yourself, commitment, trial and error, and the power of could vs should

[wenkeli]

The climb with the lowest grade that we fail at has the most to teach us. I need to remember that when I'm avoiding climbs.

[BoulderingHighlights]

The way Louie approaches how he teaches is subtly masterful. Does not sound preachy, does not sound judgemental. He is so patient, kind and supportive.
Hes the supportive coach that everyone needs

[lauraguglielmo]

It was so good to see Maggie commit to the scary move!!

[hellfish]

3:19 “good news - I wasn’t wrong”

While very accurate, I cannot think of a more British sentence

[driphtwood]

He’s a phenomenal coach. You can tell how seasoned he is, he’s practically able to read minds because he’s seen the same thing so many times.

[michelechernega]

Love the no-ego, high encouragement and knowledge of you both. Having Louie as a coach would be a DREAM!

[mats]

23:27 we all know the importance of giving holds a proper brush, but it’s really good of Louis to show how it can be equally beneficial to give it a good stare down as well

[aktic]

6:49 "You tried this climb earlier and then chose to walk away right ? As proven, you were always able to do it, it was always there and you hadn't got any stronger in the last few minutes. Maintaining high level of confidence and just carrying on working at something, even if it doesn't feel like you are going to get it is a really tricky part of timing" - This is words of great teacher and coach.

[joshwilliams]

I'm sure loads of people have said this, but my favourite part is that none of these tips were "V3 need to flag more" or "V5 need to focus on precision movements" or any other technique-specific problem. It's all about attitude and mindset!

100% why I'm subscribed to Catalyst (and also to HMB!)

[riiiibu]

love that none of these 'mistakes' are about technique, but all about mindset!

[gyateste]

"Feeling like we've plateaued is a matter of how we measure progress." I love that analogy!

[楊子慕]

One other things I would do to increase my confidence at V0~V3 is just jumping off the wall on the comitting move. This way I'm practicing the fall and telling myself that it's not a big deal at all. This is especially usefull when the wall is higher than your confort height, or if you are a little scared of height (Like me!)

[EilidhKH]

I think "should" also stops us from giving ourselves credit when we DO achieve the challenge! When Louis finally got the orange v8, if he was framing it as "should" in his mind, it takes away any feeling of achievement because "yeah, obviously I got it, I /should/ have been able to do it all along". It's not giving credit to all the progress you made between that moment of thibking you could do something and then the moment of ACTUALLY doing it.

[WomF]

As a V4 plateau-er, I can't explain how helpful I found that segment. I was expecting something about physical techniques and training, but advice to overcome a mental obstacle was even more helpful than I expected. Thank you!

[Blaubeere]

Louis is such a great teacher. Actually I don’t know anything about bouldering. You can also pretty much transfer every tip he gave to for example learning an instrument, crafting, arts, whatever.
Loved it!

[DominicNelson]

24:08 I think Hannah nailed why Louis was struggling but he had a hard time hearing it. Still great to see him push his comfort zone, and clearly an awesome coach

[johnnymuller]

26:28 one habit I noticed that so many climbers do, also nathan: regripping almost every hold. You can save energy by focusing on grabbing the holds perfectly, especially on easier climbs. That can give you the missing 1-2% to top limit boulders.

[Bobbzorzen]

Louis as always is an absolute beast at teaching