At its heart climbing is a game of Reaching and Holding the next hold until with overcome the pattern set out before us usually this means reaching the top but not always. It also means the challenges in climbing tend to focus on the holding on or reaching.. it may sound obvious but how many times will you hear that the climb is too big a reach or the holds are too bad. Unfortunately this is the challenge of climbing if over simplified. So let's look at it from a different perspective.
As a sport Climbing is SKILL based and we define skill as Technique plus Ability.. To break that down, our goal in climbing is to have the ability to perform a technique.
Technique - At this point we simply mean the movement, positions and tactics involved in climbing,
Ability - This is your physical and mental strength, mobility, fitness, agility and coordination. So as a coach and a Climber I've always focused on that, technique first and then the ability to perform it. A few times I find myself or others totally lacking the ability to even begin to perform the techniques. This becomes a great opportunity for us as we then know an area of Ability we can focus on. If you are uncertain in why you are unable to get a movement right speak to a good quality coach, (we will even work remotely with you if you are happy to film the moves you struggle on). This might feel like an over simplified way to look at climbing but from a coaching or teaching perspective we need to keep it defined as this help us know what to improve with our climbers.