Edging: how to stand on small footholds and trust them

The foothold is smaller than your fear of it

Most climbers can hang off a small crimp long before they will stand on a small foothold. The hands get the attention and the training. The feet get whatever is left.

That is backwards. Your legs are far stronger than your fingers, and every bit of weight you can put through a foot is weight your fingers do not have to hold. On vertical rock and anything slabby, good footwork is most of the climb. On steep ground it is what stops you running out of arms by the third move.

Edging is the skill underneath almost all of it. You pick a small, positive foothold, you put a precise part of your shoe on it, and you stand up. It sounds simple. Doing it well is what separates people who climb with their feet from people who climb despite them.

Autumn is the perfect time to work on it. The rock is cooler, the rubber sticks better, and the grit edges and limestone footholds that felt greasy in August start to feel like steps.

Edging versus smearing

There are two ways to stand on rock.

Edging uses a hold. There is an edge, a ripple, a crystal or a lip of some kind, and you place the rim of your shoe on it. The hold takes your weight.

Smearing uses friction. There is no real hold, so you press as much rubber as possible against the rock and trust it to stick.

Plenty of footholds sit somewhere between the two, and good climbers blend them without thinking. A rounded foothold might get a bit of edge and a bit of smear. But the instinct is different. On an edge you want precision and a still foot. On a smear you want contact and a low heel.

The three parts of the shoe

A climbing shoe gives you three main places to stand on an edge.

The inside edge. The big toe side of the shoe, just under the joint of the big toe. This is your default. It is the most precise and the most powerful part of the shoe, and it lets you keep your hips close to the wall on vertical ground. When in doubt, use the inside edge.

The outside edge. The little toe side. Less precise on most shoes, but it turns your hip in towards the wall, which is exactly what you want on steep ground. It is the edge you use to backstep.

The front point. The very tip of the big toe. Useful on tiny footholds in pockets, on holds straight in front of you and for the kind of pinpoint placement where the side of the shoe will not fit. It asks a lot of your calf and puts you further from the wall, so it is a tool for specific moves rather than a default.

Most climbers overuse the front point because it feels natural to walk on your toes. Try standing on the inside edge instead and notice how much more stable you feel.

How to place a foot on an edge

Look at the hold. Not at the next handhold. At the foothold, until the shoe is on it. Most slipped feet are feet placed while the climber was already looking up.

Choose the part of the shoe first. Before your foot moves, decide whether this is an inside edge, an outside edge or a toe. Swapping halfway is how feet skate off.

Place it, do not drop it. Bring the foot in close and set it down on the best part of the hold with a small, deliberate movement. Quiet feet are precise feet. If you can hear the shoe hit the wall, it probably landed somewhere you did not choose.

Weight it straight down. Get your hips over the foot and push down through the hold, not out from it. An edge works because you are loading it vertically. Push sideways and the shoe rolls off.

Keep it still. Once the foot is on, do not twist it, pivot it or shuffle it while you move your hands. Every small movement loses a little of the edge. If you need to change feet, do a proper foot swap rather than wriggling.

Heel height matters

On an edge, a slightly raised heel puts the stiff front of the shoe onto the hold and gives you the most precision. On a smear, you do the opposite and drop the heel to get more rubber on the rock.

The mistake is letting the heel wander. If it drops while you are on a small edge, the shoe levers off the hold. If it rises too high, your calf does all the work and starts shaking, which is the classic Elvis leg. Find a height where the edge feels solid, then hold it there while you move.

Why feet slip

You moved it after placing it. The most common cause by far. The foot was fine, then it twisted a centimetre as you reached, and the edge was gone.

You were pushing out, not down. When your hips sag away from the wall, the load on the foot turns sideways. Bring your hips back over your feet and the same foothold holds.

Dirty rubber or a chalky hold. A film of dust or chalk on the sole makes every foothold worse. Wipe your shoes on your trousers or a towel before you pull on, and brush any polished or chalky footholds on outdoor problems.

Worn shoes. Once the rubber at the toe has rounded off, precise edging gets much harder. If the edge of your shoe looks like a sofa arm rather than a knife, it is time to think about resoling.

You did not trust it. A hesitant foot is a light foot, and a light foot slides. Commit weight to it.

Shoes and edging

Stiffer shoes with a flatter profile are easier to edge on, because the shoe holds its shape on a small hold and your foot does not have to. Softer, more downturned shoes are brilliant on steep ground and for smearing, but ask more of your feet on tiny edges.

That does not mean you need a new pair. It means knowing what your shoes are good at. If you are heading out to vertical grit or limestone and your only shoes are soft and aggressive, expect to work harder on the edges and place them more carefully. There is more on this in soft versus stiff shoes.

Drills that make small footholds feel bigger

Silent feet. Climb a few easy problems or routes and place every foot without making a sound. It forces you to look, slow down and place deliberately.

Inside edge only. Pick an easy vertical circuit and use nothing but the inside edge of your shoes. You will quickly learn how much more stable it is than the toe.

Hover and place. On each foothold, hover your foot a couple of centimetres above it for a second before you set it down. It feels slow. It builds precision faster than anything else.

Smallest feet on the wall. On a vertical wall, climb using only the smallest footholds you can find, including screw-on chips and texture, with big handholds. Your hands stay easy while your feet do all the learning.

One foot, no readjust. Every time you place a foot, that is where it stays until you move it to the next hold. No shuffling. If the placement was bad, you feel it, and the next one gets better.

There are more ideas in footwork drills that pay off fast.

The short version

Look at the foothold until the shoe is on it. Pick the part of the shoe before you move: inside edge by default, outside edge to turn the hip in, front point for the tiny stuff. Place it quietly, weight it straight down with your hips over it, and do not move it once it is set. Keep your rubber clean, and practise on easy terrain until standing on small holds stops feeling like a gamble.

Keep a note of the problems where your feet finally held. Sendit keeps your sessions, projects and notes in one place, so when the vertical grit problem you kept slipping off goes this autumn, you can look back and see exactly what changed.