Matching and bumping: how to swap hands on a hold

The move nobody teaches you

You do the hard pull. You get the hold. You are stood there with one hand on a good jug, the next move needs the other hand, and now you have to get both hands onto something that was only ever built for one.

That second or two is where a lot of people come off, and almost nobody practises it. Setters teach you to reach. Coaches teach you to place your feet. The bit in between, where two hands have to share a hold or one hand has to overtake the other, gets left to work itself out.

It does not always work itself out. Here is what is actually happening, and the four ways out of it.

Matching and bumping are different things

A match is both hands on the same hold at the same time, even briefly. You bring the second hand in, you share the surface, and usually the first hand then leaves for the next move.

A bump is the opposite. The same hand stays on the hold and moves off it to a better hold higher up, using it as a stepping stone. No second hand ever arrives.

Most sequences give you a choice between the two, and most climbers make that choice by accident. The hold decides it, if you read it properly.

Read the hold, not the move

Before you commit, look at how much usable surface there is.

A jug with a long rail: match freely. There is room for four fingers and four more.

A jug with one good pocket of space: you can probably match, but the two hands will be stacked, not side by side. Plan which one goes where.

An incut edge two fingers wide: you are not matching that in any comfortable way. Bump, or find a foot that lets you skip the match altogether.

A sloper: matching is often easier than it looks, because you are pressing rather than pulling, and two palms spread the load. Slopers reward the match more than crimps ever will.

The habit worth building is that you decide this from the ground, while you can still see the hold, not while you are hanging off it with a forearm filling up.

The four ways to get a second hand on

1. The straight match

Both hands land next to each other. Nothing clever. This is the one everybody defaults to and it works whenever the hold is long enough.

The mistake is arriving with the second hand too close, jamming your own fingers, and then having to shuffle anyway. Aim the second hand at the far end of the hold and leave a gap, rather than landing right against the hand that is already there.

2. The shuffle

You match, then walk the first hand along the hold to make room, one or two fingers at a time. Slow, undramatic, and the single most useful version on real rock, where holds are rarely the neat shape a setter would give you.

Keep your weight settled on your feet while you shuffle. If your hips have swung out, every finger movement costs you double.

3. The stack

Not enough room to sit side by side, so one hand goes on top of the other. Fingers of the second hand rest across the knuckles or the back of the first, or the thumb hooks in below.

It feels precarious and it is, so it is a transition rather than a resting position. Get on, get the first hand off, keep moving. Stacks are common on pinches and small pockets where the surface simply will not take eight fingers.

4. The hand swap

The first hand leaves as the second arrives, and for a moment neither is fully on. There are two versions.

The roll is the calm one. You get a couple of fingers of the new hand onto the edge of the hold, roll your weight across, and let the old hand peel off as the new one settles. It is a swap disguised as a match.

The drop and catch is the committing one. The old hand lets go, the new one lands, and there is a real gap. Sometimes the shape of the hold gives you nothing else. Keep your feet loaded and your hips close, take the swap on the beat where your body is most settled, and do not do it with a straight arm and hanging feet.

When to skip the match entirely

Matching costs time and grip. On a pumpy sequence it is often the wrong answer even when it is possible.

Bump instead when:

• the next hold is close enough that the same hand can reach it from where it is
• the hold you are on is too small to share without a fight
• you are on a steep wall and letting one hand off will swing you out
• the match would put both hands in a position that neither can pull from

The bump wants a moment of stability first. Get your feet high, get your hips in, and take the hand off from a position you could hold for five seconds, not from the last instant before you fall off.

Feet first, always

Almost every failed match is a foot problem wearing a hand costume.

Two hands on one hold pulls your shoulders together and narrows your base. If your feet are where they were for the reach, your body is now in the wrong shape for the match. So the sequence is usually: arrive with the first hand, move the feet, then bring the second hand in.

On a steep wall that often means bringing a foot up high or swapping which foot is on the hold, so your hips can come under the match rather than hanging off to one side. On a slab it means getting your weight over the toes so your hands are steadying you, not holding you.

Watch someone who climbs well and the feet are already moving while the first hand is still settling. That is the whole trick.

The foot match, and the hand-foot match

Two related moves worth knowing by name.

A foot match is both feet on the same foothold, and it comes up constantly on traverses and arêtes. Same rules apply: read the size of it, and shuffle rather than stamp.

A hand-foot match is a foot onto the hold your hand is on. Common on mantles and topouts, and on steep boulders where you need to get high on a jug before rocking over. It is awkward the first few times, mostly because people try to place the foot outside the hand instead of pointing the toe in beside it. Turn the knee out, bring the toe in low, and let your hand slide along to make room.

How to drill it

You cannot really practise this on your project, because you only get a couple of goes and the pressure is elsewhere. Drill it well below your limit.

The traverse drill. Pick a long easy traverse and match every single hand hold, even the ones that do not need it. Twenty minutes of that teaches your hands where the spare room on a hold is better than any amount of reading about it.

The one-hold rule. On a warm-up problem, choose one hold and commit to a hand swap on it. Do the problem three times and try the roll, then the stack, then the drop and catch. You will find out quickly which one suits the shape.

Downclimb everything. Downclimbing forces matches you would never choose, and it does it while you are fresh at the start of a session rather than wrecked at the end.

Board sessions. On a steep board the match is nearly always the crux of a move, because there is no spare surface anywhere. Set a problem where two hands have to share the same hold at least twice, then log how it felt and which version worked.

That last part matters more than it sounds. The reason people never improve at this is that the swap happens in a second and gets forgotten by the time they are back on the mat. Writing down that the roll worked on the left-hand pinch but the stack did not is the sort of thing you would never remember otherwise, and it is exactly what a session log is for. Sendit keeps that next to the problem itself, so the note is there the next time you pull on.

The short version

Decide from the ground whether the hold is a match or a bump. Move your feet before you move the second hand. Aim wide, shuffle rather than jam, and keep the stack as a transition instead of a rest. Drill it on easy ground where falling costs nothing.

It is not glamorous, and nobody films it. It is also two or three grades of quiet progress for most climbers, sat in a move they have never once practised.