Set your own board problems

Why bother setting your own

Climbing other people's problems is easy and endless. There are thousands of shared lines to pull on, and you could spend years working through them. But setting your own changes how you see the wall. Instead of solving a puzzle someone else built, you start asking what makes a move hard, why one hold sequence flows and another fights you, and where your own weaknesses actually live.

That shift is worth more than it sounds. When you set, you have to think like the wall. You notice that a hold faces slightly the wrong way for a left hand, that the distance between two crimps demands a foot you had not considered, that the move you imagined as a static lock-off is really a deadpoint. You learn movement from the inside out.

There is also the simple fact that you can target what you avoid. Bad at slopers? Set a problem that is nothing but slopers. Weak pulling off small feet? Strip the footholds back until your toes are working hard. A self-set problem is a training prescription you wrote for yourself.

How to set a line worth repeating

A good board problem has a clear idea. It is not a random scatter of holds you happened to like the look of. Before you start, decide what the problem is about: a powerful first move, a balancy sequence on poor feet, a long reach to a sloper. Then make every hold serve that idea.

A few habits that lead to better lines:

• Set the crux first. Find the hard move you want, then build the rest of the problem to set it up and follow on from it. Working backwards from the crux keeps the problem focused.
• Mind the feet. Footholds shape difficulty as much as handholds. Removing a foot or pushing it further out can turn a soft move into a proper one without changing a single hand.
• Make it climb in one style. A problem that switches randomly between crimping and slopers and big jugs often feels disjointed. Pick a texture and commit to it.
• Test it honestly. Climb your own line. If it only works one way and that way feels contrived, adjust it. If you can skip the move you cared about, tighten the holds around it.

Angle is part of the design too. The same holds at 25 degrees and at 45 degrees give completely different problems, so think about which angle expresses your idea best before you commit.

Naming, grading and sharing

Once a problem climbs well, give it a name and a grade. Grading your own setting is humbling and useful in equal measure. You will overgrade things you found hard for personal reasons and undergrade things that suit you, and comparing your guess to how others find it teaches you a lot about your own biases.

Sharing is where it gets fun. A board problem you set can be repeated by anyone on the same board layout, in your gym or across the world. Watching someone else find a different sequence through your line, or shut down on the move you thought was easy, is one of the quiet pleasures of board climbing.

Sendit lets you set, grade and share board problems and keep track of which of your lines are getting repeated. But you do not need any of that to start. Stand in front of the board, decide what you want the problem to be about, and build it one move at a time. The first few you set will be clumsy. Keep going. Setting well is a skill like any other, and it makes you a sharper climber every time you do it.