What is a sloper?

Some holds you grab. A sloper you do not grab so much as lean on and pray. They are the smooth, rounded blobs with no edge, no lip, nothing for your fingers to curl around, and to a newer climber they feel completely hopeless. The good news is that slopers reward technique far more than strength, and once it clicks they stop being a wall.

A hold with nothing to hold

A sloper is a rounded hold with no positive edge. Where a crimp gives you a sharp lip to pull on and a jug gives you a deep pocket to wrap your hand into, a sloper gives you only a curved surface. There is no in-cut, nothing your fingers can hook behind. All you have is the friction between your skin and the hold.

That is the whole secret of the sloper: it works on friction, not grip. Your contact with the hold depends on how much surface area your hand makes against it, and crucially, on the direction you pull. Slopers are unforgiving about angle. Pull in the wrong direction and your hand slides straight off. Pull in the right one and the same hold suddenly feels solid.

This is why they feel hopeless at first. Beginners instinctively try to crush a sloper like a crimp, fingers bent, pulling outwards, and of course it greases off. The hold is not designed to be squeezed. It is designed to be smeared with the whole hand.

How body position makes them stick

The trick to slopers lives in your body, not your fingers. The aim is to get your weight hanging directly below the hold so that you are pulling straight down through it, not out from it.

A few things that turn a hopeless sloper into a usable one:

• Drop your hips and stay low. Getting your centre of gravity under the hold changes the angle of pull from outwards to downwards, which is exactly what a sloper wants.
• Maximise skin contact. Spread your fingers, lay your whole palm and the meat of your thumb onto the hold, and use as much surface as you can. More contact means more friction.
• Keep your arm straight and shoulder engaged. A bent arm pulls outwards and peels you off. A long arm with an active shoulder keeps the force pointing down.
• Stay still once you are on it. Slopers punish fidgeting. Find the position, commit, move precisely to the next thing.

Footwork matters enormously here. Because the hold gives you so little, your feet have to do real work. High, precise feet let you press your weight down through the sloper rather than swinging out from it. Often the move into a sloper is about generating just enough momentum to land your hand softly on top, then settling your weight before the friction can break.

Friction, conditions and patience

Slopers are also the holds most affected by conditions. Warm, sweaty hands and humid air kill friction, which is why a sloper that felt fine in the morning can feel like glass by mid-afternoon. Chalk helps, cool dry skin helps more, and so does a quick brush of the hold to clear off the grease from earlier climbers. Serious sloper sessions live and die by good conditions.

If you struggle with them, that is normal and it is worth chasing rather than avoiding. Slopers force you to learn body tension, hip position and patient, precise movement, the exact skills that make every other style of climbing better too. Seek out the rounded, grabless holds you usually walk past, drop your hips, lay your whole hand on, and trust the friction. They go from hopeless to satisfying faster than almost any other hold type.