#setting emotion

Tonde Katiyo has talked about setting climbs with emotion in mind. The easiest example is frustration; it’s common to get frustrated with a route for a number of reasons: you’ve done all the moves but can’t link it up, you’ve done all moves except the crux, you progressed yesterday but took a step back today... But David said something to the effect of, “I don’t know what a joyful climb would look like,” and it got me thinking about what emotions, other than frustration, do climbers feel while on a climb or while projecting.

So I went to social media. I asked the questions, “What do you feel while on a climb?” and “What emotions have you felt while working a climb?” to my followers on Instagram, and there were several answers: anxious, self-conscious, clunky, underwhelmed, fearful, relieved, excited, content.

I thought about different feelings I’ve had while climbing or working on something (particularly failing on something), and the list is even longer: frustrated, fearful, disappointed, obsessed, addicted, determined, playful, surprised, carefree, stupid, clever, alone, proud, insecure, unattached, thoughtless...

I’m not sure what it is about the climbs that have made me feel any one of those things. Some of it has to do with why I’m climbing the route, I suppose--like if I am warming up or projecting or training endurance or working on climbing open-handed... On a warm-up climb, I’m likely to think about things other than the climb itself, and so I feel detached from the climbing and still in my head. But while projecting, all of my thoughts outside of the climb in front of me--or even a single move--disappear; I am attentive to the climb and to how the climb makes me feel. 

So I suppose that the feelings involved with projecting (or climbing hard at all) that I want to focus on, and my goal was to focus on an emotion, determine what about a climb makes somebody feel that way, and think about how I could set that. But as I go through it more, I’m not sure I’ll land on some specific setting process...

Let’s take the “easiest” example: frustration.

What do I do when frustrated in climbing? I roll my eyes. Walk away. Groan and complain (probably call the climb--or myself--stupid; something is stupid for sure). Definitely don’t smile--I probably flaunt my resting bitch face. Wrestle my shoes off of my feet and then toss them to the ground.

What has frustrated me about these climbs? A single move I can’t do, or can only do in isolation. Inability to link the climb from start to finish. Not seeing what sequence I need to perform. Reversing progress, forgetting beta. Sometimes, the style of the climb or a certain, forced move--not being fun or comfortable movement. If I think a climb is misgraded. For the most part for me, it may boil down to not being able to do something that I think I should be able to do.

How do I set that emotion in a climb? 

I could set a climb with really reasonable moves and one incredibly hard move. The downsides are that, usually, I prefer to set a climb that is sustained in difficulty and that that’s just kind of a dick move. If the only point is to frustrate a climber, then I could certainly set a climb composed of ten v4 moves and one v7 move--and call it v6. That just seems stupid to me. A v4 or a v5 climber would get on it, climb the ten v4 moves, not be able to do the one v7 move, and think they’re climbing a v6--but they’re not. What they are climbing is a v4; the climb “altogether” is a v6.

I could set a climb that requires power endurance--set 20 moves of v5, and call it a v6. A v5 boulderer has the strength to do every move on it, but do they have the endurance to send the climb? That wouldn’t be so bad, I suppose.

But I want more than the difficulty of individual moves taken together. I want the movement itself to provoke frustration. Is there a way for the way in which I move my body to frustrate me?

I get frustrated on climbs that have what I think are dumb moves--either because they’re awkward or they’re jumpy or something. And suppose that I cannot avoid the climb (because if I could avoid the climb, I would. I would just not do whatever dumb climb there is). In a commercial gym or outdoors, I can pick and choose the climbs that I want to do. But if I were to compete in an onsight competition, I would have to give my best effort on each climb--there’s no avoiding the dumb climbs, the dynos, whatever.

But that’s also subjective. What movement I find dumb is specific to my style, but somebody else (indeed, many people) may love run and jumps, straight up dynos, double-clutch moves, etc.

That could be how this mission to figure out how, generally, to set for an emotion ends up--subjective, varying from situation to situation. I imagine that any one climb could make different climbers feel different things. Maybe I need to just begin with setting to evoke any emotion rather than a specific one.