When I was younger, I’d help my dad in the garden cutting timber and doing odd jobs. I’d get frustrated, puffing and panting away, hacking at the log with the saw which would constantly get stuck. My dad would always tell me, ‘Let the saw do the work’. This would only frustrate me further as I’d be thinking ‘How can I let the saw do the work? The saw does no work, I’m doing the work and the saw is just the tool I’m using. Without me doing the work, the saw is useless!’

Its only now I’m an adult that I realise what my dad meant, and he was right at the end of the day. What he failed to do was make his advice understandable. I didn’t know how to use the correct pressure and arm-stroke pattern to allow the saw to do the work. This isn’t meant in any way to defame my dad, in fact you could say after reading this that he shaped my thinking and definitely made me better at DIY.  

The point for coaches is that the language we use when coaching is so important to effectively deliver information to our athletes. So many times I have used, and continue to hear coaches use, statements like ‘Trust your shoes’ or ‘Use your feet’ etc. These statements, however true, are confusing to many beginner climbers. There is a process to go through before a person can use these commands to aid their performance. Some coaching segments such as teaching the different areas of the shoe, angling the foot to use those areas, experimenting with the limit of grip that a well-fitting climbing shoe can achieve, playing with clawing the toe into a hold, and finding balance in warm up activities, can be easily utilised and encouraged to build a picture in the athletes mind of how to ‘use your feet’.

Therefore, my goal over the next 30 days when coaching is to think about coaching the skills to make statements such as ‘use your feet’ meaningful, so they can become mental cues for better performance when it’s needed on a route.

Stop. Think about it. Simplify it. Then coach it.

Happy climbing,

Dan