Competitive Bouldering for Beginners

Competition climbing can be very different to normalThe experience of competing and trying to get as
climbing and with the pressure of competing thrownmany points as possible can really spur you on to
in as well it can sometime be difficult to replicateclimb better and push yourself and this is a good
your normal climbing ability.advantage of climbing competitively.
A bouldering competition usually consists of a numberIt may be quite difficult to get the routes on the
of problems, with points awarded for completing itfirst attempt when you first start competing, as
on the first attempt, and less points for the second,even looking at the holds and the way the route
third and fourth attempts. This is known as on-sitemoves, doesn't help much. The best thing to do if
competing, as you are not allowed to try out thepossible, is to watch someone else attempt the climb
route beforehand, and obviously this makes it slightlybefore you do, and learn from their mistakes. As
tougher. Some competitions also include problemssome competitions are timed there might also be
with a bonus point if you reach a certain part of thesome routes, that it would be good to have more
course, or use a certain hold.goes at, but this is unfortunate unless the centre is
Usually the routes vary from the very very easy, tonear where you live, and you can return another
the were very very tough, with a range of difficultiestime, after the competition. You would probably be
in between. This is good as it allows even newable to do the routes after many attempts, but the
climbers to attempt some routes and to gain sometricky part with competitions is doing them on first
points. However for major competitions, the focus issight.
usually on the much harder climbing problems.