How to climb 5.12 : Good Habits that strong climbers have
Generally speaking, 5.12 is the start of a great world of hard climbing and so getting into it really depends on how much you want it. Secondly, having the right tools to get there is also important.
To continue on, here are the habits that people who climb 5.12 and above maintain. Obviously, asking people who climb hard what they do may be a better clue. But really, there is no substitute to just getting out there and figuring what works for you and what doesn’t.
Bouldering is a worthy tool in order to climb 5.12
There are a lot of climbers out there that don’t understand a simple, zen truth. Bouldering is climbing cruxes. What do we mean by that? Well, bouldering, believe it or not, is like climbing any route you want to do. But you just need to do the crux of the route and you’re done.
Pretty silly to say that out loud and have it be news, since i know lots of people who “project” routes that they can’t do the crux on, or seem to fail repeatedly because they haven’t gotten it dialed. To us, this is basically just climbing, stopping, trying a boulder problem, failing, only to try it a few more times.
Bouldering is climbing cruxes
Route climbing should not be like bouldering. Bouldering is the pursuit of hard moves, which you should already master before attempting a route. The routes you can generally project are those you can do all the moves. But just have to stop because you are too gassed after the cruxes. Then, it becomes figuring out if you can rest, how to rest the best and then dialing it in. Sometimes it also means improving your general fitness.
Again, if you can boulder V4 (pretty low in the grand scheme of things) you can find a route that is 5.12 that will be just as easy, move by move. Most 5.12a climbs have a crux. But nothing above V4/5 since that would just be too hard for the 12a rating scheme. Even so, you can find many routes that rely on mastering a series of V2/3 moves in a row without resting. Sounds pretty easy, no?
