By: Jackie Hueftle
Like most sources of inspiration, occasionally the setting muse will take a vacation. When this happens the unfortunate setter is usually left struggling to set anything better than a meat and potatoes mini-jug ladder, if he or she can manage to tighten a sequence at all before throwing down the wrenches in frustration.

When these blocks happen to me I resort to tricks for clearing my brain and finding the psyche. One easy way to get the creative juice back is to experiment with themed setting.

Themed setting is setting a route or problem using holds that share a theme. Common themes are:

• Color scheme (e.g. all yellow, or the Nicros swirl)
• Area or crag (Bleaustones),
• Rock type (Voodoo granites)
• Hold style (all pockets or pinches)
• Shaper’s style (Jason Kehl’s Skehl’s)
• Off the wall fun sets (e-Grips crazy faces, So Ill’s giant teeth or the alphabet)

Just like the Pros

In the last few years USA Climbing and Mammut Championship setters have been setting themed problems for the qualifiers and finals of their major bouldering competitions. In these comps themed problems are easy to set because different companies sponsor the problems and send boxes of holds for the setters to use. You can accomplish the same effect at your home gym with a little ingenuity and a little bit of luck in the hold closet.

How To Set Them

Spend a few hours in your hold closet digging around for enough grips to create a problem. You might be surprised at what you find. Or, depending on your hold budget, order a few new sets that look good together. Be sure to remember that the sets don’t always have to be made up of holds from the same company, they just need to have some similar characteristic. Put these similar holds together in piles and see what inspires you.

Obviously, finding enough holds for a boulder problem is easier than finding enough for a route, so when searching for a route it might be necessary to relax your standards to “vaguely similar” instead of sticking strictly to “same.” When setting themed routes it may be necessary to use a few themes instead of sticking to one for the whole route.

Mind The Feet

Make sure you consider footholds as well as handholds, as a pockety route should have pockety feet to stick with the theme and more truly mimic the feel of outside climbing, and a thin vertical route would be best served by using technical edging feet. Plus, when the feet match the hands it just looks cooler.

Once you’ve found the holds it’s time to put them up. If you’re setting with a stylistically similar set (for example, all square cut pinches), you can start by figuring out what kind of moves the holds suggest to you. Usually your themed bucket of holds will have one or two large suggestive holds, with the other holds playing more of a supporting role. I often plan how to use the more suggestive holds first, and find the rest of the problem follows naturally from there.

You can also base your theme around features and volumes that are already on the wall. For example, if you have a triangular volume it’d be awfully neat to set a problem with triangular hands and feet. You can make all the triangles face the same direction, or stagger them so the point on one hold faces the flat side of another.

If you’re still having trouble, try imagining the wall as a canvas and think of how the holds look from an artistic standpoint. You can start by setting your first themed problems on a freshly stripped wall. That way you have a blank canvas and will be more able to visualize the lines and overall look of the problem.

Reasons to set Themed Problems

• You can mimic the feel of outdoor problems more accurately by having feet and hands from the same sets.
• Setting with holds that look or feel the same can be inspiring. Fewer options can make possibilities more clear.
• Popularity points: Customers often think routes that they find aesthetically pleasing are also more fun to climb.
• The advent of themes in sets made by hold companies makes themed problems easier to set.

Variety is the spice of life!

Caution!

Like all good things, themed problems can be overdone. Don’t waste too much time trying to force unreasonable or unpleasant moves just to stick to a theme. Also, using a hold incorrectly can be creative, but it can also be dangerous. Make sure to consider the tweak factor when using holds in unconventional ways. Basically, if you’re setting a theme, don’t forget to make sure your problems are still reasonable, safe, and fun.

 |   Subscribe to post | Leave a comment