Mike Smith - 16416

Mike: Asked Anca and Karen what they wanted to do for the sessions, and both asked for some tips on flagging and smearing. They spent first 20 mins warming up on new pinks and oranges. Noticed that Anca is improving and Karen seems to have some coordination issues. Anca is also still nervous when she gets high up. Explained the flagging technique and set some routes for them to practice on. After this we moved onto some smearing exercises. Used the traverse wall to re-cover foot swapping using smearing then went on to try a whole traverse of smearing. Karen seems to be struggling with flexibility of her ankles. We then progressed this onto the bouldering wall. I asked them both to fill in a development chart. Both continued climbing after the coaching session.
Reflection: I hadn't planned anything for the session and relied on the two climbers to come up with something they wanted to work on. I appreciate that this was risky, however I was fairly confident that I had enough knowledge and experience to think of exercises to give them for anything they wanted to cover.
They both asked for some development on flagging and smearing. After the warm up I showed them how the flag is used to improve balance when reaching for holds off to the side. I always seem to struggle with this and I'm not sure why as I can flag well myself when required. After a quick practice on the ground I got them to try problems they did during the warm up where they remembered flagging. I was able to help them out with a couple of problems I had watched them do. I then tried to create some flagging scenarios but struggled do do this effectively. I did however spot that Karen does have some coordination issues that I hadn't spotted before.
After approx half an hour I switched focus to smearing. I used the foot swapping exercise to remind them how to smear on a vertical wall. We talked about hand postion in relation to the body and they were able to tell me that hands need to be low and that a third of the sole needs to be against the wall surface. I feel I explain this well. We then tried a straight traverse just using smears. They both found this more difficult and tiring, not really effective for anything but short moves. A slab would have been better to practise on. The final exercise was trying to climb the bouldering wall on purples, just smearing. Both just about managed it but it was hard.
Overall the session went well and both enjoyed the tips and exercises. I need to improve my delivery of flagging.