David Rowland

Short-Term Projects When projecting, consider both “short-term” and “long-term” projects. Problems you feel you can complete quickly (“short-term” projects) tend to teach different things than problems that take more time Read More

Picking Your Project One of the best features of projecting is that you don’t need any special training to start. It’s as simple as picking a project and trying it. Read More

How Do You Get Better at Climbing—Faster I’ve been a coach for over thirty years, and one of the most frequent questions I get from climbers of all abilities is: Read More

How to Set Good Goals Based on Grades Perhaps the single most difficult thing for many of us to do is to set reasonable goals. We all have a tendency Read More

The total number of possible sets in climbing is as large as your imagination. That being said, the bulk of them are variations off of a few common themes, or Read More

All sports have their jargon and climbing is no exception. In fact, climbing is more saturated with jargon than any other sport we know. What follows is a very brief Read More

Two Systems In the U.S., climbing grades are broken into two systems: the V-grade system used for bouldering, and the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) used for grading routes. Why are Read More

The original layout of the first Philadelphia Rock Gym was truly an exercise in old-school design.   In the early days, as I have mentioned previously, many climbing gyms were Read More

In the early days, many believed that climbing gyms were just a passing fad. They might survive a few years, maybe five. People reasoned that once the novelty wore off Read More