UKC

For the stronger crowd out there:

At what point in your climbing journey did you start headpointing/redpointing/practicing trad routes, instead of just going for the onsight every time? Did it help you get better (not just at the specific route, obviously)? Is it viable to keep progressing just by onsighting trad routes?

Have been thinking about just how much difference to my climbing trying harder (for me) sport routes has been, in terms of expanding the envelope of what's possible. But then taking that to trad climbing feels somehow wrong..

For context, at the E2/3 boundary at the moment.

Head pointing does nothing for route finding/move reading or gear placement, or lock off strength to do either. So no, I don’t think that head pointing improves ability for trad climbing at those grades

I found it helpful, I started to headpoint after I plateaued at e3 and did quite a few e4s and some E5s quite quickly.

I found it quite helpful for finding out how hard I can pull and how tricky a move I can climb (5c onsight to 6b hp) and although t doesn’t directly help with onsighting it defiantly made me more confident in those crux moves on routes

Probably depens on whether you ever climb with anyone climbing a bit harder than yourself. Headpointing can help build confidence in your ability to onsight harder routes, but I think much of that you'd get equally by seconding them.

I'd question motives. I was climbing at a HVS limit and wanted to break into E1. I projected a couple of routes but felt totally uninspired after cracking them. I realised fast I'm not a grade chaser but just love a good quality route.Motivations can vary but after accepting that I'm not going to be cracking the E grades unless my drive changes, I've found my HVS climbing has become much less scary as I've not put myself under any pressure when flaking my rope at the base of a HVS route.

1) Often (but certainly not always) people who only onsight sooner or later bump their heads against a pretty hard ceiling.
2) As others have mentioned, when you mix in sport climbing and bouldering that can help a lot.
3) What headpointing offers is that you can get some experience of routes that are much harder but in the same style as the routes that you aspire to. In that sense headpointing will be very helpful.
4) I think your questions actually miss something important as well. Despite all the BS that you'll hear from the OS taliban on this forum, headpointing can be a really satisfying experience, very different but no less valuable that onsighting. The trick is picking appropriate targets which is actually harder than you'd think. 
 

Giving up on the "must onsight everything" ethic is very liberating regardless of grade or style and gave me a lot more freedom. Remember, its all about having fun (whilst respecting the rock). Everything else is a bit silly.

I've pre-inspected or top roped 2 or 3 routes before soloing them ( just to get a big E2 tick). After a couple of practices, the routes felt dead easy and the process did nothing to help me improve my climbing. Probably the opposite, in fact.

I've found it's helped not necessarily on the strength side but more on the mental aspect of climbing the E grades. By letting me know good gear and holds are coming it's allowed me to start to lead and push on whilst pumped and get used to climbing with a high possibility of falling at my limit which is something that's scares me off attempting the onsight, despite knowing I have the strength and ability to do the route I might not try it for fear of falling off as it's not a position I'm anywhere near comfortable in yet.

Onsighting means you're operating at least 1.5 grades below max, usually more like 2-3. Even Ondra fits this rule. (9a+ flash 9c RP). 

Headpointing allowed me to unlock the confidence and skillset to go ground up on stuff at the same grade not long after. Just do yourself a favour and save obvious classic and reasonably protected routes for an OS go once you've got the margin.  

I'd say it helps a lot. My situation is that I've lead a couple of VS and looking at HVS routes (I live in Ballachulish so not much sport). I'm an older climber coming to the sport late and hence don't have much experience. Putting a top rope on a few harder climbs allowed me to play with things like the limits of friction, looking for better lines, and altering beta to see how the moves felt. I'm not strong so I have to be more technical generally. 

That confidence of knowing that I can get up harder things is invaluable to me when I'm climbing something easier on lead (otherwise I could get stuck the first time I hit a sandbag HS and think that I'm not a good climber rather than realising the differences personal strengths, grading strangeness etc. makes and there will be E2's that feel easier than some HS's)

I've just come back from Polldubh where I went out with a extremely good local climber and we put a rope on Edgehog to try the moves. A combination of trying it myself and then seeing someone with real talent making the moves taught me a huge amount. Inspecting the gear also taught me some (like, I'll probably not be leading things soon). That I could make the moves on that climb gives me lots of confidence. 

I suppose there isn't a great deal of difference between headpointing and seconding, I've asked my leader to drop me back down sections of climbs before to try things differently for instance (e.g. Satan's Slit on Rannoch Wall). 

If you don't have lots of partners willing to take you up harder climbs (and there's not much sport climbing around you), I don't see a problem. 

p.s. all the usual caveats apply, clean shoes, careful feet, no scrabbling, etc.. 

I almost invariably find that seconding undermines my confidence and I don't generally like climbing with partners better than me (similar seems best). I've regularly had to tell myself to ignore a seconding fiasco and reassure myself that I can onsight that sort of grade with the focus of leading. So quite possibly it is just that I need the psyche of onsighting to climb at my best (which isn't often anyway!). I've never headpointed because it just doesn't interest me (unless returning to routes I've failed on in the past counts). I'm not ruling out that a complete change of mindset and approach could potentially improve my climbing, but I think I'd rather just go climbing like I've always done!

Everyone's experience is going to be different.

For me personally, I don't think headpointing has benefitted my on-sight ability very much - probably less so than bouldering, sport climbing and even top-roping (which might of course be part of the process of a headpoint).

But there is a clue in there to how it might benefit your on-sight ability - varying your climbing can give fresh perspectives, make you stronger, get you used to doing harder moves, etc.

Why not try it and find out for yourself?

Ad part of the 'Onsight Taliban' here's my 2ps worth. It kinda depends what you are in to. I try to onsight everything and have never gone out to head point in my life (I've failed to onsight  Many times so have effectively headpointed plenty!) I don't really care this approach means I potentially don't climb as hard as maybe I could, as I love the onsight experience, to me it's absolutely the best part of climbing. I like trying hard moves too, but I've got sport and bouldering for that. I've manged to get to E3/E4 by this approch and was going to try to onsight E5 this year (but managed to smash myself up highballing). 

Saying that I used to really beat myself up if I didn't onsight somthing. It was a very binary success or fail thing which stressed me out even before I'd racked up.  Letting go of this and finding the experiences of pushing myself to fall sometimes nearly as rewarding as the onsight, it's all about the journey blah blah etc..... but it was this change in mindset that helped me.

Some really good points, thanks for the perspectives. Couple things I'm taking away:

• Sport climbing & bouldering is the way to get stronger and fitter. Been doing it already, and saw good results in steady improvement, but felt like I'm somehow not applying all of it when on a trad climb, hence exploring how to push the boundary with trad specifically
• Trying a much harder route can unlock that "this is possible with my current strength" realization. I'm probably too cautious getting on trad climbs for fear of failing the onsight, so perhaps this aspect would be really helpful
• The realization that I in fact rarely climb with substantially better climbers, and seeking that out more could be a great way to get on hard things and have the same experience and benefits
• Finally, on motivation, I'm quite motivated by getting good at things. Not necesarrily chasing grades, but knowing I'm a better climber now than I was last year. Hence the thinking about how to improve

It depends on what you mean by ‘get better’. Headpointing is great for climbing above your onsight grade. However I’m not sure headpointing does a lot *for* your onsight grade. You’d be better off onsighting relatively harder sport (as you can try harder and get a lot done) and headpointing even harder sport (as you can try even harder). Headpointing is a bit of a faff at most crags, so I’d leave it unless you actually want to headpoint (nothing wrong with that of course).

I was never a strong trad climber but I found the following:

Up to E5, on-sighting seemed pretty do-able with dangerous routes reasonably clear from the decription and the width of the grade not too bad. But if you consider that moving from E5 to E7 on-sighting is just 2 grades and involves moving from being any old (fairly capable) random to being in the top few trad climbers in the country, it really starts to feal like on-sighting E6 or E7 is a massive leap and the grades are so hugely gigantic that (at least in my opinion), you'd want someone you knew well to tell you whether you should be starting on a particular route or not.

I think I first started headpointing after I'd reach my max on-sight of E5. Some of that was to try harder routes but a lot of it was because I wanted to put up new routes and I'd had bad experiences with loose rock, so cleaning first was what I wanted to do. And if you're hanging around looking at the holds, finding the line and pulling loose bits off, imo it doesn't make much difference if you also try the moves and look at the gear. I'm sure someone will be along to lambast me for my lack of ethics presently.

I can definitely attest that some sport climbing strength goes a long way in pushing your trad grade (unless your speciality is the Etive Slabs or something like that, in which case all you need is technique, belief and a malfunctioning amygdala). But my climbing trajectory up till now probably doesn't demonstrate any on-sighting benefit from starting to headpoint trad routes - I tend to think of headpointing as a way to access harder routes, not a way to improve on-sighting.

Fundamentally, if you are honest about what you've done, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't headpoint if you want to - it's not like your personal ethics are going to be detrimental to anyone else (unless you are doing obviously unacceptable things like chipping the rock) and at the level you are at or I was at, nobody is going to start reporting our ascents on UKC, so there is no need to fret over out impact on newer climbers.

It can definitely be a useful learning experience if:

1) you do a route that is hard enough, e.g. probably E5 or E6 for you.
2) you keep in mind that certain parts of the game will not be developed by headpointing, e.g. committing, coping with uncertainty, reading the rock quickly enough.

It's always worth trying something new!

Enjoy

Not so sure about real headpointing as such, I've done very little of it, but hopping on someone's toprope on Heading The Shot on the slate, flashing it, and then going back and leading it without any issues, definitely was a step change in understanding my ability on that rock type. In a sense, since I knew that that style of E5 on that rock type really wasn't that bad for me, I'd just go and hop straight on any reasonable looking low extreme. Before that, whether I was about to make the dangerous mistake of biting more than I could chew was always in my mind, even on lower grades that I was on-sighting anyway.

when i started in the 70s just went to the crag did the route in trad style,none of this modern stuff,and climbed good standard.probably some banter with other people about the route for insider knowledge

But does 'trad style' mean a little bit of everything including abbing routes, some cheeky checking out of moves,a play on a toprope here and there, maybe a yo yo or two? Stuff that basically got absorbed into the modern definition of headpointing.

I've got to say that this is one thing that's held me back in my climbing is that this myth back in the day everyone was a total hero onsighting everything with some mega pure ethical approch and that it was always onsight or total failure. However the more I learn about the history of climbing in the UK (and I love the history of routes and the characters involved) this seems to be rubbish and the ethics back in the day really weren't different to now, it's just this mythology has been built up. 

I'd guess most people start headpointing for one or more of the following:

-they're outcome focussed/grade chasing/ambitious from the off
-they want to try new/obscure routes that are in an un-onsightable state (or just too hard to os)
-inspired by routes they know they won't be good/bold enough to onsight any time soon/ever and have got over the 'thou shalt not top rope' indoctrination many receive (not necessarily a bad thing as indoctrinations go imo)

As others have said, a combination of sport onsighting and redpointing is probably more effective for getting better if that's the aim. 
A few valid points above on how headpointing might improve your trad level above but one way it may 'harm' your onsighting (for me at least!) is that switching from executing rehearsed sequences with known gear and calculated outcomes to suddenly having to really hustle, make decisions on the fly, struggle and grasp on an engaging onsight can feel jarringly unfamiliar and uncomfortable!

Personally, I feel like I get a lot out of both headpointing and onsighting but can fully see why some people may have a strong preference for one or the other.

I think it'll in large part depend what's 'wrong' with your trad climbing. Also on how you measure success or progress.

If success is ticking some big number or big name routes then yeah, it'll work fine. Many aren't objectively very hard and it's a powerful technique.

If success is measured by improving your onsighting then less so (with caveats). Here, you really have to look hard at what you're actually struggling with: experience, the climbing, stamina, knowledge to choose routes to your strengths, an unbalanced skillset, low self belief, low partner enthusiasm, or the fear, be that of failure or of getting hurt. Headpointing isn't going to do much for most of those except, and here we get to the caveats, it does introduce you to harder routes which may be your only introduction, depending how you find them that could be good or bad for confidence and self belief as applied to onsighting. It may also introduce you to a new crowd who can stretch you, help with route selection knowledge and lend confidence.

All that said, if you're interested, try it, see if it's for you.

jk

Exactly.

To add to what others have said in different words, headpointing gets you experience doing harder moves than you usually would, but above gear rather than above a bolt. So I think it definitely can help your trad climbing. It may even help your onsighting if it makes you more likely to take on harder moves on lead.

I'd normally associate it with doing harder but maybe not limit moves above limited or poor  gear. . 

If you want lots of hard moves to  lead, off to sport land. So it really comes back tk what you want to improve. 

I think rock type can be a thing when it comes to onsight progress. More specifically height of crag, and therefore grit vs limestone for many. I've always found grit quite risky (I know there are lots of strenuous but protectable cracks out there) whereas limestone (although sometimes less solid rock) you often get to have better ground clearance when you're trying hard. Length can also affect grade and endurance isnt so hard to gain.

On top of this, sport routes are usually on limestone. And so an easy rock to get practise on in more difficult situations. especially if you're short on supply of better climbers to trad with. Which lets face it is a good way of upping your grade without too much effort. Its opportunity and mindset gains there.

Then coupled with climbing at swanage/ pembroke/ sea cliffs. Theres always a wet landing to be had if it all goes really wrong and you've chosen your route with that as a contingency. 

When I was climbing a little more, knowing I was onsighting sport 7a with confidence when getting to a crux on an E1/2 (sport 6a+/6b) even if a little run out on gear was enough to have the confidence not to faff, but just climb through the difficulties to the next jug (which is always there somewhere!). Sport fitness can be very useful imo. 

Have fun. K

A lot of interesting and insightful comments on this thread, I was agreeing with yours except the last paragraph.

I know an accomplished climber, VIII, E6,7c, ED2 who  had a theory that he did not need to step down and regroup on an E2 or 6b, just climb on through. After a lot of falls on 6b's and E2's ......

If it gets uncomfortably hard, learn to decide whether to pull harder or look around for another hold or runner.

I did many years of on-sighting, up to E7. In more recent times (post kids, less time to climb) I've done more headpointing (mostly E7s) whilst still on-sighting the odd E6. 

I don't really think headpointing improves your on-sighting ability that much. To get better at on-sighting you need on-sight mileage first and foremost.

My advice to anyone who is trying to improve their trad level would be to become stronger than the moves - either by bouldering or sport climbing. Being able to keep upward momentum without hesitation is incredibly helpful, unless you are very fit or technically brilliant. The two or three best on-sight climbers that I have climbed with over the years were technically brilliant, fast (climbed quickly, without hesitation) and strong. They're weren't necessarily the fittest.

The other thing to do is be prepared to fall off. I spent 20+ years reluctant to blow the on-sight, which meant I failed on very few routes that I tried, but I could probably have climbed harder. Sure there are some routes that you definitely want to 'save for the on-sight', but I wish I'd been a little less precious about this ethos.

This definitely tallies with my experience, and is a large part of why I don't think headpointing has improved my on-sighting.

Executing known sequences, knowing what gear is going to go where, perhaps even having taken the falls, is just a totally different experience to the quick judgements and route-reading and commitment to the unknown that makes on-sighting  anywhere near your limits so hard.