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are unable to get a good grip on it because your body is positioned too low. Being able to move your body up a few centimeters can be the difference between making it to the next hold and falling off. The way to move your body up is to move your feet up.

The greatest virtue of down climbing lies in the fact that it forces you to think about your feet and it helps your train your footwork.

3. Practice Traversing

What is traversing? It is the art of moving horizontally across a wall as opposed to climbing vertically, which is the most common direction of climbing. This can be done as a warm up before you start climbing. At a rock climbing gym, just pick a section of the wall and try to climb horizontally, no more than a meter above the ground, for as long as you can. When you first begin traversing, you may find yourself unable to stay on the wall for very long. Keep practicing until you can make your way around the gym easily or do laps across a short section.

Practice traversing with different holds and finding different rest positions that allow your arms to recover without coming off the wall when you need to take a break. If you are traversing as a "warm up", practice only until you feel your muscles warming up and stop well before the lactic acid builds up in your forearms. If you traverse until your arms are pumped, you won't be able to do much climbing, especially if you're new to the climbing scene.

What are the benefits of traversing? It is another way to train your footwork and to get you to remember your feet. Additionally, it helps you think of different ways to move on the wall, which builds your technique. You can learn which moves are easier for you. It also allows you to work through a problem close to the ground which means you don't have to waste energy climbing the parts you can do easily.

As you get better at traversing, try working on more difficult moves, such as skipping holds, using fingertips only, one foot only or one hand only. Vary the exercise. Once you're a pro at traversing, you can graduate to bouldering, which will also help you build strength as well as train your technique, but more about this later. Beginner climbers should master the art of traversing first.

4. Add Variety to Your Climbing

They say that variety is the spice of life. It is also the key to getting better at whatever you do. Always try to climb something new and different - work on different routes, climb at different crags, go to different rock climbing

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