In both bouldering and academic writing, there are puzzles to solve, puzzles to discover, and puzzles to design.
The longer I spend with bouldering and academic writing, the more they feel like the same kind of puzzle: simple on the surface, intricate once you are inside it.
When I was just starting out in academia, I remember listening to a talk and thinking, Oh, you call that a significant contribution? I could totally do better than that. A few years in, of course, I realized it is much harder than it looks. I also realized that good research is full of subtle details that you only learn by actually doing the project.
Bouldering feels similar. People watch a video of a climb and say, “V2 in my gym.” But some fun boulders look simple while hiding a crazy amount of detail. Do you solve it with speed or with static tension? Where should each part of your body go so you can move efficiently? How do you find the position that makes the next move possible? The puzzle has depth.
My favorite papers are elegant and simple in story, but packed with evidence, thought, and detail. My favorite boulders are the same: just a few holds, a clean idea, and yet they require a deep understanding of movement.
In bouldering training, each session, each week, each month, each year, you can train with clear intentions and goals. I love that kind of structuring because it creates a customized path for getting better.
There are also training blocks focused specifically on weaknesses. That idea has helped me think about some of my bad habits in academia. I sometimes avoid projects that no longer feel exciting, even when I know I should work on them. Maybe that comes from fear of rejection, or fear that the work will not turn out the way I hoped. But bouldering reminds me to lay out the weakness clearly and target it directly. The incentive is strong: if I work through the weakness, I get better.
Bouldering also reminds me how to think about failure. A setter I follow on YouTube makes daily experimental boulders, and he once said something like: sometimes it is trash, sometimes it is incredible, but every time you learn something about movement. That feels very close to research. Sometimes a project fails tragically. Sometimes it works out beautifully. But every time, it can still be good research if I learn something real about the subject I am studying.
Some training sessions are about strength and max effort, some are about eduracne, some are about adapting to unpredictability and discovering new styles. A lot of parallels right?
You can be creative when solving a boulder, but you do not always have to be. Setting a boulder though, requires creativity. To make a good climb, you have to understand movement, generate intentions, create movements with intentions than simply following one, and build an experience.
Writing a paper feels similar. I am not just reporting results; I am creating a path for the reader. I am setting up the intention, arranging the evidence, and deciding how someone will move through the idea. (Not saying I'm good at it.. It's obviously a craft too!)
In that sense, route setting is also like teaching. In both, you become an engineer of effort. No you don't want to create a moral hazard situation but creative incentives for actual learning. Setters don't want just beta breaks but to force a move that someone can actually learn a thing or two from. Designing someone's (enjoyable) experience so they can arrive at a realization feels awesome.
And.. yes I can't think of a proper ending sentence now. So.. peace..