In reply to Ramblin dave:
> I've got a couple of issues with circuits - firstly, they make it harder to identify whether you're crap at doing something and need to practice it or whether it's just that all the routes that involve that thing happen to be at the tough end of the circuit. Secondly, a lot of the time single colour sets of holds tend to be similar styles of hold as well, so you might end up only able to use a particular hold type on hard routes or whatever. Neither of these problems is insurmountable though (eg at the Biscuit factory they give you an indication of whether a problem is easy middling or hard for the circuit if you can be bothered going and looking...)
Can't say it bothers me too much if I get shut down by the odd problem I 'should' be able to do nor do I read too much into flashing something off a 'hard' circuit. I do know what you mean about it being nice to measure progress but in reality all your doing is measuring yourself against the setter's judgement which is often as wonky as your own.
The problem of all the white holds being big slopers, all the blues little crimps etc is an issue where walls have a quite limited set but so long as circuits overlap in difficulty and there is some variety in the holds it's not too big a deal.
> Re easy boulder problems, the obvious solutions are i) give UK tech grades as well, ii) use VB-, VB, V0- etc below V0, iii) just use font grades. I don't really understand the problem with iii), particularly given that more Brits go on trips to Font than to Hueco. I can also understand why climbing walls don't really care that they're completely shagging their own grading system for no good reason, and I can live with it if they're internally consistent, but the pedant in me gets wound up no end by it.
There is nothing consistent about low grade Font Ft grades, it's mayhem! That's not to say they can't be used sensibly but that's not what the Bleausards do, they scatter 3s, 4s and 5s about like confetti with seemingly no regard for how hard the problems actually are
jk