A quick guide to different types of holds.
Imagine your partner is climbing a route. They look down to you and ask for a beta. They are probably one hundred feet in the air, and you just yell up “Grab the, uh, thingy that looks like Squidwards nose!” your partner then sits their thinking WTF is wrong with this kid, there isn’t anything up here that looks like Squidward’s nose.
It is pretty difficult to describe shapes of rocks. Their curves are so organic that the best way that us climbers describe rocks is by the way they feel. Since most of the time the rock looks different at one foot away than it does one hundred feet away; we can then rely on our sense of touch to understand the rock.
Come back next week when I will show you how to properly manipulate your body around a hold to maximize each holds potential.