Compromise. It’s what happens when there are multiple groups with disparate wants or needs, and you must find an equitable solution in the dissonance. The entitled class sometimes whines, and the cynics will say the goal of any good compromise is to make everyone equally unhappy, but I don’t think it has to be that way.
This summer’s Smackdown competition at Movement saw some changes from previous formats. It’s a unique comp with some unique goals, so it’s no surprise that some tweaks are made each year. Some of this year’s changes struck me as strange, or ill-advised, but stepping away from my customer hat, and putting on my promoter hat, I see why they happened. Were all the choices made great? No. But the more I looked, the more I thought I understood the why, without condoning, or condemning (ok maybe some condemning)
So let’s look at The Goal, The Compromise that goal required (better framed at times as “choice” but I’ve got a theme going here, let me have it), The Impact, and The Judgment Call.
The Goal: Be Inclusive
The Compromise: Run the Comp Unisex
The Impact: See Below
Allow me to tread very carefully here, as a cis-male. Regardless of how gender divisions are made, there’s always going to be a clear place for me to slot myself, with the exception of at a Women’s-Only comp (The Heist was awesome, and Touchstone’s WomanUp is bringing that same energy). Acknowledging the truth that not everyone slots cleanly or comfortably into the legacy mens\womens categories, Movement made this comp unisex – come as you are, compete based on what you climb, who cares what your gender\sex is. Other recent comps (Governor Stables) have offered choices of Men\Women\Non-Binary, and I think Movement made the better move here. There are plenty of people of every gender-expression that can kick my ass, and I think letting them all compete on equal footing lets the badasses truly shine – no one is “strong, for a girl”, they’re just strong.
However, dudes still dominate the scene in volume, so statistically you were less likely to see non-dudes in the limited slots for semis or finals. From where I stood at semis it was ~8:1, with dudes dominating the roll call for finals in all but the Novice category. This negative side of the coin was compounded by the limited number of categories, discussed below. I can say for certain that some women expressed to me that they would not be signing up this year, since there was no longer a women’s category, feeling they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Flip-side, if the unisex decision made those who previously felt left out in the Mens\Womens structure feel more welcome, I think it may have been a positive choice. Again, I am a cis-male, and I would love, love, love if those who are not wanted to provide their take on whether abandoning the gender-divide was a good move. Comment on this article, email us, guest write something of your own and we’ll post it, comment on the Insta, we want to hear from you.
Late addition: The gold standard, Triple Crown of Bouldering went to make the same switch, and then walked it back the next day, even with 4 categories.
The Judgment: Justin is absolutely not in a position to make a judgment call on this.
The Goal: Everyone Gets a Final!
The Compromise: Just 3 Categories
The Impact: Bloating
Smackdown is a unique, fun, comp in that each category gets it’s moment in the sun for finals (similar to the original PRG:The Games). Organizers made the decision to only offer 3 categories this year, and this is where I heard most complaints. Taking the top 3 competitors from each gym (there are 5) results in 3x3x5 = 45 competitors headed to semis, and a further subdivision would make that 60. Likewise it would inflate the number of Semi-Finals and Finals boulders from 12 to 16. To this end, going unisex makes a huge difference, as those numbers would double in the legacy men\women format.
In almost every comp I’ve been to, there have been at least 4 difficulty categories: Recreational (sometimes called Novice), Intermediate, Advanced, and Open. Yes, some comps also have categories based on age, but for now, lets focus on just difficulty. The gold standard, in our opinion, is something along the lines of V0-V2, V3-V5, V6-V8, >V8. Even with the extra division, V3-V5 tends to be the most popular category, and widening this a few extra grades lead to predictable bloating in number of entrants:
| Gym | Novice (V0-V2) | Veteran (V3-V7) | Legendary (V8+) |
| Crystal City | 16 | 56 | 9 |
| Rockville | 14 | 35 | 12 |
| Columbia | 20 | 37 | 21 |
| Hampden | 14 | 47 | 9 |
| Timonium | 20 | 32 | 7 |
Consider, this ignores the large number that took a look at these divisions and noped-out before getting their $40 tank top. To my mind, the real problem is this: V3 climbers and V7 climbers are at fundamentally different points in their climbing careers. We know people that can walk in off the street and trip their way up a soft gimmicky “V3” on Day 1, and I know people with almost a decade of multiple sessions a week that can’t touch V7. I think having a single category that covers such a wide range of abilities, and the juicy middle of the membership-ability bell curve, did a bit of a disservice to the competitors in that category.
I can’t make a fair judgment call if a 1/3 increase in competitors is an undue burden on semis and finals. What I can say is I think for what frustration it may have caused, Movement should stick with the Everyone-Gets-A-Final format, and I’ll tell you why. I attended semis, and despite there being some absolutely stronk talent battling it our for glory on hard-hard climbing, that was not the highlight. A young girl (8, maybe 10 years old?) passed the zone and was into the final traverse on one of the Novice climbs, and everything stopped. Literally, everyone in the crowd, every Legendary and Veteran climber, every judge, stopped whatever they were doing and cheered her on until she matched the finish and then erupted in applause louder than any of the ‘stronger’ climbers received. That is what climbing is about, and we shouldn’t abandon those moments.
Judgment: Movement should take a look at the demographics of their customer base (ability-wise) and resources and implement one of two solutions. Either divide the current middle category in two, or move the bounds to disperse the population more evenly between categories.
The Goal: Go Digital
The Compromise: Use Kaya
The Impact – Sandbaggery (Unintentional and Otherwise)
Sometimes, it’s hard to catch sandbaggers, especially at a day-of event, and as such I’ve seen gyms go overboard. The first time Justin ever placed in Advanced, it was because the only actual entrant in advanced had a really bad day and they automatically promoted all intermediate climbers who ranked above him, regardless of score. Smackdown was the opposite – with weeks of time, sandbaggers can easily be caught. Heck, Kaya even implies they have a way to do it automatically on their end, but speaking to some on the side, that re-adjustment may only be manageable after close.
If it’s not available real-time, Kaya may want to look into allowing organizers a way to set such gates, and provide competitors the ability to appeal – if you’re in V0-V2 and the setter whiffs and you, and many others in your category, send an unintentionally soft V3, that’s on the setter.
The bigger problem is that once it’s obvious someone should be bumped, it should be done immediately, for the sake of everyone. A few have commented to me that seeing those ticking V-Hard, sitting near the top of the overall, and still in the middle category week after week is demoralizing to the rest. Now there are 2 kinds of sandbaggers – those who simply misjudged how capable they were and those who are deliberately avoiding having to go toe-to-toe with worthy adversaries. The first group won’t be offended by the honor of being moved up, and the second group deserve to be offended.
Full disclosure here, and a compliment for how things were handled in one respect. I, personally, was edged out of semi-finals by someone in the next category down who out-scored me. Once the comp closed, I looked at the scores and saw I was 4th in my category (functionally 3rd since the #1 couldn’t make semis), but 5th (functionally 4th) overall, behind a crusher in the next category down. I accepted that my run was over as they were entitled to the spot, and was surprised to get an invite to semis, the organizers deciding to grant both of us an invite. Truth be told, this was completely unexpected, and incredibly generous on their part. I felt a bit undeserving, but one shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth. As there were 17 instead of 15 in my group, I expect at least one other was granted such grace. Leaving me out would have been an equally acceptable call – the only bad call would have been to allow sandbaggers to get to finals in the Novice and Veteran category, which Movement prevented.
The Judgment: Bumping was done when it really counted, but with a 6 week comp there is merit in doing it sooner.
The Other:
Timing
Setting a new set of boulders every week is rad, and gives the competitors of every schedule a chance to come in and experience them at their own pace, and project a little. I’m a 1-2 sessions a week kind of person, and that was plenty to get the sends in. That said, it’s my understanding one gym put up it’s final set as late as Wednesday when the comp closed that weekend, really putting those with more restrictive schedules at a disadvantage.
Quick Judgment – if you’re running a multi-week like this, the last set should be up at least a week before the curtain closes.
Communication
Running a comp like this is a great way to generate hype – if you lean in to that hype. Movement’s social media has been painfully sparse on posts, reels, stories, tweets, pins, etc about Smackdown during the lead up, the run, and after Finals. Even the original post about the comp was painfully sparse on details about the culminating events for those that wanted to come watch. A week out and despite my best Googlefu and social media stalking, I’ve found nothing on any official Movement platform (their site, Facebook(s), DMV-specific Instagram) that’s posted even photos of Finals, much less results of finals (or semis). This isn’t a failing specific to Movement – almost every comp swears they’ll “post results soon”, but usually it’s only a day or two.
Quick Judgment: If all ~350 competitors from Kaya signed up officially, some of that income (which was on top of the member’s monthly fees) should go into the budget for a greater media presence for the comp.
Special Shout-Out: The Setters
Setting is tough work. Setting for a comp is even tougher. Setting for a comp where climbers of theoretically the same “ability” but with wildly different morphologies lumped into a single category – really tough.
Was the setting for this comp my personal favorite? No – and that’s a good thing. That there weren’t a half dozen of my preferred pinches-on-a-45 and refrigerator-sloper-squeezing problems set meant setters were trying to be balanced, and that very little played directly to my wheelhouse meant they were succeeding.
It’s especially tough setting near the margins of the categories – whiffing and setting a “V3″ that all the V2 climbers send sucks, but doesn’t effect relative standings (basically, you mislabeled a V2). Whiffing and setting a V3 that only the V2 climbers 5’9” and above can send…. that’s a problem that can leave equally strong, but shorter, climbers having to work much harder to keep up. While there were a few morpho climbs I caught, on average it was much lower than normal – the setters were aware of the heightened stakes, and put in time and effort accordingly.
The Final Judgment: Conceptually, the Summer Smackdown format is rad. There’s room to improve on the execution, and I think a good start on that would be soliciting anonymous feedback from the competitors on the subjects above. I say this with much love – my first comp ever was a Smackdown, and the associated t-shirt is a prized possession (and older than many of this year’s finalists).
