Climbing coach recommendation in Boulder

I'm an old guy (pushing 60) and have been climbing for many years. I haven't had any professional instruction in decades and I've been thinking I could benefit from some. I'm interested in getting feedback on footwork, body position, reading the moves, resting on the route, recovering between pitches, and clipping strategies. I'm less interested in strength training (just lazy I guess) and I know the best way for me to get stronger is to lose ten pounds! Currently I project 5.11 sport. I've typically focused more on on-sight climbing in the past but I'm interested in taking projecting more seriously.

Looking forward to both serious recommendations and MP snark!

I have worked with Alex Stiger and Dave Wahl at Movement and would recommend both. I think Dave may only be working out of the Denver based gyms now though 

Thanks Dane, I’ll check them out 

Justen Sjong!!!

I think Chris Wall does some personal training at the BRC. Not sure on his experience with adults but he has a huge base of experience with youth climbers and some bona fides beyond just being a climber.

Chris Wall, Mike Alkaitis and Ingrid Bacher at the BRC are all good, in slightly different ways.  I have trained with all of them at one time or another, including currently.  (And yes, Chris has tons of experience with adults -- I think I first encountered him about 20 years ago, as an overage shaky noob, but I've also seen him coaching ambitious types up steep 5.12+.) Justen Sjong at Evo is also very good, although I have not trained with him in a long time.

Isn't it great -- in Boulder you get choices?  (+60 myself)

QdeBees wrote: 
Isn't it great -- in Boulder you get choices?  

Five great gyms within 20 minutes of my house? An embarrassment of choices ;-)

I wound up doing a training session with Japhy Dhungana today at the BRC who was great. He focused on the issues I was interested in feedback on and I have a lot to put in to practice. I went from 5.11 to 5.14 in one hour session! (just kidding on that last part)

David House wrote: I wound up doing a training session with Japhy Dhungana today at the BRC who was great. He focused on the issues I was interested in feedback on and I have a lot to put in to practice. I went from 5.11 to 5.14 in one hour session! (just kidding on that last part)

So it wasn't actually an hour?

Bill Czajkowski wrote:

So it wasn't actually an hour?

nice one!

David House wrote: I'm an old guy (pushing 60) Currently I project 5.11 sport. 

Damn dude, that's rad...

I've looked for a coach in Boulder before and never really found what I was looking for.  Someone like Neil Gresham would be amazing!  For example, this climber wants to go from 11b to 12b in 4 months and he hires Gresham who trains with him in the gym and takes him outside.  What I wouldn't give!

But in Boulder the best I found were people who just wanted to do indoor coaching.  Sjong, for example, is indoors-only.

I'm 57 and just did my first couple of 12's, but ended up using a different kind of "coach."  I found someone who hikes 5.12 outdoors and was happy to mentor me.  In retrospect, this was a great choice but isn't going to be easy to find for most people.  I simply got lucky that I found someone with a compatible personality who wanted to climb together and who is very very good at both climbing and teaching.

If you search for professional people to climb with you outdoors, you'll mostly find guides.   There are a ton of really great guides in the front range, but they're not really there to coach you... more just to rope-gun for you and yell encouraging words while you try and follow.  And they often charge $300-400 per day, which adds up pretty quickly.  (They're not greedy... that's the bare minimum in order to make a living at guiding after all the costs, including insurance and permits, etc)

Anyway, if you're happy with an indoor-only coach, it's far more economical (because they can line up a bunch of 1-hour clients instead of spending the entire day with you at the crag) and tons of choices, but you won't learn some of the essential skills you need to project routes outside: the footwork, route reading, tactics, are all pretty different outside.  

Best of luck David!

Thanks Matt! As you can see from John's post, there are lots of good climbers at my age around here.

John: Many of the coaches I looked into have a heavy focus on strength training, "J Strong" seems to fall in to that category! I acknowledge that is worth doing some of, but what I'm looking for is more technique and strategy advice. Japhy really helped me focus on climbing efficiently, managing the pump, and resting on-route all of which I think will help me when I get back on Animal Magnetism. I signed up for another session and we talked about drilling down on footwork.

I'll have to translate this all into outdoor climbing. You are right that the cost of outdoor guiding is such that I would do that very rarely. I used to be a good mentor before everyone got better than me and 5.11 became a "moderate" grade!