Pre-Conference Workshop (Full Day)

Title: Member Retention Through Climber Improvement Programming
          Using Movement Instruction to Keep Climbers Returning

Date: May 1st

Location: Boulder Rock Club, Boulder, CO

Start Time: 9 a.m.

End Time: 5 p.m.

Cost: $110

Presenter: Dan Hague, Managing Partner, Climbing Wall Management, LLC

Presenter's Contact Information

Email: dan@climbingwallmanagement.com

Website: www.climbingwallmanagement.com

Presenter's Bio:

Dan Hague founded and led Sportrock Climbing Centers in the Washington D.C. area for its first 11 years. In that time, Sportrock grew to become the East Coast's largest climbing company with three indoor facilities, extensive indoor and outdoor instructional offerings and a reputation for excellence within the climbing industry.

Dan has been climbing for over 30 years and teaching the sport for 13. His coaching clients have included many climbers in the junior divisions who have gone on to impressive finishes in local regional, and national competitions.

During his tenure at Sportrock, Dan developed the successful Fast Forward Progression, a series of classes that helped thousands of Sportrock customers acquire climbing movement skills quickly and effectively. Through these classes and careful observation, he has spent years evaluating how climbing is learned and has refined his instructional programs accordingly. Dan, along with co-author Doug Hunter, wrote The Self-Coached Climber in which he reveals the many principles, tips, and tricks which make his instructional method so successful.

In 2005, Dan co-founded Climbing Wall Management, LLC, a consulting and training firm providing expert advice, council, and training to artificial climbing wall operators.

Workshop Description:

Member retention is a popular concept in member based service industries. The statistics are impressive: it's often cited that a new customer costs somewhere between five and ten times as much to acquire as it costs to retain an existing customer. The trick is finding a program that keeps your customers coming back for more; and in the climbing gym business that means fast and steady performance improvement on the part of your member.

Climbing is difficult to learn. Our model is typically one of anecdotal evidence or emulation. New climbers either observe others and try to apply it to their own climbing or they are led down the path of greater power, torturing themselves with strength building exercises while ignoring the movement skills that lead to improved efficiency. You, however, can help them improve quickly and, as a byproduct, give them a strong social network at your gym through implementation of a well coordinated climbing movement program.

Workshop attendees will be exposed to a proven model for understanding climbing performance improvement based on the four fundamental physical components of human movement: balance, force, time, and space. Individual climbing moves can be quite complex, undergoing dramatic changes as they progress through space and time. Despite this complexity, climbing moves are often represented as static body positions with little or no variation. The goal of this workshop is to use a variety of techniques to represent movement so the participant can develop a fuller appreciation of the central roles of balance, body awareness, and turning and flagging, and develop the ability to teach those skills to others.

Workshop Goals:

By the end of this workshop, participants will understand how a performance improvement program can help retain members, have a thorough understanding of the movement-based climbing performance model, have the ability to diagnose movement in the self and others, and the knowledge, skills, and exercises to improve basic movement skills.

Workshop Outline:

1. Teaching Climbing Movement
2. Theory and importance of movement-based climbing instruction
3. Basic movement concepts: center of gravity and base of support
4. The three types of balance and their application to climbing movement
5. Teaching the establishment of a solid base of support
6. Body awareness activities
7. Diagnosing movement skills
8. Improving basic movement skills