For the smear focus session, choose one of these cues to focus on for each rep or problem.
Drop your heel. This is the most important cue for hard smearing. This is called “dorsiflexion” of the ankle, and it lets you stand up taller, and get your weight centered over hard smear feet.
Get the ball of your foot on the best part of the hold. This will give you the most leverage. On volumes or big flat smear pads outside, you want more surface area on the hold.
Choose a good attack angle with the entire lower leg. Rather than placing the foot and ankle like with an edge, with smears we want to think about placing the lower leg. This lets us keep the ankle in dorsiflexion. So choose a foot placement that will put your calf where it needs to be for the next move.
Isolate the lower leg. While making hand moves, focus on keeping the posture of your lower leg locked in place. This will help you weight the smear evenly, increase the surface area contacting the foothold, and reduce foot pops.
Extend through the upper body. Since we can’t move our leg as much on a bad smear, it’s important to learn how to reach with the upper body. Lock your motion at the hips and try to rotate and twist through the upper torso to increase your reach without losing your footing.