Rudder Flagging Pressure

Problem selection:

Select problems of the difficulty indicated on your plan, or make up problems of that difficulty on a wall of 0-25 degrees. Start with good hands and feet and increase the difficulty of the holds and distance of the movements as you progress.

This is a positional drill. You may need to climb problems with open feet, or use a spray wall with all feet.

Focus:

On each move, you should have one foot on a foothold up high and “outside.” If you’re about to move your right hand, you will step your right foot up to a foothold off to the right. The other foot will press intentionally against the wall, just about straight down from your body. Where normal flagging pressure is a counter-balance to prevent you from barn-dooring while you reach, the intent of a rudder flag is to orient the body straight up and down and get you higher on the primary handholds and foothold.

Consciously creating pressure into this foot will help drive you upwards and let you rock over more. At first, try to make moves fairly statically. As you gain experience with this drill, you can start to pop or deadpoint out of the rudder flag position.

(If you’re familiar with the low gear cross body drill, the action of this rudder flagging leg should be familiar. This is a technical drill focused on that element rather than a strength training drill for the overall position.)

Combination:

This is a general session and can be combined with any session. Perform after warming up and before any conditioning.