New to climbing? - the basics

First climbing steps in the old Kelvin Hall wall (I miss it!). Note chalk clogged atmosphere!

One of the things I'm finding on my web crawls for good climbing training sites is a lack of god resources for beginners. My memories of getting into climbing were not being too intimidated by all these grades, ethics, rules of the sport and the jargon of training - sets, reps, intervals, Egyptians, etc I just tried to soak it up. But I know others find it off-putting. Starting out in climbing is a bit of a magical time (of course it doesn't have to get any less magical as time goes on!), and I think what you are exposed to when you start out often shapes your likes and skills later on, even if you diversify your climbing.

Strictly speaking, basic climbing safety is outwith the scope of this site, but there is certainly a lot of overlap between basic climbing tactics and skills and performance factors and they must fit together. I've added a link to the New to climbing? section for a series of Planetfear guides for starting out in various types of climbing. I'll be searching for more and writing some myself for taking your first steps in getting better at climbing once you decide you have the 'disease'.