Say what you want about climbing—it’s a waste of time, selfish, avoidant, expensive, dangerous—and it may very well be true. But it’s also true that our sport’s hyper-specificity regarding gear, techniques, training, and naming has yielded a vibrant vocabulary that’s second to none.
And our lingo is ever-evolving. New terms come and go (“Let’s f–king go” hollered from the tops of boulders sure got old fast, eh?). And old terms get repurposed (apparently “backstepping” is now getting the rope behind your leg, not outside edging) or simply forgotten (when did you last hear someone refer to a crux as “jingus”?).
2024 was no different, with lots of cool, new words and phrases, many cemented in YouTube videos and on Instagram. Meanwhile, a handful of other terms became so overused, obnoxious, or hackneyed that the time has come to retire them.
The verb “float” in climbing essentially means to levitate up the route through a combination of technique, power, sustained momentum, and sheer finesse in a way that appears to defy gravity.
The term first got traction in late-2021, when Japanese climber Ryuichi Murai got the first ascent of the V16 boulder Floatin in Mizugaki, Japan. The sequence is nuts, with a left-hand campus leap to start followed by a Rose-move hand-foot-match downlurch to stick a rail. After controlling the rail, one must then return to the jump hold with the right hand to set up for the topout. Since Murai’s send, Floatin has been repeated (including, quite recently, by the likes of Sean Bailey) and replicas have shown up on spray walls across the world.
In the years that followed—particularly in 2024—we’ve noticed an uptick in usage. Top climbers like Emily Harrington, Margo Hayes, Murai himself, and many others in our community have adopted the term. That’s why “float” was voted as our word of the year, among both Climbing editors and our community.
Variations include:
How to use “Float” in a sentence:
Ground rip: This term, which I first heard Shawn Raboutou say on Mellow in the Alphane video, means to give a full send effort from the start, vs. not from higher up, say while working sections of a problem or route.
Makita: Thanks to Michaela Kiersch for tipping us off to this new, relevant word, which, she says, refers to “the fans all those kids haul around now.” Indeed, this power-tool brand is beloved by boulderers for their portable, battery-operated, distinctive blue-green fans, which you may see humming in the background of the next bouldering video you watch. The goal? To create instant, favorable “condies” (see below).
Small box: This descriptive term refers to climbing balled up within the space your body occupies on a given move—aka, your “box.” It usually involves high feet or techniques like hand-foot or hand-heel matches, often favored by smaller climbers. Meanwhile, big-box climbing would be reachy sequencing, with your limbs stretched out.
Time under tension: This evocative term refers to the amount of time, across a problem or sequence, during which you must keep your core tight, fingers activated, and body engaged.
Vacuum style: This approach to micro-crimping popularized by the UK bouldering demigod Aidan Roberts involves keeping the hips close to the wall and using the shoulders to suck the chest in. This gets your center of mass under the holds to help you crimp the bloody ‘ell out of them.
Condies: This was cute at first, as shorthand for “conditions,” but now it feels played. In fact, it’s so played that my friend Michaela made T-shirts that read “Condies, Eggies, Sendies” after I kept riffing on the day’s “condies” while we had a breakfast of “eggies” to prep for our “sendies.” I full-well knew it was driving her nuts at our shared Red River Gorge Airbnb, but I kept doing it anyway.
Flash go: Anyone can have a “flash go” on any climb anywhere, whether it’s realistic or pure hype. If it’s clearly not happening—say, a punter like me announces my “flash go” on Burden of Dreams only to not get my butt off the ground—it feels fake and self-congratulatory to brag about what is basically just the first time you’re touching some handholds.
Main proj/side proj: Kind of like “flash go,” these terms have baked-in plausible deniability. As in, “I don’t really have to try that hard on my main proj because I’m distracted by my side proj.” Or “This route is just a side proj, so who cares if I actually give a good attempt?”
“Tight, tight, tight!”: As in, hold the tension. Though the more this drivel is screeched at me, the more distracted and fall-prone I become, even if it’s sometimes hard to hear over the roar of all those Makita fans.
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