Stop Mistaking Repetition for Mastery

Written By Pierre Despagne

Stop Mistaking Repetition for Mastery

This is for the setters who’ve been ignored, the ones who learned in chaos, grew in silence, and still showed up hungry to get better. This isn’t about bitterness. It’s about burning down the myth that time alone makes you good.

Because 15 years repeating year one doesn’t equal 15.

Chapter 1: Experience ≠ Excellence

I’ve always been amazed how in this industry, authority and respect come from duration, not depth.
It’s not about culture, variety, risk, or evolution—it’s about how long your ass has been in the harness.

I remember once in Australia, during a car ride, telling another setter how many years I had been setting for. I regretted it immediately. The level of respect changed that day from mutual respect to “let me tell you how it works”. I didn’t become less skilled. I just said the wrong number.

Imagine a chef cooking the same dish for 15 years. Not refining it. Not improving it. Just repeating it. Is he a master or just a guy who never left year one?

Now imagine another chef—just a year in—but has cooked:

  • Sushi

  • Korean BBQ

  • Shawarma

  • Classic French cuisine

  • Street food, high-end, home cooking

They’ve used a thousand spices. Made mistakes. Learned. Absorbed. Shifted. Who’s more experienced? The clock holder or the context builder?

Routesetting Is Not Climbing…

You want to be a setter? Cool. Did you climb V13 once ten years ago? Irrelevant. Because strength is not vision. Strength isn’t empathy and doesn’t make you better at tweaking a boulder. And yet the industry loves to hand out influence based on:

  • How strong you were once

  • How long you’ve been around

  • How many years you’ve been in the same gym

Even if none of those things translate into quality, leadership, or growth.

So What Actually Is Experience Worth?

Is comp setting worth more than commercial? Is one gym for 5 years more valuable than 5 gyms in 2? Answer: It depends. But exposure is what matters.
If you’ve:

  • Worked across styles, gyms and countries

  • Faced disaster T-nuts and garbage teams

  • Adapted to different visions

  • Built systems from scraps

Then you’ve learned. Even if you’re newer. So if someone throws numbers at you like a résumé shield, ask:
“Cool. But what have you actually seen? What have you changed your mind about?”
Because Monkey See, Monkey Repeat is not a career path. But Monkey See, Monkey Learn is what we should be rewarding.

Chapter 2: The Peter Principle Is Real—and It’s Eating Us Alive

This industry promotes people based on the wrong metrics.
It’s the classic corporate trap:

“You’re great at this job. Let’s give you a new job that requires none of the skills you had before.”

  • You’re a good setter? Cool. Now do admin, scheduling, budgets, HR, mentorship, and politics.

  • Also: write educational programs.

  • Also: handle emotional labor.

  • Also: smile. You’re a leader now.

Except… you’re not trained for any of it. And now you suck at your job. Not because you’re bad—but because you were never equipped. Which leads us to:

Climbing’s Beautiful Delusion or “Anyone Can Do Anything”

Climbing culture worships the poetic lie: “Everyone gets a shot.” “Anyone can lead.” “We’re all in this together.” But when everyone does everything without structure, you don’t get creativity. You get chaos, you get mediocrity.
You end up with:

  • Federation promoting the same male archetype

  • Curriculum built by people disconnected from reality

  • Promotions based on time served, not vision offered

  • Entire departments run by people who’ve never actually built a team

  • Networks being the best resumes

And then people act surprised when the quality sucks.

Chapter 3: Misvaluing Experience Is the Real Problem

Let’s talk about what the industry really means when it says: “We’re looking for incredible talents.”
Because what they usually mean is:

  • Someone with IFSC on their résumé or level X* (insert number, letter, colour or animals depending on your country)

  • Someone who’s set Nationals

  • Someone who’s worked at a big name gym

  • Someone whose name gets passed around more than their actual work does.

But what they don’t ask is:

  • How do you navigate conflicts? 

  • How deep is your repertoire of movement?

  • What can you bring to a setting team that is unique to you?

  • How do you deliver feedback depending on the person you’re speaking to?

  • What do you think of beginner boulders and what are their goals?

  • How do you tweak a bad boulder? Short answer: you don’t, you strip it

IFSC & Commercial routesetting

IFSC setting is like designing a Formula 1 car—precise, technical, unforgiving.
But commercial setting? That’s designing a whole road system. It’s not about peak performance for the elite few. It’s about building something that works for everyone—from first-timers to lifers, from the nervous to the obsessed.

You’re managing complexity, diversity, emotion, learning curves, safety, chaos, and fun.
None of that is tested on the World Cup circuit.

So how does being an IFSC setter automatically qualify someone to lead a commercial gym?
Short answer: It doesn’t.

It just sounds impressive in an email to investors.

Experience isn’t a currency. It’s a story.

And if your story is just “I set V11s fast,” I’m not sure you’re actually experienced. You’re just fast.
True experience is:

  • Navigating egos in a setting team

  • Creating flow from chaos

  • Designing beginner climbs people actually want to climb

  • Learning from the mom in rental shoes who tells you she didn’t feel safe climbing that boulder

That’s the experience I want to see valued.
Because your gold badge isn’t worth shit if it came from the system you built.

Final Chapter: Face to Face

If we want routesetting to evolve, we need to stop counting years and start counting context. Because it isn’t about the number, it’s about the quality, the variety, the empathy, the depth of understanding, the questions…

And if someone denies your experience because your number is lower, you look them dead in the eye and say:
“I learned more in five years than you did in fifteen. Because I paid attention.”

Because experience isn’t about how long you were in the room. It’s about how much you noticed. How much you changed. And what you left behind that made things better.

If that makes someone uncomfortable?

That means it’s working.

Pierre Despagne