[Jonboy]

Most of my bouldering takes place down on the coast (as I live near the Gower) wich means boulders,slabs and any other rock feature which presents good bouldering problems.
I have not been bouldering that long and was wondering when I should start thinking about gradeing... :? ..or should I?  At the moment its just about looking for good problems and doing some lovely moves over them : .
Also any good guides on how to grade?

[Jim]

To start with I used to grade everything easy, hard or nails. I think it takes a lot of climbing experience on different rock to learn how to grade problems properly. Its just something that comes with time & experience. Then there's also the different grading systems - font, V, B, Eng tech? plus more

[Bubba]

was wondering when I should start thinking about grading... :? ..or should I?  At the moment its just about looking for good problems and doing some lovely moves over them :

If you're enjoying what you're doing at the moment then just do that - there's no rules in bouldering saying you must grade problems, just do what you feel is right - In many ways it's better not to worry about them and just enjoy it. People can get too hung up on grades.

Also any good guides on how to grade?

No hard and fast rules apply - you really need to be comparing how hard your problems felt when you first tried them compared to how hard other problems of known difficulty on a similar rocktype feel when you first try them.

[T.H.]

Firstly I'd like to say don't get hung up on grades, just make sure you enjoy what you're doing.  Sounds a bit gay and a bit cocktalkish, but I think everyone will agree it's the right attitude.

Secondly, grading stuff is seriously hard, the only way to be able to do it is to just climb as much stuff as often as possible.  I've been bouldering for about 18months and I only just feel that I can grade stuff.  But you'll always find people who'll disagree with you, so don't worry about it too much.  They're only a rough guide anyway, one thing might be piss to one person but impossible to another, regardless of strength.

[(woz)]

best thing to do is just let other people grade it and then just agree with them.
save a lot of time spent argueing

[dobbin]

then theres special cases, like when you get to be one of the strongest people in the country, you've done a few really hard routes, a few of the hardest problems around, you apply the following rules:

Can do in a day - Font7b+
Can't do in a day - Font8c

Simple.