The Testpiece Podcast [REDUX] Sean Bailey — Devilution FA [V16], Japan’s Gym Scene, The Future of Hard Sport Climbing, Spearheading USA’s Return to WC’s, Projecting in Bouldering vs Sport, and BTS of Making It As a Pro
Dec 29, 2025
Sean Bailey, pro climber and Tokyo gym founder known for hard first ascents like Devilution, talks training, projecting tactics, and life between comps and rock. He explains how sport tactics inform bouldering. He compares Japan’s intense gym culture to U.S. comps and opens up about the financial and emotional realities of making climbing a career.
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Prioritize Efficient Movement
- Climb as efficiently as possible by finding movement that fits your body and strengths.
- Use positioning, hand strength, and momentum control to simplify hard sequences.
Lucid: Unreliable Pinch, Perfect Timing
- Sean describes how Lucid's pinch fluctuated between feeling perfect and unusable across tries.
- His successful sends came after sessions where he felt the move perfectly even while tired.
Project Boulders Like Sport Routes
- Treat boulder projecting like sport projecting: break problems into sections and practice them until they feel reliable.
- Build muscle memory through repetition so sends feel prepared, not accidental.