Bouldering is at the heart of all climbing. A boulderer must utilize gymnastic, acrobatic, and aerobatic techniques.  The outcrops and boulders are the apparatuses, and each individual problem is a unique performance. Strength, dexterity, poise, grace, and balance all can be developed on the boulders. For the serious boulderer, difficulty and style are equal goals.  Endurance and recovery also are greatly enhanced through bouldering, and it is on the short cliffs that the all-important mental parameters of the sport are honed.  

Almost fifty years ago, bouldering was seen as practice climbing-training for the larger world of techinical rock climbing.  For many practioners today, bouldering is firmly established as an end in itself. Defining climbing is incomplete without the inclusion of bouldering and in a sense defines climbing, for it is the evolution of bouldering moves, performed close to the ground, and their ever increasing levels of difficulty, that eventually get applied high up on the rock walls. In retrospect one should not expect to do difficult sequences high off the ground if one can not simulate them on boulders close to the ground.  This is were the effectiveness of training on the boulders, enhances your route solution solving abilities and strength when leading high up on the cliffs.

BH