Gripped Magazine
The baby head and no-tex: a history of two of climbing’s weirdest holds
Climbing holds have evolved throughout the years, but there are two in particular that stand out for their weirdness: the baby head and the no-tex.
One changed the idea of what a hold could look like and remains the king of novelty holds. The other, the no-tex, may not look particularly weird, but added an incredibly strange element to gym climbing: intentionally wet hands. Here is a brief history of both of them, and how their strangeness helped redefine the way we pull on plastic.
The baby head
If you’ve ever seen the giant face of an eerie-looking newborn child staring right at you when you climb, you’ve probably been a victim of the baby head.
This thing takes the cake for the weirdest climbing hold ever, because, well, just look at it. It’s unsettling to look at, yet still delivers as a legitimate sloper.
So how did this beautiful monstrosity come about?
It all dates back to the early days of So iLL and Jason Kehl.
So iLL, founded in 1997, is a climbing hold maker that pioneered many of the first off-beat holds that are seen in gyms today. Kehl is a hold shaper and elite boulderer who heavily influenced the art of hard highball bouldering.
Perhaps best known for his ascent of Evilution, V12, a classic highball on the world-famous Grandpa Peabody boulder in the Buttermilks, Kehl also has an artistic side. This was put to good use in the early days of So iLL.
In an interview on the Plastic Weekly podcast aired in 2020, Kehl was asked about his least favourite climbing hold creations. He said a few holds came to mind in the early days of working with So iLL.
“They were kind of really trying to push this idea of different holds, like all this weird stuff and so it kept getting weirder and weirder like organs, hands, all this stuff and tongues,” he said. “None of it was something that I would want to really shape, but, at the time, it was like they’re trying to prove a point and just do as much weird stuff as possible.”
It was in this environment that gym climbing’s most haunting hold was born.
“The baby heads are kind of strange and stand out,” said Kehl. “The smaller ones that are actual baby heads that we molded; I guess some people had some issues with them when they were sent out.”
But if Kehl had mixed feelings about the baby heads back then, it hasn’t stopped him from working with So iLL on future iterations of the dead-eyed child.
In 2024, Kehl was promoting the Baby Deluxe, which is $286 and a big step up in size from the previous Baby Supreme model. Presently, the baby head line is still alive and well, with the biggest baby being over a metre in height and width.
To this day, the influence of So iLL and Kehl lives on in the endless array of novelty holds that we now see, ranging from skulls to dinosaurs and cartoon characters.
The no-tex hold
No-tex holds are pretty weird. While most climbing holds offer textured surfaces that allow people to establish their grip, these holds are instead completely slick.
As a result, the strategy of chalking up your hands and trying to get them dry is actually counterproductive in this case. This often makes the completely slick surfaces harder to grasp onto.
The real solution? Wetting your hands. Yannick Flohé poured water over his hands in a 2023 competition and was able to pull off moves that were shutting down other athletes.
“It’s obvious if you have dry fingers there’s no friction on the no texture holds so I tried to get rid of the chalk with sweaty fingers the no texture feels quite sticky,” he said In an interview with 8a.nu.
No-tex holds were in large part the brainchild of Pierre Broyer, a world class comp route-setter. He was obsessed with trying to set a no-feet coordination combo, but couldn’t find holds that would do the job.
“As a route setter, when you have an idea for a move and it doesn’t work as planned, it sticks in your head and it can quickly become an obsession,” said Broyer in an English translation of Obsessed, a minidocumentary that chronicled the birth of the no-tex hold.
“I’ve been exploring this type of footless coordination move for maybe two years now, with varying degrees of success.”
As a result, he collaborated with hold manufacturer Flathold to create a specific five-move paddle dyno at the 2023 IFSC Bern World Championship. Since then, these holds have grown in popularity, becoming an era-defining feature in competitions and gyms.
So no-tex holds are weird. They turn the conventional wisdom of chalking up before a climb on its head. What could possibly make it weirder?
One gym in Taiwan found a way. At one point, RedRock Hsinchu trapped Pokemon plushies inside transparent no-tex holds, creating little jail cells for the creatures.
They’re tricky for climbers to send, and even harder for Pokemon to escape. Gotta send them all.
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