Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
SeaClimb
climber
|
|
RGold, my son's 15 year old grip strength is better than mine. Just sayin'. Probably better than yours,also. His reactions are definitely quicker.��
|
|
JLP
Social climber
The internet
|
|
The kid really has to want to be there, to be engaged, to want to learn, to accept responsibility, etc. To think anything else is really self absorbed and - frankly - for this sport - really f-ing dangerous for everyone involved.
You could actually be DEAD right now, but your casual attitude instead?
All of the BS and mechanical analysis in this thread is a joke. The weight difference ALONE should end the thread.
Go find a partner for yourself, bring the kid along for top roping and general socialization, he can go as far as he wants on his own from there - or not.
|
|
SeaClimb
climber
|
|
JLP...you don't know anything about my kid.
|
|
johntp
Trad climber
socal
|
|
What hits me is the phrase "he's only 15". What was his reaction after he dropped you?
|
|
blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
|
|
It would be nice to compare these to adult values, but grip-strength testing is highly variable, and unless the same team using the same equipment tested adults, the comparability of the results would be questionable. It also isn't clear how to transfer the readings obtained from squeezing handles to rope-gripping ability.
Even so, the graphs make some points that need serious attention. It appears that kids hand strength roughly doubles from age 11 to age 18. This by itself should make it clear that a one-size fits all ATC involves potentially dangerous estimates of what the kids can bring to the endeavor, even without knowing how far these numbers may be from adult norms.
To view these results in terms of holding falls, a number of testers have concluded that you get a force multiplying factor of about 8 from an ATC XP. So your average 11 year old girl could hold about 340 lbf tension on the other side of the plate. Including the oft-cited carabiner efficiency of 2/3, she can perhaps hold a factor 0.14 factor fall. If the first clip is fourteen feet up and a 175 pound leader falls with his waist more than a foot above the bottom of the draw, she won't be able to hold him no matter how damn good her attention span is.
As I read the graph, the grip strength of girls is trending down at 18, and it's not much higher at 18 than it is at 11.
Doesn't your graph suggest that girls and women of any age should not (on average) be belaying?
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
Yeah, I meant the boys not the girls. I changed by post so that it reads correctly.
The graph doesn't say girls and/or women shouldn't be belaying, but it does suggest that they may, in some cases, want a high-friction or locking device, and that the device their male partners use with ease may not be the best thing for them.
Climbing is all about strength-to-weight, but belaying, when a big impact is involved, is about absolute rather than relative strength.
It seems likely for both genders that once you have been climbing for a while, your grip strength will be above average, which is a good thing.
|
|
yosemite 5.9
climber
santa cruz
|
|
I have belayed Yosemite guides many times. They rightfully look down once in a while to me to see if I am paying attention. I am looking directly at them about 98% of the time. I train my neck muscles to be strong enough to do this. It is my responsibility to watch them. The other 2% I am feeding rope or checking the rope stack. I like my ATC for simplicity and control. Unless I am giving slack, my brake hand is always, always locking the ATC. Most of the time I have a thin leather glove on my braking hand.
Some people advocate clipping the ATC in the main biner so that the braking side is pointed up. The idea is the hand is in a better position to lock by pulling down. I find it easier to give slack with the braking side pointing down to the stack of rope. I have confidence in my braking ability because I also use my ATC for rappelling. So I know what I can do with it. I can't rappel fast with it. It is slow. But I live with this, knowing that it this is a measure of its braking ability, and therefore it is reliable for me as a belay device. So I brake by pulling to my right with my right hand, not my pulling down.
I am very attentive, I know how to use an ATC. But when my guide is going to be exposed on a hard 5.10 pitch he still makes me use a Grigri to belay him. I don't blame him but I don't use it enough to feel comfortable with it.
With the ATC wire, I can clip it to my harness with a spare biner before I unclip it from my main biner. And vice versa. So I don't drop it. I have trouble not dropping Grigris because there is always a point when it is not clipped in and the parts are swinging around on in my hand. My guide has learned to keep his hands under mine when disconnecting the Grigri. Still, we have almost dropped it several times. A lost Grigri is much worse than a clipped in ATC.
Anyway, look down to watch your belayer and do some test falls like I have down with my 17 year son in the gym to be sure he knows what he is doing before I climb higher.
I'm pretty old school at age 60. But I am currently working on improving my 5.10 crack climbing and I can climb almost any 5.10 face route on a very good day. Some old school ways have kept me alive since I started climbing 30 years ago.
|
|
yosemite 5.9
climber
santa cruz
|
|
"It is beyond question that there are developmental issues, some of which go into the early twenties, that keep children from being functionally the same as adults."...
Locker, your quote is the heart of the problem with our education system. We are not all going to be able to handle four years of algebra in middle and high school, to say the least. We grow in different ways, on different paths, for different reasons. Growing up too fast is missing the simple joys of childhood that we can repeat as adults to be happy. Climbing a tree leads to climbing rock. Fathom the joy you feel backpacking for a week or more and remember the stress of then re-entering working society.
Off topic, I know, but your quote is saying what is preventing us from making progress in education. Until we address developmental issues, most of the kids will be left behind. We need to give our kids more slack.
OK, I will stop.
|
|
TomT
Trad climber
Aptos.
|
|
This is a great thread. I climbed a lot with my daughter, her using an BD ATC to belay me. She is a great boulderer and experienced sport climber in gyms and outdoors, but less so trad. She was not very interested in gear when younger, and so not attentive to physics till she was in her 20s, and then I saw that she quickly came around one year to the mechanics of the situations by the way she organized anchors, runners and such on her own leads.
I think Jay is partly on to something that kids think dad is invincible. She and I were on a valley route last year, and I screwed up the water, and so we both got dehydrated and I ended up with cotton mouth and brain; she was just going along till she look at me and thought maybe I was passing on, and got very attentive to everything..
There were some moments in high school on long trad routes she and I did when I was obviously "soloing" and so falling was not an option. In retrospect, I should have used a grigri. I found once that on a particular belay she ate our lunch while I was running out on easy ground. She did catch me on its pitch of higher spire when a horn I latched to dissolved into crumbs, sending me flying onto a stopper in a corner.
In high school, while she belayed me leading in the gym I'd wait till she was distracted by a boy or somebody talking to her, skip a clip, and aim for an open spot on the mats and then purposefully jump, yanking her way off the ground.. Experiencing my weight (180 to her 120) in free fall with 10 feet of rope out did wake her up to how much force is involved. But nothing like catching a big whipper outside to put things in perspective.
|
|
pell
Trad climber
Sunnyvale
|
|
My two cents.
There are climbers considering belaying time as a rest time. The latter proposition is far from truth. Belaying is a hard work. It is hard to stay attentive and involved, it is hard to witness your friends are struggling and suffering thru desperate moves and be able to help 'em only with advises like "Keep going!", "I'm with you!", "C'mon! Do it!", "Breathe!", "Look around, there should be a good hold!", etc.
There are lot, I mean LOT of climbers have never taken a real fall. Most folks bail out without taking chances and committing to a questionable move. Most folks yell "Take!" and hang on theirs ropes. And most belayers have no experience in arresting lead falls. I mean even those with several lead belay tags hanging on theirs harnesses have never arrested a real fall, only "belay test fall", which is not to be considered as an actual lead fall. If one has no experience they has no experience. And if one has no experience they shall not be considered as experienced.
For me personally the turning point was a day when I took a falling and commitment class. They made me to arrest a couple dozens of falls, they made me to take a couple dozens of falls, they made me to feel at least OK with arresting and taking falls, and finally they made my climbing partner and me to commit to hard moves and to actual fall.
When climbing with a new climbing partner indoors I usually pick an easy route with comfortable clips and take an intentional fall right after clipping the second draw at my chest level. Click - fall. About 1 time out of 3 it is a ground fall. Obviously it should never be a ground fall, moreover it should never be more then a couple feet fall. But it is quite often a ground fall. Not a problem, it is not that hard to explain that "Belay is on" actually means "Belay is on".
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-5om6lG_d8
I watched the whole thing!!
At 15:40 the music cuts out for the crux secquence, fast forwar to that spot and watch from there !
The Gym Breads Them Strong, but misses the important role of the Partnership between the two climbers. When at the Gym what is acceptable is in-fact responsible for learned bad habits that need to be trained or re-trained for competancy when Rock climbing on rock out side.
|
|
johntp
Trad climber
socal
|
|
But it is quite often a ground fall. Not a problem,
WTF does that mean? Decking due to an inattentive belay is unacceptable. Belaying is a full time job. I've never done a gym climb. The belayer needs to be paying constant attention. There is a science to belaying; it is not just a matter of holding the rope. The belayer needs to be paying attention to directionals, rope stretch, ledge potential, pendulums and a whole bunch of other disaster potentials. I've done my share of leading, but most of my climbing career was spent being a belay slave because I climbed with people that were much better than I. My number one job was to make sure we all went home in one piece.
|
|
pell
Trad climber
Sunnyvale
|
|
WTF does that mean?
That means before climbing with somebody it is important to
1. ensure they already have particular skill set;
2. or teach them.
I really think that it is better once to show then ten times to say. I can ask somebody to be more attentive dozens times and they won't accept it thinking everything is OK and that shittalking guy is just a paranoid idiot. It is better to demonstrate that no matter how many times one already gave theirs shitbelay to others, no matter nobody have been killed yet. If belay is sh#t it is sh#t. No problem - I know how to fix it and I am ready to share my knowledge.
It is OK people do not have some skills. We all weren't born perfect belayers. We acquired belaying skills. Other people with a desire to climb can do the same, all we need is to help them.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
Belaying is a hard work.
Americans hard at work belaying.
Years ago when I was in Jakarta they where building their first American type freeway.
They had one bulldozer and 10,000 dudes each with a straw basket to carry dirt.
It was over 100 degrees in hot sun and they got payed almost nothing by American standards.
All while Americans are hard at work belaying ......
|
|
pell
Trad climber
Sunnyvale
|
|
WBraun, I can tell some hmmm... fun stories about surviving in Siberia in -40 winter without heat, without food, and without money.
Yep, Americans hard at work belaying. Not only Americans, BTW.
|
|
Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
|
|
Two suggestions:
1. Belay glasses (prism style, you look forward but they show you "up").
These make a big difference in the belayer always watching the climber. If I don't have a pair at the sport crag or the gym, half the time I am looking at the ground and belaying by sound/feel/peripheral vision. It may not be an attention thing, rather a pain in the neck (literally!) thing, especially if dear ol dad is not a speedy leader.
2. Find out if he really wants to climb for himself, and make those days out climbing about him and developing his skillset, not about you getting some laps with your in-house belay slave.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
young, sending hard and knowing what they are doing.
Let us know!