Lead Belaying with grigri

This is a topic I believe pretty strongly in. I work at a gym and we have standards by which we pass people using the GriGri for lead belay on lead tests. We follow Petzl's officially recommend belay technique, which can be seen here:

youtube.com/watch?v=FHdqjjy…

It's important to note that the GriGri is an *assisted* *braking* device, not an *auto* locking device. So it's still important to keep the brake hand on the rope at all times.

We pull people's lead cards most often for using the GriGri improperly when paying out slack quickly; the break hand must stay on the rope while the thumb and index finger go into position to decam the device. We'll fail people if they leave their hands in this "paying out slack quickly" position when feeding out rope normally, where the technique is the same as any tubular belay device (i.e. ATC).

Not much point dropping extra cash on a gri gri if u never intend on removing your brake hand anyway.

James Cranston wrote:This is a topic I believe pretty strongly in. I work at a gym and we have standards by which we pass people using the GriGri for lead belay on lead tests. We follow Petzl's officially recommend belay technique, which can be seen here: It's important to note that the GriGri is an *assisted* locking device, not an *auto* locking device. So it's still important to keep the brake hand on the rope at all times. We pull people's lead cards most often for using the GriGri improperly when paying out slack quickly; the break hand must stay on the rope while the thumb and index finger go into position to decam the device. We'll fail people if they leave their hands in this "paying out slack quickly" position when feeding out rope normally, where the technique is the same as any tubular belay device (i.e. ATC).

tim wrote:Not much point dropping extra cash on a gri gri if u never intend on removing your brake hand anyway.

Love this place for crossing potential partners of my list!

Sums it up!

Moritz B. wrote:Sums it up!

mountainhick wrote:Love this place for crossing potential partners of my list!