Slap-slide vs. BUS method?

rgold wrote:I know several people who used to use the palm up method, burnt their hands catching biggish falls, switched over to palm down, and have since managed to hold analogous falls with no slippage.

Caught endless falls over the years with both methods. Lots of high fall factor falls with palm up - never had the slightest problem, never had significant rope slippage, never used gloves. In fact, if a person actually needs gloves to belay and hold big falls competently on a well-matched ATC/rope pairing without injury then they're doing it wrong. And last, no one I've climbed with over the years has ever burnt their hands belaying with an ATC that I'm aware of.

Not sure what accounts for the significant disparity in our perceptions / perspectives around belaying given we have very similar experience.

Tim Lutz wrote:Is the anything that HealyJ does t know and have complete confidence in?

After forty-one years I know what I know, have a pretty good feel for what I don't know, and where I do have complete confidence it's backed by tons of experience and mileage.

Rgold and I have significantly different perceptions around the topic of belaying which I find curious given he and I have both held tons of big falls going back to and including multiple FF2 falls while hip belaying.

I also find it curious that on MP more than any other forum, these types of technical topics somehow always end up with broadly-cast prognostications of dogmatic absolutes as blanket prescriptions which seem more a fit for an audience of paranoid Pollyannas incapable of thinking for themselves.

Sigh, c'est la vie...

Pretty simple, have you ever dropped anyone or been dropped? Know anyone who has dropped or been dropped? Have you witnessed incidents of either?

And how many folks reading this thread can answer no to the above?

I prefer PBUS. That's what I was taught and that's what I taught while I was a belay/climbing instructor. I prefer it b/c its comfortable for me ( I can belay PBUS style either right or left handed which is real nice if I need to switch it up) and I fell I can brake faster in the event or anticipation of a fall.

I think it's fair to suggest that new generations climbers learn PBUS palm down with their dominant hand. Once they understand the mechanisms, the rationale behinds it, caught several falls of various FF and scenarios they can experiment and implement other techniques as necessary.

We all learned to drive at at 10 and 2, experience and comfort allowed (most) everyone to move safely beyond this.

Healyje wrote:Pretty simple, have you ever dropped anyone or been dropped? Know anyone who has dropped or been dropped? Have you witnessed incidents of either? And how many folks reading this thread can answer no to the above?

when you say dropped, do you mean like groundfall or just a lengthy fall where there should be no fall (ie lowering)?

I know somebody decked from like 60', shattering most of the bones in his feet and legs and breaking many other bones, and somehow managed to live. He said "take" and his belayer heard "off belay", took him off, and yelled okay. he took this as confirmation and leaned back.

Luckily for me, the closest i've come from being dropped was getting dropped 20' (luckily it was a clean fall) while being lowered. I made the bad decision of letting a friend who doesn't really climb (although he has been exposed to climbing and can belay with an ATC) belay me with my alpine smart because i didn't have an ATC and didn't want to twist my rope with a munter. DON'T GIVE BEGINNERS ASSISTED LOCKING BELAY DEVICES.

eli poss wrote: when you say dropped, do you mean like groundfall or just a lengthy fall where there should be no fall (ie lowering)?

Call it dropped to ground or ledge from anywhere higher than 10 feet while being belayed or lowered.

I am not going to get into belaying specifics, but I will echo support for the palms-down method. Few things out you as a noob faster than belaying palms up. It's on the same level as not double-backing your harness or trying to figure out how to thread the GriGri correctly. It's almost a guarantee that if I walk around the gym and pick out everyone belaying palms up, all of them are inexperienced. For the reasons Rgold explained, palms down is the only way to do it.

Jake Jones wrote:That's easy. You have had different experiences.

I doubt they were all that different from all the posts of his I've read over the years here and elsewhere - more like the take-aways were quite different.

Jake Jones wrote:You're biased, just like you think the people that say "PALMS DOWN" are biased.

No, I'm not biased - I can and do use both methods and still hip belay and can competently hold a high FF lead fall every time with any of them. The 'bias' seems to me to be one - like figure eight tie-ins - of what's the lowest common denominator method we can promulgate out to a wide [commercial] demographic. It's again a matter of that exploded demographic and like having to train up a generation of pilots without enough instructors and flight schools.

When my father went through naval flight school on the eve of WWII, they lined them up on the first day and had them count off by fours. They then had every fourth man step forward and explained that's how many of them were likely going to die in the course of their flight training. And sure enough my father lost two room mates and that 1:4 stat held for his graduating class. The situation in climbing today, while not quite so dire, is quite similar - grossly inadequate experiential training resources. And this palm-up / palm down dogma is a clear and abiding symptom of that shortage.

Jake Jones wrote:The difference is, you expect to be taken very seriously (and perhaps you should be) because of your years of experience and your accolades, whereas if anyone with less experience with you voices their opinion, you go on a diatribe about dogma.

I respect informed opinions based on strong experience and high mileage, but personally feel absolutes (helmet, rappel backups, etc) have no legitimate place in climbing and what's more, and in a way, do more harm than good. All of them are good 'starting points of reference' as alpinejason pointed out, and they should be couched as such as opposed to mindless absolutes which, in the end, actually discourage critical thinking and understanding the concepts and rationales for alternatives. There are lots of ways to accomplish the technical tasks that confront us every time we go out and a given technique is way less important than developing competency regardless of the technique selected.

And I actually don't necessarily expect everyone to 'get' my point or points when I put out comments, suggestions or advice. It's entirely up to you and makes no difference to me if you or anyone blows them off or not. But for me the bottom line is it isn't techniques and devices which keep you safe, it's competencies and awareness.

Jake Jones wrote:What does that matter? What if someone said the only time they saw someone get dropped was from a palms up belay 35 years ago? Would that validate your point or negate it? What is the point you're trying to make with this question? Of course people have been dropped and seen people dropped. As the number of climbers goes up exponentially, so then, will the number of accidents or mishaps or what have you.

It isn't a simple matter of just more people being dropped, but rather it's that a far higher percentage of the total demographic is being dropped - i.e. it was bordering on an unheard of occurrence in the late 70's as a percentage of the total demographic, whereas today I'd be amazed if the vast majority folks reading this thread haven't dropped, been dropped, seen a drop or know someone who has. In other words, it's an endemic form of laxity which is now more or less 'built-in' to the psyche of the sport - sure, people get dropped. Again, another sign of the times and not a good one.

Jake Jones wrote:If your argument is that climbers as a whole aren't taking things as seriously as they used to because of the sheer number of them, the commonality, and the "indoor" experience, well no shit. That has fuck all to do with palms up being a less than desirable choice mechanically than palms down, regardless of what your 41 years of experience and success using it have taught you personally.

And this is exactly the sort of mistaken conclusion that keeps feeding mindless absolutes and the magical thinking that those absolutes will somehow keep people from injury and death.

Healyje wrote: I respect informed opinions based on strong experience and high mileage, but personally feel absolutes (helmet, rappel backups, etc) have no legitimate place in climbing and what's more, and in a way, do more harm than good.

It seems like you've really become more open-minded since your recent posts about how ATC-guide belays are absolutely never acceptable. :)

Not to reopen a can of worms, just seemed like a good opportunity to point out that this is exactly the thinking that some were trying to express in the other thread - that it's fine to have a preference (say, for a specific belay style) but to assume that everyone who does it differently is always wrong or incompetent is...well, you said it wonderfully - most absolutes have no place in climbing and the answer is almost always "it depends".

all of this has been argued to death ...

the short of it is ... if you are some old geezah whos been climbing since the dynos roamed the earth ... and youre solid it doesnt matter what you use ...

if yr a new climber, get with the modern method ... almost all the modern devices have palm down as the manufacturers recommendation ...

except for the munter and the body belay ... theres no reason to use the palms up method, and even the munter works just fine with palms down just bring the strands parallel

For 25 years I used and taught the classic “pinch” method of belaying: hands on rope palms up and pinkies toward the belay device, draw in rope; slide the feeding hand up and pinch both ropes; and recover the brake hand to the starting position. For 25 years I experienced frighteningly poor early results, just like with Bubba.

Last summer, while working for Mountain Adventure Seminars in Bear Valley, California, I taught several climbing courses with K.C. Baum of the American Mountain Guides Association Technical Committee. He recommended that I start teaching a more reliable, easier-to-master belay: the “hands-down” method. One demo and I was convinced — this is a better belay to teach, especially for toproping.

The sequence is simple. Holding your brake hand palm-down with your thumb toward the belay device and your feeding hand in its traditional palm-up/pinky-toward manner, pull in rope in the usual, hands-in-unison fashion. At the end of each stroke, immediately pull your brake hand back down to the brake position (Figure 1). Now move your feeding hand from the climber’s side of the rope to the brake side, grasping the rope just beyond your brake hand, where it serves temporarily as a back-up brake (Figure 2). Next, slide your brake hand back up the rope (Figure 3). Return your feeding hand to the starting position, and repeat the sequence. Many students find it helpful to repeat the mantra: “Pull — brake — switch — slide.”

There are several advantages to this technique: It employs an instinctive palm-down braking position; it makes it difficult for a belayer to pinch both ropes with the brake hand, a common mistake in the “pinch” method; it eliminates the problem of a belayer extending his brake hand beyond his feeding hand, forcing him to remove the brake hand on the recovery (another very common mistake); and it keeps the brake hand in a good position for confident lowering.

When taking in rope, students will sometimes make the mistake of pulling rope laterally from the belay device with their brake hands. This, of course, activates the device and causes a great deal of friction. To remedy this, instruct students to move their brake hand toward the toprope anchor, rather than to the side, when recovering rope, and remember that this system is indicated for toproping only.
The hands-down method is all I use and teach anymore, and I’m told it’s gaining popularity with gyms and climbing schools. First-time climbers and grizzled mountain guides alike can benefit from this simpler, more foolproof belay

climbing.com/skill/tech-tip…

Petzl Reverso

youtube.com/watch?v=ymJb6tW…

;)

bearbreeder wrote:all of this has been argued to death

isn't that the whole point of MP?

eli poss wrote: isn't that the whole point of MP?

no its so that i can post up KOOOL PICS !!!

these pics should tell you why having a method that keeps your hand in the default braking position, having the best grip possible and getting the best braking angle probably matters to a decent amount of the climbing population ... which for ATCs anyways is palms down

zzzzzz

zzzzzz

zzzzzz

zzzzzz

zzzzzz

zzzzzz

time to tuck in my sleepay beahs ... gotta breed em big tmr at the crag !!!

;)

Healyje wrote: And this is exactly the sort of mistaken conclusion that keeps feeding mindless absolutes and the magical thinking that those absolutes will somehow keep people from injury and death.

No one is saying it's physically impossible to catch a whipper palms up. What just about everyone is (correctly) alluding to is that on average, palms up is much less safe than palms down. If you took 100 climbers who use each style, those belaying palms up would unquestionably prove to be better belayers on average. Like I said, few things really scream that you're a noob like belaying palms up. The second I see someone using that, I instantly know with a 99% degree of certainty they dont know what the hell they are doing.

Em Cos wrote: It seems like you've really become more open-minded since your recent posts about how ATC-guide belays are absolutely never acceptable. :) Not to reopen a can of worms, just seemed like a good opportunity to point out that this is exactly the thinking that some were trying to express in the other thread - that it's fine to have a preference (say, for a specific belay style) but to assume that everyone who does it differently is always wrong or incompetent is...well, you said it wonderfully - most absolutes have no place in climbing and the answer is almost always "it depends".

There is nothing technically 'wrong' with the method - it works great so long aren't going to have issues with a pitch or desire to down climb to sort out a move. My objections stem from and are based solely on what I see are the unavoidable contributions of the technique to the breeding of distracted and inattentive behaviors I consider the root cause of most climbing accidents. If the technique were used judiciously it wouldn't be a problem, but instead it is quickly becoming the default method for belaying seconds and from where I sit that is bad news and an unfortunate trend.

20 kN wrote:No one is saying it's physically impossible to catch a whipper palms up.

Glad to hear it because the fact is it's no more or less difficult or challenging to hold whippers one way than the other if you are competent with both.

20 kN wrote:What just about everyone is (correctly) alluding to is that on average, palms up is much less safe than palms down. If you took 100 climbers who use each style, those belaying palms up would unquestionably prove to be better belayers on average. Like I said, few things really scream that you're a noob like belaying palms up. The second I see someone using that, I instantly know with a 99% degree of certainty they dont know what the hell they are doing.

This, and bear's posts above, and the mindless Petzl video are all indictments pointing to the fact that the demographic is now such that you (and Petzl) have decided one has to assume gross and intractable incompetence is the norm and so we have to come up with compensatory devices and techniques / methods in the mostly vain hope of somehow (en masse) combatting the gravity of such innate incompetence.

But hey, check it out - palm-up or palm-down, there's only one relevant factor - the angle between the two rope strands and the 'dwell time' of when that angle is narrow enough for the rope to either be paid out or taken in - nothing else matters.

The basic assumption implicit in palm-down is that people are idiots and will be 'naturally/instinctively' inclined to hold the rope at too narrow of an angle while belaying in palm-up. Further, the assumption is that you won't be able to overcome this innate stupidity and people will - no matter what - always revert to maintaining too-narrow and angle between the strands if, god-forbid, they belay palm-up.

That's either just mindlessly stupid or the demographic now contains a majority who shouldn't be belaying if the implied rationale for rabid palm-downism is valid. The bottom line is if you can't competently and consistently belay high FF falls with palm-up then there is one and only one explanation: you have failed to learn and are incompetent with the technique. There is nothing whatsoever better about palm-down other than it's more useful in [commercially] pandering to a large portion of the demographic which can't be trusted to develop general competencies.

And that's really all that is being said about your "100 climbers" - that they in fact are "much less safe" - not that the technique is. Or, in other words, whatever percentage of the 100 who are "much less safe" are basically incompetent and shouldn't be belaying with any technique and by extension shouldn't be climbing. And it's exactly the reliance on such compensatory 'techniques' and devices which, over the long haul, leads to a further dumbing-down of what you, bear and Petzl obviously think is an already challenged demographic.

In a lot of ways it's similar to the impetus for a 'flying cars' or other grand schemes to make aviation broadly accessible to everyone. The idea is rooted in the premise that flight and piloting are too complicated for the average person and if we could just dumb-it-down and not challenge folks so much then we could all fly. We're slowly accomplishing that in climbing and a far higher percentage of the total demographic is now taking flight than ever before imagined possible.

Jake Jones wrote:I have PERSONALLY SEEN WITH MY OWN EYES old timers that possess the same "kids these days" perspective that you seem so enamored with that could NOT control a high FF palms up- one of which was quite hilarious because he, like you, just got finished ranting about how his method was superior and gym climbers and sport climbing and yadda yadda yadda. You know what I blame his fuckup on? *gasp* absolutist thinking.

Funny, I'd blame it on incompetence and back in the day I'd say roughly half were competent and the other half nervous [at trad climbing]. I suspect the person you saw with your own eyes might well have been one of the latter.

Jake Jones wrote:It's not dogma to say one is clearly mechanically superior to the other. It is undeniable for the reasons already stated- reasons which you do not agree with because you are biased. You are biased because you can use all of them with great success and why can you do that? Proper training coupled with copious experience. Well, not really.

You're right, it's not dogma to say one is clearly mechanically superior to the other, it's simply false. If it weren't false, then no amount of "proper training with copious experience" would make up for the mechanical deficit.

Jake Jones wrote:You all but dismissed rgold's informed opinion on the mechanics of palms up belaying, almost baffled as to how anyone that comes close to matching your level of experience could possibly have a different opinion and not come to the same conclusion as yourself.

Yes, he and I have had a long-running disagreement on belaying. And yes, I am baffled by that because absolutely nothing in my experience with catching high FF falls with both has ever left me remotely of the opinion there is any particular mechanical advantage to palm-down over palm-up. With the rope firmly in the brake hand, the mechanics are strictly governed by the angle between the rope strands, the friction capabilities of the ATC design. If the claim is relative to how firmly you can grip the rope one way or the other I would contest that as well. We apparently do have different experiences relative to rope slip and so he advocates gloves to combat it. This is also a mystery to me because in all the decades I've been belaying I've never encountered rope slip sufficient to warrant or mandate gloves whereas he seems to have encountered it quite frequently.

Jake Jones wrote:These fancy doohickies have become a replacement for real training. People mistakenly think they're untouchable if they use these certain techniques or certain pieces of gear. It's not a hard concept to grasp. It's a false sense of security with little experience to back it up. All I'm saying is that the way to remedy this is proper training. The doohickies, the gyms, and all the things that keep you up at night aren't going away. If you train people in such a way that they know that these things aren't a substitute for proper technique, good decision making, overall awareness, and prowess in their chosen discipline, then they become valuable tools instead of just a crutch in a cultural shift. Or you can just rant some more about the problem without ever considering a possible solution.

As previously stated, it's pretty clear that the sport's training capacity was outstripped a long time ago in the push to commercialize climbing. And what training is proffered is a purposefully lowest common denominator glazing at best. Simply saying what's needed is more / better training completely ignores the fact that commercial pressures to keep the demographic expanding explicitly relies on that training not happening. If we were to let proper and adequate training be a true governor on the expansion of the demographic then sales wouldn't be a fraction of what they are today and there wouldn't be half as many climbers as there are.

So yes, it is a rant, but it's not in spite of or an alternative to weighing solutions - it's ranting that acknowledges reality and attempts to catch the attention of at least some folks so they don't fall into a trap of unexamined mindlessness or develop distracted and inattentive behaviors which, taken together, are unavoidably going to injure or kill a percentage of them every year.

Jake Jones wrote:... to the degree that it ABSOLUTELY makes up for the inferior mechanics and angle that your hand and wrist see when doing so.

Ah, I don't keep my hand and wrist in that orientation. I brake over my upper thigh/hip and the orientation of my hand and wrist turns as I do it - i.e. I tend to belay palm-up, but I brake with a rotation which results in palm-back/out when I do.

Hahaha, do some of you really not climb with people because they use S-S-S?

I'm with you on this on Healyje, my hand rotates when I brake so the rope is actually running across the butt of my palm and the force is directed toward my arm bones. The rope also makes a curve there, adding friction, if you want to get all technical.

Do I actually qualify for "Old Fogey" status now? Is 20 years all it takes? I know you're way ahead of me Joseph, but this may be the first time I've seen myself referenced in such a manner. Maybe that's why I've been drawn out of lurking status!

coldclimb wrote:Hahaha, do some of you really not climb with people because they use S-S-S?

I understand the SSS method to be esentially the pinch method in effect. In other words you would have both strands in the same hand for a moment or longer.

I will not tolerate a belay of this type unless it is a hip belay and on a climb I was very sure I was not going to fall and even then only in very specific circumstances. Such as easy 3rd/4th with a partner who was unwilling to go unroped in a place that was not suited to simul-climbing.

Short answer yes I don't, as a rule, climb with folks who do this. Get with the times, throw away your swami belt, figure of eight, and bongs/bells/hexes and let's climb safe.

gription wrote: I understand the SSS method to be esentially the pinch method in effect. In other words you would have both strands in the same hand for a moment or longer.

I don't get it. Your brake hand is on the brake strand the whole time.