Indoor bouldering policy - no spotting allowed

I spent an afternoon at the new Contact Climbing Gym in St George.  One policy is they don't allow spotting for bouldering.  Having started bouldering in the outdoors, I have always considered spotting an essential skill and I appreciate having a spotter on harder problems both outdoors and indoors (even with good padding).  I assume this policy is for liability / insurance,  but I have been to 7 different gyms in the last two years and have never encountered this before. 

Is this becoming more common? What other gyms don't allow spotting in the US? 

 St George community is psyched to have this gym, but I wish this no spotting policy had been on their website or waiver before I spent money to boulder for the day. 

What would be the point of a spotter in a gym?  To push you to a different section of the padding?  Outdoor it makes sense so you have better chances to land on a pad rather than have your skull hit that big rock next to it, but indoor the benefit doesn't seem to outweigh the potential risk to both climber and spotter.

But glad St. George has a gym now for those 17 days a year that it gets that are too cold to climb outside. ; )  They should build an indoor ice climbing gym there for the summers . . . 

The point of a spotter is to put you on the pads, in a gym it's all pads. Spotters just get in the way of a clean landing in the gym.

Nobody spots in a gym except the creeper guy who is trying to "help" the young lady he doesnt know.

Does the gym at least have decent padding?

It is a pandemic also, people touching is a no no.

This is definitely a common policy in modern gyms with wall-to-wall padding. In fact, it’s been a common policy for so long, they don’t even have to say that no-spotting is a policy, because most of their customers started climbing in the gyms just like that, and never even knew that sporting was a thing. 

Exiled Michigander wrote:

But glad St. George has a gym now for those 17 days a year that it gets that are too cold to climb outside. ; )  They should build an indoor ice climbing gym there for the summers . . . 

more about preventing people from climbing in moe's after rain...

Shouldn't need a spotter in the gym.. the spotter is more likely to get injured that way. Just another gym measure like liquid chalk only that probably wont make a difference for COVID

Are you for real? I mean do you even climb? 

Boulder in the gym have move  more and more engaged and dynamic. Almosr gymnastic move when you are in hard comp type boulder. 

Often we also have head downside with high heel at 4m above the ground. 

So yes for specific boulder we often need spotter to make sure we don't fall head first and put us back in the right side. 

Of every boulder was regular upward standards climb. Ok no need. 

Maybe it's for the best because most people don't know how to spot (as the responses in this thread suggest).

Exiled Michigander wrote:

What would be the point of a spotter in a gym?  To push you to a different section of the padding?  Outdoor it makes sense so you have better chances to land on a pad rather than have your skull hit that big rock next to it, but indoor the benefit doesn't seem to outweigh the potential risk to both climber and spotter.

Good point, but I can think of one instance where one might want a spotter inside, and that's when the head has a chance of hitting the padding before the hips or lower body.  Alternatively, there's an argument against that also. I go with not spotting, but I didn't always.  Spotters are also good for letting other people know a climber is coming their way, or if someone walks underneath a climber unknowingly, etc.  Totally agree that outdoor spotting has a much more active and important purpose and there is a distinct difference.

Spotting entered bouldering via formal gymnastics in the 1960s. I seem to recall the expression originally referred to spots painted on the wall of a university gym by a coach who suggested performers look at the spots while doing certain moves. Of course, spotting also means assisting a gymnast while learning a move using hands or body. In those days gymnastics meant men's gymnastics primarily, not so these days, just the opposite. So, contact spotting is questionable.

Good point, but I can think of one instance where one might want a spotter inside, and that's when the head has a chance of hitting the padding before the hips or lower body.

Gotta neuter those routes! (is neuter even on route, anymore?) 

Sue the route setters for creating dangerous conditions that require a spotter. Problem solved.

SM Ryan wrote:

Is this becoming more common? What other gyms don't allow spotting in the US? 

I don't think that you're going to like it

No spotting rule is just to keep the creepers from stalking YP

My 2nd worst injury from bouldering was when I bruised my ribs pretty bad on my "spotter's" knee. There was a nice cushy landing zone with a bunch of pads just below that knee, too.