You Suck at Belaying

Nathan Doylewrote:

Mathew's initial post and tone is that of, well, an asshole. I can appreciate a person who's passionate about x topic but, this isn't passion. This is just meat head anger and chest thumping. He's as bad, or maybe even worse, then the person he claims to be so mad at. Because he should know better to talk to people the way he does, yet he does it anyway and that's kind of a bone headed move; especially since he's suggesting the hard catcher should know better too. 

It's anyone's guess what experience this other climber has, or doesn't have, yet we're all to pass judgement upon him, and on top of it, pass judgment on all the "hard catching dudes" out there too? Seems kind of hypocritical, if you ask me.

Of course, sounds like you happen to mostly agree with him so, maybe you aren't privy to his tone? You can sweep that part of his post under the rug, in exchange for his points that favor your pov, perhaps? Either way, I'm surprised people aren't laying into him even more, he kind of deserves it; most people who don't realize they're being assholes do.

Nathan, I just always try to think the best of people.   I was speed reading for a moment’s break and I didn’t notice the tone as being offensve, frankly, My takeaway was just that he was upset about what he witnessed and was concerned.
anyway, carry on, everybody is entitled to their take on the topic and opinion. 

Mike zzzwrote:

The belayer jumping allows the person falling to decelerate over a longer period of time because you are unweighting yourself with less initial force against the direction of the fall . You could in theory give a soft catch using a steel cable as your rope if you could jump high enough to bring the falling person to a slow stop.

Think of a car that slowly comes to a stop vs slamming into a concrete barrier. You are trading distance for force or vise versa.

Vertical jumping ability has been exhaustively studied. Pretty much all females and most men over the age of 30 can't jump 20 inches under perfect conditions in a gym. Belaying a climber outside isn't perfect conditions and people aren't going to come anywhere close to their limit. Unless you have Olympic jumping ability and perfect timing jumping is only going to matter for very short falls. There are other things that can have a larger effect though.

Emil Briggswrote:

Vertical jumping ability has been exhaustively studied. Pretty much all females and most men over the age of 30 can't jump 20 inches under perfect conditions in a gym. Belaying a climber outside isn't perfect conditions and people aren't going to come anywhere close to their limit. Unless you have Olympic jumping ability and perfect timing jumping is only going to matter for very short falls. There are other things that can have a larger effect though.

Emil, come to the gym with me, or next time we’re at Sauratown (or Pilot if it stops burning). You take 10 falls. I’ll sit into 5 of them and let myself be pulled up on 5 of them. I 100% guarantee you will be able to feel the difference. I’ve done this exercise multiple times, and the results are obvious to everyone I’ve done it with. No magical jumping or timing ability needed. It’s just a matter of stepping into the fall or sitting down into it.

Emil Briggswrote:

Vertical jumping ability has been exhaustively studied. Pretty much all females and most men over the age of 30 can't jump 20 inches under perfect conditions in a gym...

You can change the height of your waist by > 20" just doing a full squat (I have a partner who usually starts in a fully squatted position while lead belaying until the climber has clipped the 2nd bolt). Not to mention with the momentum of a falling climber & dynamic stretch of the rope, it's quite easy to get far above the best high jumper in the world.

Still, if soft catch is a must, then one probably shouldn't use an assisted braking device like Grigri (IFSC certainly thinks so), and a soft rope also helps (I've retired ropes w/ perfect sheath but has lost a lot of dynamic stretch).

csproulwrote:

Emil, come to the gym with me, or next time we’re at Sauratown (or Pilot if it stops burning). You take 10 falls. I’ll sit into 5 of them and let myself be pulled up on 5 of them. I 100% guarantee you will be able to feel the difference. I’ve done this exercise multiple times, and the results are obvious to everyone I’ve done it with. No magical jumping or timing ability needed. It’s just a matter of stepping into the fall or sitting down into it.

Chris in both your case and mine I think the bigger issue when belaying most of our partners is avoiding being launched when we catch a fall. That being said I believe it can make a difference but other things matter more. Type of rope and belay device, amount of rope out, how many falls taken on the rope in a short amount of time. But sure we can give it a try sometime. 

EDIT: I realized that your scenario isn't the same as someone just jumping either. By sitting into the fall you might take 20 inches of slack out of the system and by stepping into it you might add 20 inches. That's different from someone trying to jump compared to someone just standing there.

rebootwrote:

You can change the height of your waist by > 20" just doing a full squat (I have a partner who usually starts in a fully squatted position while lead belaying until the climber has clipped the 2nd bolt). Not to mention with the momentum of a falling climber & dynamic stretch of the rope, it's quite easy to get far above the best high jumper in the world.

Still, if soft catch is a must, then one probably shouldn't use an assisted braking device like Grigri (IFSC certainly thinks so), and a soft rope also helps (I've retired ropes w/ perfect sheath but has lost a lot of dynamic stretch).

Not sure what your point is here. One of my partners outweighs me by 75 pounds. Of course he can launch me higher than the best high jumper in the world. That's irrelevant to this discussion. Agree that the rope and belay device make a big difference.

Emil Briggswrote:

Not sure what your point is here. One of my partners outweighs me by 75 pounds. Of course he can launch me higher than the best high jumper in the world.

Of course if the peak upward force exceeds your weight, then you'll leave the ground w/o trying. But even a significantly lighter climber can exert enough force to significantly assist your jump (I'm sure you can easily break the earth high jump record if you get to do it on the moon). I've belayed climbers 2/3 my weight and got quite a ways up, but it is tricky to time it right unless you can see/anticipate (not just feel the rope tug) the fall.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:this sht pisses me off. 

As someone who sprained an ankle from a hard catch, and gave a hard catch/fractured my climber’s ankle when she fell clipping the second bolt, I’m surprised why so many people are against soft catch.

A V wrote:

Let me introduce myself, m’lady

Ohh my goodness is this the smith rock leprechaun... not only stealing draws... but now climbing partners.... hide your kids hide your wife....

I don't think there's anyone who has said, "I am against hard catches" or "Soft catches aren't a thing". Several of us have said something along the lines of, "Soft catches are only really necessary in certain rarish circumstances, and absent those circumstances we think many people overreact to the 'hardness' of a catch. 

In less than overhung, I’ll take a hard catch every time.  Most times soft catch is code for shitty belayer.  

I'm a bit heavier than several of my usual belayers but hardest catches I've received have typically been more to do with amount of rope out/near the beginning of a route, and in those cases I was just happy to stay off the ground. I can see how softer catches come into play on occasion but think what someone upthread was alluding to was the longer someone is falling the more time gravity has to accelerate a climber and add energy to the system. It's a trade off, more rope stretch versus more speed (that old 9.8m/s per second). Me, I generally prefer falling for less time but it does depend on the situation though for sure. 

Sometimes falling is just awkward and it can be nigh impossible to determine whether the angle of the fall was weird, or you spun off under tension (see any number of those horrific weekend whippers), or if it was completely the fault of the belayer. I think with practice as a climber you can learn to identify when a fall might be bad and either climb with a great deal of control in that moment or maybe just NOT use that overhead heel hook beta...

*Edit to clarify: catches I've been on the receiving end of. 

Short Fall Seanwrote:

I've been climbing for 15 or so years. I don't recall hearing about "soft catches" for at least the first five of those years and maybe a bit more. Does that jive with anyone else's experience? 

I was taught about soft catches when I started climbing 20 years ago, but it does seem to be a more common practice in recent times. I'd imagine this has more to do with the widespread adoption of assisted braking belay devices than anything else. Hard catches are much more noticeable on a gri-gri than an ATC. I don't think it's coincidence that the mentor who taught me about soft catches was an early and enthusiastic gri-gri user.

I feel genuinely bad for the people on here whose experience seems to be "soft catch = bad belay(er)". A partner who can give a good, attentive belay with a soft catch will do more for your mental game than anything else I've found. 

I think 20-30 years ago (when I started) it was more learn as you go. A lot less instruction, media, ect. I don't remember the term so much, but it was more about attempting to reduce forces on trad pieces. Maybe a carryover form crappy ropes of the olden days. Sport climbing, my partners and I learned slowly that hard catches are more violent almost always, even though it was counter-instinctual. We would nearly pull each other off the wall if we were freaking and pumping out above gear/bolts yelling take, etc. We eventually learned that a more neutral belay was far less violent -having the appropriate amount of rope out at any point in time, and simply locking off during a fall. Not sitting into it or taking up slack (unless needed on a slab, above ledges, etc). 

That is more of what I think of as a soft catch and a good belay and is the best you can expect. More and more there is an active ATTEMPT to soften even further by timing a jump, walking in, etc. I think this is really tough to do in reality, although can be worked on. Unless someone is working their proj and repeatedly falling a the same spot, or announcing their fall with a second or 2 of lead time, there simply is no way to time it consistently. You would have to be so on-point with eyes glued to the climber, crouched and ready to jump in less than a second. Simply does not happen unless a fall is highly anticipated at a specific point in time - which a lot of falls are I guess. 

There was a video a few years ago attempting to quantitate the horizontal velocity following various belaying practices and they concluded what I would have guessed - it is nearly impossible to time a jump, and in a many cases there is no effect, and sometimes it has the opposite effect. It wasn't a perfect experiment. I practiced some belays/falls in the gym with my 100lb daughter 2 weeks ago. If she was 0-2ft or so above a bolt, it was nearly impossible to consistently time a jump/walk-in/stand-up that had much of an effect. And I was rarely much off the ground. Outside, where there is more rope drag over rocks and through draws, I can barely even feel her fall sometimes. Friction has a bigger effect. She is learning to fall better though, and that has a LOT to do with it. There is no way a larger person is going to consistently give an ACTIVE soft catch to a light person IRL. Especially on unexpected falls that are on the short side. Sure, big whippers on overhanging routes, there is a chance. I think a neutral belay might be more what people are doing, and what they think of as a "soft catch."

Short Fall Seanwrote:

I don't think there's anyone who has said, "I am against hard catches" or "Soft catches aren't a thing". Several of us have said something along the lines of, "Soft catches are only really necessary in certain rarish circumstances, and absent those circumstances we think many people overreact to the 'hardness' of a catch. 

Yup, much of this is semantics.

Let's try this: Climber ties into a 10m climbing rope. Ties the other end to a 30m high bridge. Jumps off.

By the definition that many are using, that is about the hardest catch possible. But it's a fall factor 1 and there's no wall to swing into. Our jumper will be fine.

Will it be uncomfortable? Some will say yes, some will say no. Some will understand that's how the system is supposed to work and a FF1 will not cause injury and all single pitch sport climbing falls are less than FF1.

If you give someone the hardest possible catch and they don't hit anything and there was no chance of injury, was it a hard catch?

Some people will complain all day saying the catch was jarring, others will be cool with the fact that they didn't get hurt.

(nevermind the guy claiming that he can magically control the entire trajectory of a fall with a belay device as if the rope were a remote control wire...)

soft cruxwrote:

If you give someone the hardest possible catch and they don't hit anything and there was no chance of injury, was it a hard catch?

Don't pretend to be obtuse - hard catch is not associated with falling into air, it is hitting hard things hard that defines a catch as hard.

Belaying is more important than climbing or sending your proj... 

Is it though?

Soft catch works because of conservation of angular momentum

Admittedly I started reading this thread backward from the end, and I was looking for, well, this.

Examples of bad catches, which is exactly what i witnessed...
https://youtu.be/V1P97VVt6_k?t=1m54s

https://youtu.be/V1P97VVt6_k?t=3m54s

Proper Catch at the same fall...
https://youtu.be/V1P97VVt6_k?t=1m1s

No one is incapable of doing this. Bend your knees and really go with the pull, when you feel it. This is not a difficult skill to learn, you just have to understand the principles involved, and you wait on the rope to come tight, you don't try to trust your vision to start the movement. I can have practically no slack out, and dynamicly go (or jump) with a fall, the climber falling a very short distance, but they still "transitioned" to a tensioned rope smoothly and "softly". I do this by feel. When a climber starts falling, I instinctively bend my knees, pull in a touch of excess slack, and wait for the rope to start pulling, and go. I almost always end up looking in front of me during the second or two worth of waiting so my eyes can't trick me, and so I know what im going to be pulled towards. 

Belaying is very similar to playing the field in baseball. You prethink through each scenario as the climber gets to it in the climb, that way if they fall anywhere (the ball is hit anywhere), you already know what to do.

My partner and I, and literally all the climbers i climb with give a quality, appropriate, good soft catch every fall, unexpected or not. I do expect the belayer to keep eyes glued to the climber the whole time they're actually climbing. That's why climbing is fun, and belaying is real work. Because you have to get it right every time. I guess I'm spoiled to have had great belayers the whole time I've climbed, and all of my partners have learned very quickly how to make this happen, BUT I demand it from everyone I climb with, as should you all. Especially smaller climbers. Learn to demand excellence from your belyer, you deserve it

A final point. I climb vertical and slab to about 10* all the time, I love it. I want a soft catch on slab more than anywhere! I want as little slack in the system as possible, and a soft catch on the way back into the wall. Btw, I do get soft catches on slab, and they make coming back into the wall very gentle.