Make me feel better about one-hand ABD belay

I see a lot of people using a one hand belay with assisted brake devices of all types. One hand to feed out rope from the top strand, the other hand defeating the brake and loosely holding the brake strand in a couple fingers. When not actively belaying they just have the one brake hand on the device still defeating the brake, but that’s totally dependent on the assisted brake, no way you could catch a fall on those two fingers. I see this across all classes of ABD.

I guess this must work or there would be constant ground falls, since I see it all the time. I’ll admit I’m particularly paranoid about belays after taking a nasty uncaught fall on an ATC. So, as I start to venture into climbing with new partners again, make me feel better about climbing with a partner that does this one hand belay. 

One hand on the brake, and the other hand feeding out rope is a standard and safe lead belay technique.

It’s the “defeating the brake” you should be worried about, not the ONE hand on the brake, because one hand on the brake is all that’s needed, when belaying properly.

Do you know how to belay with a gri-gri yourself? Or are you sun ATC belayer who is trying to evaluate a partner brlsyvon a device you are not yourself competent with? If it’s the latter, make it your priority to learn how to properly belay on a Fri-Fri, or whatever other ABD you are seeing suspect use of, and use that as your basis for evaluating. 

I think the idea is that the hand "lightly" on the brake strand will move to a more firm braking position and grip in the event of a fall. That kind of belay is okay with me so long as the belayer is paying attention as they should be. Now, if I see a partner using any device going full on no-hands, inattentive lazy POS belaying, that's another story. I'll end the day right there and then and go bouldering or TR soloing instead.

Lena chitawrote:

One hand on the brake, and the other hand feeding out rope is a standard and safe lead belay technique.

It’s the “defeating the brake” you should be worried about, not the ONE hand on the brake, because one hand on the brake is all that’s needed, when belaying properly.

Do you know how to belay with a gri-gri yourself? Or are you sun ATC belayer who is trying to evaluate a partner brlsyvon a device you are not yourself competent with? If it’s the latter, make it your priority to learn how to properly belay on a Fri-Fri, or whatever other ABD you are seeing suspect use of, and use that as your basis for evaluating. 

I use a lifeguard (older model, the spring is too tight on the newer ones to allow this) because I can feed it out like an ATC without having to defeat the brake like a grigri/juul/etc. Whether you are actively breaking the cam or not, two fingers lightly cradling the rope would not be enough to stop a fall once it starts moving, so it is dependent on the brake locking up to allow a full grab. It seems to be fine to trust the brake rather than the grab, other than in isolated scenarios with lots of rope drag slowing the fall and keeping the brake from engaging, or there would be people decking left and right.

So…I should just trust this style and get over myself right? If there are other signs of a poor belay I’m happy to walk away, but the one hand alone doesn’t warrant it. 

Regarding the GriGri, if your pointer finger is resting under the bent over rail, your thumb is defeating the cam, and your other fingers are gripping the rope... It would be very hard to pinch between just your thumb and pointer finger enough to prevent the cam from engaging in a fall. Aside from the lack of enough strength when gripping in that way, your other fingers are on the brake side of the rope, which provides a bit of resistance, causing the cam to engage easier.

You get into trouble when instead you are death gripping the whole body of the GriGri to defeat the cam and no hand is on the brake strand at all.

Sure, its better to not have to touch the GriGri body at all when lead belaying, and feel free to go for that when you can... but that may not be all that often. On slabby trad, you gotta try to make sure they are not going to hit a ledge when they fall, so you can't give them too much slack. In a overhung gym or outside sport you need to keep the belay pretty tight typically for the first 2-3 bolts and its hard to do that without short roping them, without defeating the cam to pay out rope. If its way overhung tall sport, when they get higher you can give them more slack as you are sure they wont be hitting the ground, so you can feed rope without touching the GriGri pretty easily then, because its so much slack its easy to not short rope... but then you also have more rope to take in if they need to hang.

Other devices have their own nuances of operation obviously... but some amount of grip on the brake hand nearly always helps the devices engage their assisted braking mechanism.

( I say nearly always instead of always to cover for instance the in no way recommended case of some belayer using something like a Silent Partner as a belay device for a lead climber... or the Silent Partner in its intended use, in that case you don't want to hold the brake strand. It needs to spin up to a certain speed before it engages the braking mechanism. )

Uhhh no, two fingers barely touching the rope is a shit belay. Find better partners.

A Cwrote:

I see a lot of people using a one hand belay with assisted brake devices of all types. One hand to feed out rope from the top strand, the other hand defeating the brake and loosely holding the brake strand in a couple fingers. When not actively belaying they just have the one brake hand on the device still defeating the brake, but that’s totally dependent on the assisted brake, no way you could catch a fall on those two fingers. I see this across all classes of ABD.

I guess this must work or there would be constant ground falls, since I see it all the time. I’ll admit I’m particularly paranoid about belays after taking a nasty uncaught fall on an ATC. So, as I start to venture into climbing with new partners again, make me feel better about climbing with a partner that does this one hand belay. 

Most the time it’s fine, but it only takes once to die.

A Cwrote:

 make me feel better about climbing with a partner that does this one hand belay. 

Why do we need to that? If you choose to climb with a s--t belayer, it is all on you. 

Sounds like normal belay. If they are using a good abd and managing slack properly, i wouldn’t care if Mo Beck was using her left hand on the brake strand giving me a belay

Just consider that the Gri Gri is commonly used to lead rope solo (against Petzl’s recommendation), and people take actual lead falls on it…with no break hand use at all. I don’t that anyone’s died yet doing this.

And yes, as stated above, sounds like you are describing a normal Gri Gri belay. 

It sounds like there are two things being described here. One is when actively feeding out rope. It's fine to keep a couple of the small fingers on the rope, thumb and index on device, and disengage the device while feeding quickly. The other, when not actively feeding rope. Not fine to always keep device disengaged when not feeding rope. 

If it were me, I'd talk to my belayer and see if we can get them learned up on better belaying. 

Are YGD? Probably not. But are you willing to trust your partner to properly stop your big ol whipper in time? That's up to you to answer. 

It bugs me a little when when people keep a thumb holding the cam down for literally the entire climb, but I keep my thumb extremely close to the cam very often and move it to the cam to depress it when I need to feed rope which looks extremely similar and is definitely a good belay with good control of the brake.

Frank Steinwrote:

Just consider that the Gri Gri is commonly used to lead rope solo (against Petzl’s recommendation), and people take actual lead falls on it…with no break hand use at all. I don’t that anyone’s died yet doing this.

And yes, as stated above, sounds like you are describing a normal Gri Gri belay. 

I've seen many roped solo climbers saying that the gg stopped them AFTER the entire cache loop had slid through the device.

Victor Creazziwrote:

I've seen many roped solo climbers saying that the gg stopped them after the entire cache loop had slid through the device.

Yeah, LRS isn't a good example since people (almost) always still have a backup.

Of course you don't have every finger on the rope while feeding slack. But the fingers you do have on the rope should still be curled around the rope and ready to catch a fall. This is belaying 101.

If the thump depresses the cam on the Gri Gri, and the index finger is wrapped (around the rope) under the rail, then all four fingers are grabbing the rope all the time.

In a fall, the rope is in control of the fingers, the thumb will slip off the back of the cam, and can also grab the rope. 

This is why I don't love the gri-gri. The belay style is contrived and awkward, having been backwards-engineered after people started getting dropped with the original manufacturer-recommended belay technique of wrapping a whole hand around the device. I know lots of people still love their grigris and will argue that it's not awkward to use. Different strokes for different folks.

OP, if it's the fact of having only a few fingers around the brake strand that worries you most, look for lead belayers who use a geometry-jamming style of ABD like the BD Pilot, Mammut Smart, Edelrid Jul/Megajul/Gigajul, or Singing Rock Rama. Of these, I prefer the Pilot for the smoothest belay. All of these allow the belayer to keep all fingers and thumb of the belay hand around the brake strand at all times, and I'm not sure it's even possible to defeat the jamming one-handed in a lead fall if you tried with all your might. To defeat the brake and lower, you generally wrap your other hand (the rope feeder hand) around the device to tip it. Nobody's doing that while catching a lead fall. 

Don Frijoles wrote:

Is this true?

Don Frijoles wrote:

Is this true?

See old video by Petzl showing old vs. "new" belay technique. Check out the old method for feeding slack quickly around the 2 minute mark.

The grigri was invented in 1991. Petzl started promoting the new technique (the one taught today and which appears in all their materials now) around 2011 with the grigri 2. They eventually stopped recommending the old or "classic" belay method because of accidents. I remember when all the instructional posters in my gym changed over from showing the old method to the new one. It was a big deal.

Don Frijoles wrote:

Thanks. I knew about the change in technique but the stories about piles of bodies are just folklore.

What if the idea that the piles of bodies are folklore is the real folklore? 

Don Frijoles wrote:

Thanks. I knew about the change in technique but the stories about piles of bodies are just folklore.

It was drop city. Happened alot when the Gri first came out, so much so that Petzl had to come up with a quick fix, finger under the flange.

We're talking about bodies piling up for 20 years. That would be a lot of bodies. Where are they?