Is my bro in law's Grigri technique dangerous?

Hey All,

My brother in law is left handed and insists on flipping the Grigri around when lowering so he can control the brake strand with his left hand and the lever with his right. This leaves the belay loop twisted and him pushing rather than pulling the lever. 

It looks weird and feels unsafe to me, but I don't have a concrete thing to tell him what's wrong with doing this. A couple of gym staff have commented on it too, but they didn't have specific feedback as to mechanically why it could be dangerous. The things I can think of are that operating the lever by pushing away from the body could lead to easier loss of control, the forces on the carabiners are weird, and that it puts uneven wear on the belay loop. 

I personally feel like he should just train himself to operate the lever left handed, but I'd like to be able to tell him why if there is a why. If it's safe but just weird, I guess I'm okay with that. 

Demo picture for orientation reference w/ 7mm cord in the Grigri bc it was close at hand. I couldnt take a picture how he actually operates it and use the phone camera at the same time! 

Thanks.

I'm also left-handed and have never had trouble controlling the brake strand with my right hand. I'm not convinced this is dangerous, but it seems like more work just to get a more awkward lowering configuration. It is kinda strange though. It also may potentially add more twists to the rope, but I'm not really sure about that one. Would love if Petzl made a lefty grigri one day tho, even if just to mess with people lol

I do not immediately see a problem, other than it’s awkward as hell, and might be kinking the rope.

Also, seems like if would be really complicated in a setting where he needs to lower someone a little bit, then switch back into the belay mode. The biggest problem I see would be introducing an error at the time of switching.

And makes me wonder if his belay technique is also suspect, TBH…

i’m left handed, and have never had a problem controlling the lever with my left, and holding the brake side of the rope with my right. 

Also left handed person, and admittedly get a bit triggered by the whole “omg are you doing that correctly?” thing right handed people do. So take it with those biases in mind.

Mechanically absolutely nothing wrong. The fact that you all couldn’t figure that out makes me question your (and the gym staff’s) knowledge of a GriGri. He’s probably doing it because he doesn’t like having to swap hands from brake strand to lever as well.

For individual issues. If it’s not cross loaded, there’s no difference of force on the carabiner, it’s fine. The belay loop can be twisted it’s not going to hurt anything, there’s no meaningful difference in strength otherwise we’d all die on alpine draws. With regards to pushing vs pulling the lever, Petzl made an anti-panic mechanism because people pulled too much and dropped partners, so seems like pulling is way too dangerous a technique I recommend pushing your brother in law is a trailblazer. The brake strand position is fine for lowering and looks the same as what Petzl recommends. He at no point changes hands or lets go of the brake strand, so that’s even better. The GriGri does not know if it’s backwards or not, it has no brain, so it does not impact the GriGri operation. Climber side strand force still go up relative to GriGri, brake strand weight still go forward relative to GriGri, hand still able to apply backup force if necessary. Mechanically sound.

Edit: almost forgot about rope twists. Most of the rope twists that are problematic are due to differing wear conditions of the rope, like when you slide scissors across those flat ribbons to tie packages to make them curly, not because you literally spun the rope around.

Petzl has specific recommendations for left handed belaying for TR and lead. Watch the video on their tech tips site for lead.

For TR it’s best to not twist the GRIGRI, and just reach across it with the right hand, grab the lever, and pull, which will cause the handle side to rotate towards you, about 90 degrees.

For belaying off a horizontal attachment point like on a bod/rental harness, clip in with the handle side up.

What your brother in law is doing is over complicating it, but probably not dangerous. I always direct people to just do what the manufacturer says for a given scenario. Or at least use it as a starting point.

Also out of all the left handed climbers I know that use a GRIGRI (a lot), all of them except one learned to belay right handed. 

7mm cord. Definitely ygd

Cool. I appreciate the responses, all. Like I said, I couldn't really see a strong reason not to either other than it looks weird/is not what petzl says to do. Id watched the video on left handed Grigri operation before posting, but it doesn't address lowering. 

Brothers-in-law are just weird like that.

Doctor Drakewrote:

Petzl has specific recommendations for left handed belaying for TR and lead. Watch the video on their tech tips site for lead.

For TR it’s best to not twist the GRIGRI, and just reach across it with the right hand, grab the lever, and pull, which will cause the handle side to rotate towards you, about 90 degrees.

For belaying off a horizontal attachment point like on a bod/rental harness, clip in with the handle side up.

What your brother in law is doing is over complicating it, but probably not dangerous. I always direct people to just do what the manufacturer says for that scenario. Or at least use it as a starting point.

Also out of all the left handed climbers I know that use a GRIGRI (a lot), all of them except one learned to belay right handed. 

I'm a leftie, belaying the left-handed way on a gri-gri, and know several lefties also belaying the left-handed way.

But I have learned the right-handed way also, am proficient in it, can teach it, and pass a gym test with it. Most gyms I had visited over the years were just fine with the left-handed technique, but two places insisted that i use the right-handed way.

I personally adhere to the philosophy that, generally speaking, adding unneeded complexity imposes a risk of human error. This means that, as a lefty myself, when I started using GRIGRI, I learned to belay right-handed. I don't think it's a big ask. Frankly, it took me all of five minutes to become comfortable with the standard PBUS, rope feed, and lowering hand motions with my opposite hands.

Do I prefer belaying lefty? Yes. Is it worth even the smallest chance of hurting someone else? No. I don't see anything wrong with the technique here, but I also don't see a good reason to use this technique. Just my two cents.

I belay left handed and lower right handed where it’s less critical.

The main thing is to secure your climber and make them feel comfortable.

I think getting comfortable belaying with the other hand should be a requirement if you want to be a good belayer. What if your dominant hand gets hurt? Or gets caught in the device? You’re gonna drop your climber because you’re not “comfortable” belaying with the other hand? How about if your climber rips gear or blows a clip and needs multiple strokes of slack taken out to keep them off the deck? In that instant a fast alternating hand belay is mandatory. Sure, in the post mortem it might be your climber’s fault for messing up that bad, but as a belayer the mindset should be “I’m going to do everything I can to keep them off the deck.”

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

I think getting comfortable belaying with the other hand should be a requirement if you want to be a good belayer. What if your dominant hand gets hurt? Or gets caught in the device? You’re gonna drop your climber because you’re not “comfortable” belaying with the other hand? How about if your climber rips gear or blows a clip and needs multiple strokes of slack taken out to keep them off the deck? In that instant a fast alternating hand belay is mandatory. Sure, in the post mortem it might be your climber’s fault for messing up that bad, but as a belayer the mindset should be “I’m going to do everything I can to keep them off the deck.”

In general, the belayer can’t account for a bad leader. There’s only so much you can do.

Most people can be belay with either hand, but I can’t imagine swapping hands would be faster than reeling in multiple times with your dominant hand?

Leftie here and for the life of me I still can't figure out what is "right-handed" about using a Grigri the way it was designed to be used. Not everything is "handed." Are you throwing a ball? Writing with a pencil? Cutting with scissors? Using a catcher's mitt? Okay then. Most other things, though, are generally ambidextrous and you should just learn how to operate the equipment correctly.

He's just practicing for lead rope solo, nothing to worry about.

Andrew Ricewrote:

 Using a catcher's mitt?

RIP the lefty catcher.

Nkane 1wrote:

RIP the lefty catcher.

Great article, thanks!

Jack Kellywrote:

He's just practicing for lead rope solo, nothing to worry about.

Two handed reeling in of a rope soloing… Hmm, sounds dicey for sure.

Most people I know sport climbing sort of expect a first clip drama. One of my partners has been showing me to jump back whilst reeling in with one hand. Most people just stick clip the first and/or the second bolt.

Trad climbing is sort of cool in that you can “sew up” a climb so long as you can get your hands and feet placed. Or stand on the pro on more dicey climbs   

Li Huwrote:

Most people can be belay with either hand, but I can’t imagine swapping hands would be faster than reeling in multiple times with your dominant hand?

At 2:35, watch what the belayer does.

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

At 2:35, watch what the belayer does.

Difficult to see cause the belayer looks small in the view, but it looks like he’s using one hand to reel in and keeps his brake hand on the rope, which is good.

Li Huwrote:

Difficult to see cause the belayer looks small in the view, but it looks like he’s using one hand to reel in and keeps his brake hand on the rope, which is good.

Check out 2:22. It is the fastest method I know that doesn’t let go of the brake strand. Using this method I can keep up perfectly with speed climbers running up a 30 feet splitter in 10 seconds. I’ve also used this method to take out multiple strokes and save a couple people from a deck.