Is there a standard term for putting your leg behind the rope?

^^^ This!

I agree with csproul. If someone yelled backstepping to me when I was climbing, i'd be completely confused. In a world with so many words, there is no reason for such a common word to have two meanings.

I like Gregger Man idea of 'neck brace', i'm going to start using it. Presently, in this situation I say, watch your leg.

Belayer usually tells me "leg" or "rope" or "your leg is in front of the rope" or "fix that"

Jake Jones wrote:... Then the penalty slack.

this

They called it back stepping at my gym also - had never heard it called that before and had to ask what they meant. I absolutely warn my climber if they do this - I tell them to watch the rope and they generally fix it. I like some of the other ideas here though.... Maybe if I have to warn them more than once I'll resort to using 'vegetable'

Nick Turtura wrote:+1 Back stepping

I've always thought backstepping was a legitimate climbing move, such as putting your left foot to the right of your right foot. Something you might do on a traverse or on techy face climbing before flagging a foot.

I've never used an exact term for this, but it irks me as much as anything else when I'm belaying. I always give my climber a shout of it's clear they're not aware of it. Something to the effect of "watch your leg." etc.

I think it's pretty common (and dangerous/unfortunate) for people to be unaware of how unsafe this is, especially without a helmet.

csproul got the backstepping link right.
On traverses, that's a cross-over step you guys are talking about.

I do like "vegetable" for the OP move, though.

Soft catch bro!

Nick Turtura wrote:+1 Back stepping

-1 backstepping, that's not it.

I usually go all Samuel L. Jackson snakes on a plane style.... git your muthaf#%kin' leg out from behind the muthaf&*kin' rope yo!!

A shorter, better term is needed Mr. slime, you brought it up so it's on you :)

We say "rope behind leg." You should see my thigh right now from the rope burn I got on only a 5 foot fall

Glenn Schuler wrote: A shorter, better term is needed Mr. slime, you brought it up so it's on you :)

Haven't heard that name in a long time! BTW, that's LORD Slime, if you please!

But seriously, there seems to be no standard term. Calling it backstepping seems to be a gym thing, but not in any gym I've even been in. I wonder what they call it in Germany, the land of precision?

Getting back to those S. American gals (not Brazilian)... One problem is they don't seem to understand exactly what the problem is, and how to avoid it. Being aware of the rope isn't on their radar; I mean besides clipping it. I've yelled, "Get your leg out from under the rope", and she didn't even understand what I was talking about.

Shirley someone (sic) has documented this and put it on the internet, no?

From climbing.com/skill/50-ways-…

Not sure of the term (but definitely don't like "backstepping" as that's a technique) but it only takes a leader one fall with the rope behind the leg to learn to never do that again. Hopefully they're wearing a helmet when it happens that one time.

It's called potential rope burn. Do it once, you'll never do it again.

Rope burn

Back stepping is a technique. You might be thinking of "back flipping", which is sometimes a consequence of getting the rope behind your leg.

As a belayer, I will always let the climber know if I notice it. As a climber, I appreciate my belayer letting me know when they see this or any other safety concern. Almost always I was already aware of it and ready to fix it at the first opportunity, but never hurts to let me know and I like knowing my belayer is looking out for me.

Don't have a fancy term, usually just say "watch your leg".

I generally call it stoopid!

(sorry, you just don't want to do it)!

John Byrnes wrote: Haven't heard that name in a long time! BTW, that's LORD Slime, if you please!

Absolutely, Lord Slime is what I meant to say!

Guy at the gym calls it 'tripping the rope'. Never heard it before but sure. I usually just say watch the rope behind your leg.

If you think that is called backstepping, which is a standard climbing technique, you are just wrong - see every climbing movement book ever written like self coached climber, RCTM, etc. It is much more accurate and elegant to say "you hooked into the clippy thing weird" when you backclip than to call this error backstepping.

There probably should be a word for this, but there also should probably be a word for other simple and obvious things that lead to serious injury or death like botching your tie in knot, only threading one side of the rope through a rappel device, rigging a grigri backwards, or yarding on a giant detached flake with a big white chalk X on it.

There's no term. Backstepping is obviously no good.

I propose underlegging. You can say things like "dude, yer way effin' underlegged!"

No doubt the Amazons will understand that immediately.

Shelton Hatfield wrote: Yes. Less likely to get flipped upside down, more likely to get a gnarly burn.

That's exactly how I got this, although I think my leg was captured by a loop of slack that formed as I fell rather than having it behind the rope to begin with.

Rope burn.