"Universal" Belay Certification

rgold wrote:Given the pervasive occurrences of belayer incompetence.... Perhaps the example of defensive driving courses is relevant. The content seems obvious and routine, and yet the actuarial results on people who have taken the course is that they have fewer accidents and are better insurance risks....

In a letter to AAC members last year, the AAC asserted that the Universal Belay Standard program will produce a measurable reduction in accidents in the USA.

In order to do that, you must have a baseline measurement. The AAC letter had statistics from ANAM ... which are not a random sample of anything, and which show belaying accidents to be a small minority of climbing-related accidents.

I'm thinking a few individual gyms might be able to test the efficacy of this program, but not the AAC on a nation-wide, climbing-wide basis. And I wonder how many insurance claims have been paid out on belaying accidents - will the insurance industry be able to test the efficacy of this program?

I think this needs to be a photo ID, doesn't it?

Interesting concept!

I think all training is good as along as the training is correct.

That said, I recently visited a gym an observed a TR belay course. The technique being taught to lower a climber seemed really sketch. It was working at the gym but would likely not work (as well) in many situations beyond the gym. Having an AAC minimum standard that people have to learn should reduce the sketchyness I've seen during this course and at the crag.

Obviously, there will be some kinks to work out but I think this might be a good step.

Doug Hemken wrote: In a letter to AAC members last year, the AAC asserted that the Universal Belay Standard program will produce a measurable reduction in accidents in the USA. In order to do that, you must have a baseline measurement. The AAC letter had statistics from ANAM ... which are not a random sample of anything, and which show belaying accidents to be a small minority of climbing-related accidents. I'm thinking a few individual gyms might be able to test the efficacy of this program, but not the AAC on a nation-wide, climbing-wide basis. And I wonder how many insurance claims have been paid out on belaying accidents - will the insurance agency be able to test the efficacy of this program?

I think you have to be living in an alternate universe to think that incompetent belaying is not far too common, whether or not we have properly obtained and analyzed statistics to quantify it. And of course "incompetent belaying" goes way beyond accident statistics, because not every incompetent belay results in a reportable accident.

And the issue isn't whether belaying accidents are a big or small proportion of the total, because almost all belaying accidents are preventable in a way that other climbing accidents are not. So attacking a relatively easily preventable source of injury and death, regardless of how it compares to other accidents, is an intelligent move.

All that said, although it is far from clear that the AAC program or any program will have a significant effect on belaying mishaps, I think the defensive driving example gives a glimmer of hope. Just thinking about how to do things and attending to the details of procedure seems to have at least a short-term effect on performance.

The DD courses have realized more and more that they have to address attitudes as much as techniques, and I'm not sure the AAC program has come to grips with that aspect of the problem.

Anyone from the early Gunks days witnessed the total and complete botching of safety standards and education by the Appies. There is little question that the whole thing can be done incredibly badly. But that is not the same as saying that some type of standardized approach, based on experience and not turned into some kind of catechism, might not be broadly if only slightly beneficial. A lot depends on who implements the program and how they implement it. If teenage employees of the climbing gym are going to be the "certifiers," I wouldn't expect much.

I have to channel a bit of Joe Healy here and say that BITD, belaying was taken far more seriously. Many of us put ourselves through demanding tests with dropped weights that surely put the fear of god into anyone engaged in the belay process. And no doubt the hip belay, as effective as modern devices when properly implemented but totally intolerant of any faults, was actually an advantage when it came to shaping attitudes. Because of those practice sessions, the average belayer knew far more about severe falls than many contemporary climbers ever find out in their entire careers. And that knowledge kept you honest; you knew just how bad things could be and how you had to be totally on your game to perform effectively.

youtu.be/6ngvhCfk7RQ

But reminiscing doesn't solve any contemporary problems. Whether the AAC initiative does anything, or whether it turns into some kind of new Appie boondogle, remains to be seen.

I volunteered at a climbing wall run by a town recreation center for a few years. I ran into ongoing issues with people who had climbed a long time ago, but when they took the belay test it was pretty obvious that they had forgotten far more than they realized. A second issue was that people working for the same gym couldn't always be relied on to apply the same standards when certifying belayers. Why would people working at different gyms all over the country be any more consistent?

If AAC wants to promulgate what they think constitutes the best way to belay a climber, that's fine with me. But, given the wide range of people working in and managing climbing gyms and climbing walls, I think that a universally accepted belay certification that's transferable from one gym to another is a really bad idea.

rgold wrote: .... All that said, although it is far from clear that the AAC program or any program will have a significant effect on belaying mishaps, I think the defensive driving example gives a glimmer of hope.

I think about hunter education and gun safety classes, too. These have had a clearly measurable impact.

My point is the one you get back to here, Rich. I'm an educator. I think education is a good thing. I really like the educational material the AAC has put together on belaying (and I approached it with skepticism at first). But 10 years from now, will we be able to tell, in an empirically compelling way, that this effort had an effect?

It may make a big dent in indoor climbing accidents, I don't know. It won't make a big dent in outdoor climbing accidents. And even if it makes a reasonable dent in *belaying* accidents, would we know?

Universal certification? It seems to me this is what you get when you put the AMGA and the gym industry in charge of the AAC. It makes me wonder which climbing community the AAC represents, frankly. I say that as a loyal member of some decades, btw.

Dylan B. wrote:I think the AAC should certify gyms, not belayers. "This gym teaches belaying as we believe it should be taught, and has protocols in place to ensure their employees are trained and supervised to teach it correctly." Gyms, in turn, could certify "this person has gone through a belay-training course and demonstrated proficiency that complies with AAC guidelines, as certified by (insert gym or sponsor org here)." Other gyms could accept or reject this as they see fit.

That's an interesting idea, but I don't believe the AAC's intent is limited to the gym here. I suspect they're targeting the gym industry as an initial step in launching the program for some good reasons. It's an excellent way to quickly deliver their curriculum to as many new climbers as possible and scale up their program. Almost as importantly, this approach provides an opportunity to collect data on the curriculum's efficacy in a relatively controlled environment. If they can convince the actuaries that the curriculum reduces accident rates appreciably, they'd potentially have a huge carrot (in the form of reduced insurance premiums) to dangle in front of other user groups and so increase adoption.

mark felber wrote: If AAC wants to promulgate what they think constitutes the best way to belay a climber, that's fine with me.

If you look at their material, you will see that they discuss a number of different methods. Makes sense to me. And it makes sense to me that the method you teach a rank beginner might be different than the one you end up using years later.

mark felber wrote:I volunteered at a climbing wall run by a town recreation center for a few years. I ran into ongoing issues with people who had climbed a long time ago, but when they took the belay test it was pretty obvious that they had forgotten far more than they realized. A second issue was that people working for the same gym couldn't always be relied on to apply the same standards when certifying belayers. Why would people working at different gyms all over the country be any more consistent? If AAC wants to promulgate what they think constitutes the best way to belay a climber, that's fine with me. But, given the wide range of people working in and managing climbing gyms and climbing walls, I think that a universally accepted belay certification that's transferable from one gym to another is a really bad idea.

How does your observation (which I of course share) that belay standards vary wildly from gym to gym, or even among staff members at the same gym, support your contention that a more unified set of standards and a single curriculum is a bad idea? It seems to me that it's actually evidence in favor of the need for a program like this one.

Doug Hemken wrote: But 10 years from now, will we be able to tell, in an empirically compelling way, that this effort had an effect?

Probably not, because we don't have mechanisms for collecting appropriate data.

So perhaps we should ask another question: is it likely to be harmful in some way? Climbers in my generation are particularly antagonistic to the kind of regimentation that can accompany "universal standards." How will these "certifications" be used, and who will decide how they should apply?

But it has been a long time since climbers were (or at least flattered themselves into thinking they were) a small band of rebels engaged in a fringe activity. Mainstreaming changes all kinds of things. Guides now go through an extensive certification process. Scuba divers can't fill their tanks without certification. So it may be coming to a crag near you folks.

Dylan B. wrote:I think the AAC should certify gyms, not belayers. "This gym teaches belaying as we believe it should be taught, and has protocols in place to ensure their employees are trained and supervised to teach it correctly." Gyms, in turn, could certify "this person has gone through a belay-training course and demonstrated proficiency that complies with AAC guidelines, as certified by (insert gym or sponsor org here)." Other gyms could accept or reject this as they see fit.

I think I prefer this idea more than the individual belayer. Jst from a couple different threads that have been posted, I've seen people talking about different ways that gyms have belaying standards, such as having grigris always clipped in or figure 8s with locking carabiners for the climber end. Using an AAC certification method for gyms would be like the Better Business Bureau auditing businesses for good business practices. A gym could claim, "We're a gym that's been certified by the AAC to teach belay courses, and all of our employees are held to their standards."

However I do see what the AAC is doing with the individual certification. Imagine that a majority of gym climbers get this certification, then venture outside. I think the AAC is hoping that other outdoor climbers will see that these people have at least some clue to what they're doing and be slightly less apprehensive about climbing with them.

I think it's an attempt to standardize a sport that is extremely unstandardized in terms of experience and technique.

rgold wrote: Anyone from the early Gunks days witnessed the total and complete botching of safety standards and education by the Appies. There is little question that the whole thing can be done incredibly badly.

Actually, for the record it wasn't the safety standards themselves that was botched. The belay training and belay test requirements of the "appies" went, for its day, far beyond anything being promulgated today. This included not only demonstrating that the climber could catch a falling leader (the old bucket-from-a-tree-limb), but also included the requirement to catch a fall-factor 2 leader fall where the falling weight goes below the belayer with no protection point, and then be able to tie-off the fallen "leader" and "escape" the belay. How many climbers today could do even the second part of this? One-in-five, one-in-ten?

What WAS "botched" was their attempt to "help" the then private landowners of the Gunks to keep and maintain safety by trying to be the "police" who could "pass judgement" on other, non-appie climbers and their ability and safety awareness. This, however, was not all that uncommon at climbing areas around the country, Devils Tower and Mt Rainier to name just two places where you had to "pass muster" in an examination by the Rangers before you were allowed to climb. The reason the Gunks and the Appies became "infamous" (I have always believed) is because at the Gunks there were climbers who simply said "NO !"

rgold wrote: Probably not, because we don't have mechanisms for collecting appropriate data..

I'd argue that we do have the mechanisms, or could easily create them, at least in an indoor climbing environment.

rgold wrote:So perhaps we should ask another question: is it likely to be harmful in some way? Climbers in my generation are particularly antagonistic to the kind of regimentation that can accompany "universal standards." How will these "certifications" be used, and who will decide how they should apply? But it has been a long time since climbers were (or at least flattered themselves into thinking they were) a small band of rebels engaged in a fringe activity. Mainstreaming changes all kinds of things. Guides now go through an extensive certification process. Scuba divers can't fill their tanks without certification. So it may be coming to a crag near you folks.

I'm skeptical that this sort of regulation is coming to any-crag USA any time soon, and wonder if your long history in the preserve may be coloring your perspective here, Rich. While I can certainly imagine some private landowners who permit climbing on their land (and in some cases even derive revenue from it, thereby opening themselves to considerably higher potential liability) adopting something like this, I doubt you'll see it widely adopted on public lands any time soon. The guiding community has had a hard enough time trying to get land managers to tie permitting to certification. The idea that those same land managers will invest the time and resources in creating and enforcing a policy requiring this or any other credential for recreational climbers is a stretch.

Robert Hall wrote:rgold wrote: Anyone from the early Gunks days witnessed the total and complete botching of safety standards and education by the Appies. There is little question that the whole thing can be done incredibly badly. Actually, for the record it wasn't the safety standards themselves that was botched. The belay training and belay test requirements of the "appies" went, for its day, far beyond anything being promulgated today. This included not only demonstrating that the climber could catch a falling leader (the old bucket-from-a-tree-limb), but also included the requirement to catch a fall-factor 2 leader fall where the falling weight goes below the belayer with no protection point, and then be able to tie-off the fallen "leader" and "escape" the belay.

You might be right about this, but I never saw it or heard of it at the time. I only saw them do the bucket from a tree limb type test. But even that is beyond what many beginners have to do nowadays. The PATC did do some factor 2 tests---and with real climbers too---and I think there are stills of it in the video I posted. But the PATC is not the Appies.

In any case, I wasn't thinking about belay standards. I was thinking of the Appies' much vaunted at the time "leadership" program, which produced an "unlimited leader" who made every leadership judgement mistake in the book, resulting in the death of one of his party and initiating one the biggest and most dangerous rescues in Teton history

Robert Hall wrote: What WAS "botched" was their attempt to "help" the then private landowners of the Gunks to keep and maintain safety by trying to be the "police" who could "pass judgement" on other, non-appie climbers and their ability and safety awareness.

Yes, that too.

Robert Hall wrote: This, however, was not all that uncommon at climbing areas around the country, Devils Tower and Mt Rainier to name just two places where you had to "pass muster" in an examination by the Rangers before you were allowed to climb. The reason the Gunks and the Appies became "infamous" (I have always believed) is because at the Gunks there were climbers who simply said "NO !"

The rangers had the authority of the US government, for better or worse. Since in this country, the government and not the individual is responsible for rescues and the associated costs in national parks, the argument was that if they have to go out in the middle of the night in a storm to save your butt, and the taxpayers have to pick up the tab for your helicopter, they get to check you out first.

But the Appies really had no authority. They had the "concern" that a bad accident might cause the Preserve to close the cliffs to further climbing, and clearly had contacts with the Preserve, but as far as I know the Preserve did not delegate any official authority to the Appies.

What the Appies did have, for a while, and this is truly unimaginable today, is an almost complete lock on who came to and climbed in the Gunks. So for a little while they could effectively ban someone from climbing at the cliffs by withdrawing their organizational support. But those days didn't last all that long, and the Appies couldn't fully control some of their own members like Lester Germer, much less the "juvenile delinquents" from CCNY who coalesced into the Vulgarians.

Derek Doucet wrote:I'm skeptical that this sort of regulation is coming to any-crag USA any time soon, and wonder if your long history in the preserve may be coloring your perspective here, Rich.

Oh absolutely. But that last comment was a throw-away remark.

But actually I could imagine the Preserve requiring AAC beay certification if their insurers told them they had to.

As for public lands in the West, yeah, not likely.

Derek Doucet wrote: How does your observation (which I of course share) that belay standards vary wildly from gym to gym, or even among staff members at the same gym, support your contention that a more unified set of standards and a single curriculum is a bad idea? It seems to me that it's actually evidence in favor of the need for a program like this one.

My concern is with the concept of a belay certification from one gym being transferable to another gym. A couple of posters have commented that they would like to dispense with the need to take a belay test every time they go to a new gym, which I think is putting gym owners in a bad spot.

I have absolutely no desire to accept a 'certification' administered by another gym at mine; I would expect most gym owners feel the same.

Lets face it gyms could care less about belay certifications. They only require it because they need to for insurance reasons. All it would take is "global certification" that all insurance companies accept that would make them not liable and it is done. When the insurance companies are ready to accept it than the gyms will as well.

hmmm, they should probably add a "UBS don't lower me off the end of the rope" certification.

Dylan B wrote: Would you pay a couple-hundred or a thousand bucks a year to have the AAC come in and train your employees on how to teach proper belay techniques, provide guidelines and materials, and give your gym an "AAC Certified" accreditation? Seems like if your employees were all certified and re-checked every year by an outside body, it might be a bonus on your insurance, and it would offer a marketing tool.

Sure thing, I do a similar thing with CWI certification now. I still won't be providing cards for other gyms or accepting those from others without seeing a real accident tested in court.