How qualified to instruct are you?

I thought talking about qualifications was better in the general forum.
Back Ground topic:
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2640311;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;page=unread#unread


So how would you determine a persons qualifications?

Whether you are paid or not, all of us have been instructors or guided at one point in our climbing adventures. We take our friends or someone took us climbing. How did you determine they were not going to kill you?

You have all seen people with groups of friend, and they had no clue what they were doing.

So how would you evaluate people if you were King?
Witten test like every collage in the county?
Times Skills test?
Just a climbing bio?
???

Are you trying to hire instructors or want to know where you are as far as been an instructor?

I think he's trying to blend that subtle difference between taking newbies to the crag vs. paid guides.

One gets paid and has liability, the other doesent.

Of course there is very little practical difference in terms of "teaching" or "guiding," so to speak, between a paid guide and someone taking friends. You need to consider the risks and the more experienced people in the part really need to pay attention in a similar fashion as a guide would.

However, there is a HUGE difference between paying someone to take you climbing and not paying someone.

Paying someone to provide a service makes a big difference in expectations. Taking friends climbing has almost never led to an expectation on their part that I provide for them beyond my ordinary knowledge and encouragement; it was a simple day out, maybe doing something different than what others had done before. We were simply going climbing.

That's ^^ not the same expectation of hiring a guide.

Because of my many years of experience I feel qualified to teach trad and sport climbing but I would have to brush up on my first aid and rescue techniques before I would call myself truly qualified to guide.

It is a simple fact that people who are least knowledgeable and are most in need of safe and qualified instruction are also least able to judge a good instructor from the bad one.

IMO, this is where the difference between a professional guide and a friend comes in. When you (as a newbie) go out with a friend, you are relying on your own opinion of how experienced your friend is. When you hire a guide, you expect that someone out there, someone who is qualified to make such decisions, deemed this person to be knowledgeable enough to act as a guide. It is a shift of responsibility...

Yup, and on how to cope with groups of varying ages, how to work with underage children without ending up in prison, how to provide a value day for paying customers etc, etc.

As far as "underage children"... if a guide is doing something that has potential prison consequences...what can I say? They are doing something VERY wrong.

It's perfectly possible to get sued without getting paid.

Guiding/Instructing and climbing are two very different things.

I am not sure I agree. How many of your clients say "I just want someone to climb with, and I am not in any way interested in learning anything from you"? Guides are instructors. I know a number of top guides, AMGA Rock Guide certified and YMS guides, and the vast majority of the work they do is instruction. Sure, they haul tons of people up After Six as well, but if a guide is hauling some noob up some multi-pitch climb, there is going to be some level of instruction. There is no way any reputable guide would just rope up with some noob to climb a 6-pitch route and say "okay, on belay bro, see you at the top". No way. The guide is going to cover the climb in detail to make sure the guide and client are on the same page, and the guide is going to instruct the client on what needs to happen.

I started working with two very legendary climbers and guides. One has 25 years of guiding experience, the other has over thirty. Both are very well known Yosemite climbers. One of them has done more El Cap routes than anybody, this includes early first ascents etc. The other is a well known valley guide book author and worked for YMS for years.

I don't want to put words in socalclimber's mouth, but I think there is a vast difference between the way one climbs with friends and the way guiding is, or should be, carried out. I also think that even within the parameters of guiding, there is a valid distinction between guiding and instructing.

The purpose of a day of instruction is, obviously, to teach the student things about technique (either climbing or equipment usage or both). Other things are secondary to that goal. Conventional climbing goals may or may not be achieved, but the point is to learn stuff, not get somewhere.

The purpose of guiding is to help the client achieve specific climbing goals. Such clients are not beginners and may have a relatively high level of skill in some restricted areas. (Lionel Terray remarked that, thanks to training on small crags, his clients sometimes climbed better on rock than he did.)

The two types of guiding mentioned above are not mutually exclusive, but it is wrong, as some posters have suggested, to use the fact that the classes overlap to argue that they are identical. The main difference, I think, is in the mindset of the guide, and no doubt one of the things that makes a good guide is the recognition of these two genres and the ability to adapt an approach that is appropriate to the student and their goals,

Note that, depending on the students in question, the same climb might be a guided experience for one and an instruction experience for the other. An example of the different mindsets the guide might adopt is how and where they choose to belay. The instruction scenario calls for belays that afford clear and easy communication so that the guide can provide appropriate advice and monitor the student's progress. The guiding scenario might well involve longer pitches and practices more oriented to team efficiency than to constant guide-client communication.

I just want someone to climb with, and I am not in any way interested in learning anything from you?

Gee, I can't imagine who those two guys could be.

Yup! Unfortunately around here nobody could be bothered with researching the history of the very activity they claim to so dearly to embrace.