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skiclimb
Feb 15, 2009, 3:18 PM
Post #76 of 77
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Registered: Jan 11, 2004
Posts: 1938
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I used to be a guide. The last guiding I did was over 15 years ago. Teaching belaying seems to have changed since then.
The main change is that a vast number of climbers now get their introduction indoors on fairly small walls without easy acsess to repelling.
Before the gri-gri things were taught with a very serious demeanor.
In all belaying the brakehand and positive control the brake end is sacred.
In the past most guides preffered to teach students repelling before belaying. Several reasons but one main was that you quickly learned the importance and got a strong feel for controlling a loaded rope with your brakehand. It forced you to learn the same actions needed for good belaying.
The Gri-Gri used properly is a safer device than an ATC for example.
However for teaching newbies it is way too easy to let them get by with bad habits and many newbies have terrible belay technique because they have never needed to control the brakehand.
This then leads to the scenario of a dropped leader because you CAN thread a gri-gri- backwards.
A backwards threaded Gri-gri is not the end of the world with good technique as you can still easily catch a fall.
The problem with all of this is the instructor. Instructors should insist on newbies learning on passive belay devices and continually impress correct technique. Then they should be allowed to use the lazier Gri-Gri after they have shown solid ability to catch unassisted falls.
Interestingly the same argument tended to be made 40 + years ago when people went from hip belays to brake belays. They had a point then too.
(This post was edited by skiclimb on Feb 15, 2009, 3:22 PM)
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