My favourite saying regarding learning to trad climb has always been:

"Placing gear and your ability to climb will each save your life; don't practice both at the same time."- unknown to me

Get on easy, well protected routes and have at it. Place tons of gear just for the hell of it (as long as you don't run out on the pitch). If you have someone that you trust to evaluate your placements then all the better.

... the route itself was rated 5.1. At that point i was solidly climbing 5.8. I figured pick something way easier than what i was usually used to climbing just so i could focus on correctly placing gear without having to worry about how the climbing goes. ...

...The gig is to pay the appropriate dues along the way to insure your skills and control are as good as your self-confidence says they are. That's the discipline side of the sport.

Notice I said nothing about others. Its all about you. And your own headspace.
...

So I've joined a group, I'm back on the rocks. So far, my skill level is 5.6 sport but the season is just beginning. I've got the gear, and I'm going to use it.

The most important principle for using trad protection, especiallly but not exclusively if you are just learning, is redundancy. The idea is to develop a system you trust while maintaining a healthy scepticism about the reliability of any one piece. Try not to put yourself in the position of having a single piece, no matter how "bombproof," between you and disaster.

Placing more than gear than seems to be essential requires discipline and endurance, marks of a good trad climber. Failing safely is a better longevity option than betting the farm on a single piece.

Nonetheless, all climbing to some extent, but trad climbing intrinsically, involves risk. A lot of climbs have places you better not fall from, and this is part of the essence of trad climbing---performing in a cool and controlled manner when confronting a risky situation. Neutralizing danger, not just by protection skills, but also by climbing skills, is part of the game. (Unaulterated difficulty unencumbered by concerns of mortality is the province of sport climbing.)

Arguments about whether or not falling is a good idea always have these provisions: "if the gear is bomber, go for it," which is fair enough, but such pronouncements avoid the real problem by defining it out of existence. Many accidents happen when the bomber gear turns out not to be bomber. The climber (1) misjudged the pro (something that is quite possible for experts, let alone beginners), (2) failed to build sufficient redundancy into the system, and then (3) misjudged their ability and went for it in a situation when they were not well protected.

As for judging pro, I concur with the posters who recommend aid climbing. Redundancy is a state of mind combined with the will to carry it out. The most difficult issue is how to climb without falling when falling is a bad idea. (For example, if there is one piece between you and the ground and you can't back it up, then falling is a bad idea.) Here I think modern trends can inculcate bad habits. Gym climbing, sport climbing, and bouldering all emphasize moving up in the most marginal of situations. There is a risk of developing a tunnel-vision mentality that, first of all, accepts marginal moves even though the consequences of failure are catastrophic, perhaps not even noticing that the climber has gone from control to high risk status, and secondly, that blinds the climber to both the need and the opportunity to climb down to rest, regroup, and yes, in some cases, to retreat. Mental discipline is the primary tool for avoiding these situations, but this discipline is not something acquired in the gym or on sport climbs.

Here are some exercises that may be of some use:

(1) When climbing in the gym or on sport routes, try to be conscious of how marginal you are. (This does not mean reducing the difficulty level, just striving for heightened awareness.) From a trad perspective, falling may be ok, but an unexpected fall is not good. Know when you are on the edge.

(2) A lot of falls on steep ground happen when the leader runs out of gas. Try to develop a sense of your "half-way point," because this is one of the moments when you have to decide whether to move up or down. For example, a gym exercise is to select a challenging route and then see how high on it you can get and still climb all the way back down without falling.

(3) Develop the mental habit of filing away "retreat data." This can make the difference between stepping down and falling. (For example, when you step over a small roof, the holds underneath disappear. Did you make a mental note of features above the roof that will help you locate the holds underneath?)

(4) Don't neglect the building of a base of climbing below your limit, climbing in which you are relatively comfortable but are also frequently in the "must not fall" zone. A steady diet of well-protected hard climbing at or near your limit, while essential for raising your climbing level, may shortchange you on control and calmness when things get dicey, as they will, sooner or later...

Your "Bad Advice" topic has turned into "Good Advice".

i've seen some great placements from partners in interesting positions. and they did it so beautifully. smooth, relaxed, graceful, you could tell they had it together mentally.

You are getting lots of good advice in this thread.

Dingus is one of best we got around here, so is Rgold.

Below is one of his post about learning trad, save it and cherish it, whenever you are in doubt re-read it.

Enjoy.

http://www.rockclimbing.com/...?post=593112;#593112

tradrenn, thanks for reposting this.

There is an ambiguity to the term “quick draw” as it’s often used to mean any sling of short length used to fasten gear to the rope. The term includes, inter alia, dog bones, floppy draws, and trad draws. In traditional climbing, it’s generally assumed to be safer to use draws such as floppy or trad that are not stiff and so have less chance of placing torqueing forces on the gear. There was a lot of discussion of this a few years back when a well-known Swedish climber died after his cam pulled when he fell. The pulling out was attributed to the torque placed on the cam by the dog bone. Anyway, that was the supposition.

"never ever ever use something as short as a quickdraw on passive protection, it needs to be longer than a quickdraw or the sideways pull will pull it out and if you fall your going to hit the deck."

this came in an email from my ex climbing partner.

1. in order for this to be true wouldn't the route have to not go straight up? wouldn't it have to go to one side or the other?

2. in order to hit the deck in the event of a fall, wouldn't the rest of the leader's gear have to be insufficiently/poorly placed?

3. he may have been referring to a first piece of gear but when he told me this, it seemed he was referring to all passive gear, every time. anyway so, a multi-directional piece. i was told that a nut is a poor choice for a multi-directional, but if you can make it bomber and multi-directional and its all you've got, then its fair game. while we were climbing together, I witnessed him place a nut in a small block about two feet right of the start of the route. when he fell, the nut blew as did his fourth piece, first two pieces zippered out and his third piece held. <--- if this is what he's talking about, a multi-directional piece to start the route, why would you place your first piece not in line with the rest of the route, meaning somewhere where sideways pull would be a concern? (like on a boulder on the ground two feet right of the route?) in this case of the first piece i can understand not using a quickdraw. i would probably use a cam on a longer sling if at all possible, and place it as in line with the route as possible.

4. in terms of placing pro as normal, wouldn't using a quickdraw vs. a long sling depend on the crack and how much rope drag there would be? see, i've seen people use draws on passive pro, there was almost no rope drag, they've taken a fall on that piece, and it held.

i've been taught that:
-what you clip in with (draw vs. sling) really depends on the situation. sometimes a draw on passive gear will work, sometimes it won't. you have to understand what you're doing well enough to make the right decision.
-your first piece MUST be multidirectional, and its a good idea to use a longer slings rather than a draw.
-if your gear is good (by which i mean rock quality and placements), and you fall, it should hold you.
-trad isn't the climbing discipline to be practicing lead falls or taking whippers for fun. Its more of a "try not to fall because the risk of your gear placements failing is higher than it is in sport climbing" situation.

i guess im just seeing if anyone else can make sense of what he said.