It's a long post, and I understand if you guys don't want to read the whole thing. For those who do, thank you for the time.

Most of my climbing career has been spent at one gym, and one crag. So I figured that I would broaden my horizons and check out another gym by me. Now before I go into this story let me just state:
- I have been *seriously* climbing for 2 years.
- I have experience setting up outdoor TR anchors
- I have lead climbing experience of a solid 5.7 and decent 5.8/9
- I have worked at a Boy Scout camp as climbing staff
- I'm young, only 16 years old.

SO I'm not completely clueless.

I went to the gym and everything started out fine and dandy, then they asked that we (my partner and I) meet with a staff member for a belay test. I suspect it should be a snap. They don't allow you to use your own hardware here, as they have a ground anchor (daisy chain), screw gate carabiner, and BD ATC at each TR station. Okay I tell myself, no big deal. I begin my test, and pass with flying colors. As I'm doing what the staff member asks, I talk with him about his climbing experience (just to make small talk). He is new climber, with no outdoor, or lead experience. The final task was to tie in as a climber. Easy peasy right? I tie in, and I have the "fist" of tail after my figure eight, but not quite enough to tie a fisherman's knot as a back up.

He says "We require the backup knot here." I quickly correct it and tie a fisherman's knot as a back up.

He then said "We require that you use a double fisherman's knot here." I sigh, and re-tie it with a double fisherman's. Then he says "Well that's correct, but I could critique the figure of eight if I wanted to." I look back at my knot, did I really mess it up? No. It was correct. I asked him what was wrong with it and he grabs the knot, flips a section over another, making a cosmetic change. Then he asked me "What are THE commands?" I say:
Pre-Climb:
On belay? :: Belay is on
Permission to climb :: Climb away
Climbing ::
For Decent:
"I use:"
Aqui (Here) - To belayer, stating climber is ready to come down
Listo (Ready)- To climber, stating belayer is ready for the climber to come down

I use Spanish for lowering because it helps avoid confusion with other climbers. He said no. That I need to use "Take" and "I got you."

So those were the rules at the gym. What do you guys think? Strict? Average?

Suck it up and deal with the rules. They are established by a conversation between the owner(s) and their insurance company.

Valid point. I know to suck it up. In fact, the rest of the day went rather well, the purpose of this was to try and see if people think this is strict in comparison to what they have experienced.

Edit: I'm 16, yes. However, I ask that you give me the benefit of the doubt in that I'm a little bit smarter than the average teen. I'm currently on the track to receiving an associates degree one semester after graduating from high school.

The most dangerous element in the gyms is overconfident folk who think they know what they are doing, and this is basically their best chance to catch those folks and course-correct before anyone gets hurt.

HTH

All gyms are different.

...There are a lot of people working at climbing gyms that don't know much about climbing.

... That, and he probably doesn't know much about climbing so he is making sure to do everything EXACTLY as he was taught - can't fault him for that.

Just follow the rules and try not to be rude.

Valid point. I know to suck it up. In fact, the rest of the day went rather well, the purpose of this was to try and see if people think this is strict in comparison to what they have experienced.

Edit: I'm 16, yes. However, I ask that you give me the benefit of the doubt in that I'm a little bit smarter than the average teen. I'm currently on the track to receiving an associates degree one semester after graduating from high school.

- I have worked at a Boy Scout camp as climbing staff
- I'm young, only 16 years old. :: Edit: Included to account for possible "This kid isn't capable of tying his own shoes" attitude. As noticed below from marc.

It's a long post, and I understand if you guys don't want to read the whole thing. For those who do, thank you for the time.

Most of my climbing career has been spent at one gym, and one crag. So I figured that I would broaden my horizons and check out another gym by me. Now before I go into this story let me just state:
- I have been *seriously* climbing for 2 years.
- I have experience setting up outdoor TR anchors
- I have lead climbing experience of a solid 5.7 and decent 5.8/9
- I have worked at a Boy Scout camp as climbing staff
- I'm young, only 16 years old. :: Edit: Included to account for possible "This kid isn't capable of tying his own shoes" attitude. As noticed below from marc.

SO I'm not completely clueless.

I went to the gym and everything started out fine and dandy, then they asked that we (my partner and I) meet with a staff member for a belay test. I suspect it should be a snap. They don't allow you to use your own hardware here, as they have a ground anchor (daisy chain), screw gate carabiner, and BD ATC at each TR station. Okay I tell myself, no big deal. I begin my test, and pass with flying colors. As I'm doing what the staff member asks, I talk with him about his climbing experience (just to make small talk). He is new climber, with no outdoor, or lead experience. The final task was to tie in as a climber. Easy peasy right? I tie in, and I have the "fist" of tail after my figure eight, but not quite enough to tie a fisherman's knot as a back up.

He says "We require the backup knot here." I quickly correct it and tie a fisherman's knot as a back up.

He then said "We require that you use a double fisherman's knot here." I sigh, and re-tie it with a double fisherman's. Then he says "Well that's correct, but I could critique the figure of eight if I wanted to." I look back at my knot, did I really mess it up? No. It was correct. I asked him what was wrong with it and he grabs the knot, flips a section over another, making a cosmetic change. Then he asked me "What are THE commands?" I say:
Pre-Climb:
On belay? :: Belay is on
Permission to climb :: Climb away
Climbing ::
For Decent:
"I use:"
Aqui (Here) - To belayer, stating climber is ready to come down
Listo (Ready)- To climber, stating belayer is ready for the climber to come down

I use Spanish for lowering because it helps avoid confusion with other climbers. He said no. That I need to use "Take" and "I got you."

So those were the rules at the gym. What do you guys think? Strict? Average?

-MM

We arrived with our forms all filled out, ready to take our belay tests and go. Unfortunately, it didn't work out quite like that. Despite the fact that the place was almost entirely empty, it was fully an hour and a half before they were able to give us our lead belay tests and get us on the wall.

<snip>

Here are just a few of the rules:

You must belay with a gri-gri (TR or lead).
The belayer must anchor in (TR or lead).
The belayer's anchor point must not be taut to the floor at any time.
The belay biner must be oriented so the locking sleeve screws *down* rather than *up*.

My partner got two permanent demerits on his membership entered into the computer (I'm not kidding!) for 1 - having his belay biner oriented incorrectly, and 2 - not having enough slack in his anchor line (because he stepped back two feet to get the rope out of my way as I was climbing).

We were not horsing around, or in any other way calling negative attention to ourselves. We just went there to climb. If you have a short fuse, don't even step in the door, it'll be ugly! We just let it roll off us; we were amused.

It's particularly irksome because the worst of the safety police on staff didn't seem to know anything about climbing. For example, I was reprimanded for Z-clipping, when I was doing no such thing - the girl simply had learned the wrong definition of the word.

We did also have a very positive interaction with one of the staff members. The guy who gave us our belay test was knowledgable, friendly, and reasonable. He was also clearly a climber. He even shared an interesting technical tip he'd read about recently for lead belaying with a gri-gri. He was also kind of apologetic about the gym's "issues".

<snipped the rest of review>

Just roll with it man.

Also you weren't climbing staff, you were climbing staff in training since you have to be 18 to be full climbing staff (Source: me being a National Camp School instructor for climbing)

I do not know about the gym rules but your resume is outstanding

now put your helmet on

Not sure how to take this. Is this supposed to be sarcastic, therefore insulting me? Or am I supposed to interpret it as I am doing fairly well given my age?

My experience from climbing gyms: every 16 year old, without fail, is an arrogant little prick. The odds of a 16 year old being wrong about anything is pretty much proportional to the amount of experience they claim on the subject. When you work day-in and day-out dealing with that, you learn to just assume the worst, as that way you don't have to watch a bad accident unfold in front of you.

Does that mean I have a bad attitude? Maybe. But I guarantee I'm a hell of a lot more sympathetic to the victims of idiots than to the idiots themselves.

Also you weren't climbing staff, you were climbing staff in training since you have to be 18 to be full climbing staff (Source: me being a National Camp School instructor for climbing)

EDIT: What year(s) were you the camp school instructor?

I appreciate your input, however, your response was a little off topic, as the question is do you think the gym rules were strict in comparison to gyms readers have had experiences at.

At the risk of further derailing the topic: Am I 16? Yes. Am I a prick? Maybe. Am I arrogant? Maybe. Your post was about your experience with 16 year old gym climbers. Implying the same would apply to me (if not, then you were posting a random rant). Therefore, I would say that statement would imply an equally haughty essence as you believe 16 year old individuals have.

Arrogant, from this post, I believe you are.