I try to keep my hands and feet in front of me to have a more controlled "encounter with the rock" when I fall. Not to absorb any impact, but to keep my head from absorbing the impact... 'Cause that would be bad, m'kay. :wink:

Indeed. I am shocked by the number of people who think they should be using their hands to absorb the imapct of the fall. This is absolutely wrong. You absorb the impact with your legs only. Put your legs out in front of you and bend at the knees and hips when your feet strike the wall, just like how a cat lands. You, however, have only 2 legs, not 4 like the cat.

The same applies when you are belaying and get pulled up (or jump) when your partner falls. Stick your feet out in front of you to absorb the impact with the wall. Your hands stay on the rope(!), and play no part in breaking your fall.

-Jay

Here's a story for you. A number of years ago a buddy and I went up to attempt the first free ascent of a route at Red Rocks (Iron Man on the Pillow). Somehow he screwed up while tying in (even Lynn Hill has done that) and completely missed his harness and tied into his chalk bag belt. When he fell at the crux he instinctively grabbed the knot and this is what saved his life. The rope ripped free from his belt and he was able to hang on by his arms until I lowered him off to a ledge. I might add that this was not some gumby but a very experienced climber. You can make up your own moral to this tale.

Here's a story for you. A number of years ago a buddy and I went up to attempt the first free ascent of a route at Red Rocks (Iron Man on the Pillow). Somehow he screwed up while tying in (even Lynn Hill has done that) and completely missed his harness and tied into his chalk bag belt. When he fell at the crux he instinctively grabbed the knot and this is what saved his life. The rope ripped free from his belt and he was able to hang on by his arms until I lowered him off to a ledge. I might add that this was not some gumby but a very experienced climber. You can make up your own moral to this tale.

Honestly I tried to ignore this issue but it ate away at my mind so yesterday I set out to find the truth. I will give you an account of what took place.

First, I paid a visit to the physics department at my University. I walked into their lounge area and spotted the nerdiest looking guy in the room. I began to ask him about this whole knot in the rope thing. Soon 3 more guys and a redhead that was rather distracting were going over the question. In the end, they all decided that pulling on the knot would make you swing in the direction opposite of your pull. Unsatisfied I went to one of their Professors to get more input. He pretty much said the same thing that I did just in a more long drawn out nerd version, “It only takes two points of contact to make a rope swing”.
O.K. armed with this I proceeded to my rock climbing instructor’s office. Dr. Willden has been climbing for close to 30 yrs and teaching the course at the university for almost 20 yrs. I explained to him the dilemma and showed him the hand-drawn diagram that the Physics Professor drew. But being the guy he is, he would not give me an answer. Instead he gives me half a rope he was going to retire and says; “go find out for your self!” I head back to the Physics Dept. and grabbed my climbing buddy Shane, we usual meet up on Wednesday to discuss where or what we will be climbing this weekend. So here we are outside with a ½ rope rigged to a tree limb about 15 feet off the deck. Her is what we tried and found.

1. From a motionless point (or as close to a motionless point as we could get) with one hand on the knot in your harness upright. Pull right go left. Pull left goes right. Push forward on the knot, move back (Very little I have to say), Pull the knot into the body, and move forward. We tried varying degrees of pushing, pulling, turning and bending of the knot. From this point you could move as far as 2 feet if you pushed or pulled hard enough or not at all if you did nothing.
2. Then we grabbed a chair from the gym and stood on it to try to simulate a fall (only like 2 or 3 feet, so not that great of a guide line to base everything on). We tried several times to pull the knot at the same time that the rope came tight (a lot harder to do then you would think) and guess what happened?
Pulling on the knot at the same time as the fall is completed increased the swing length, not greatly mind you, but then again these were very short falls. The strangest thing of all was that the figure-8 follow through had the second most influence on the swing. The closer your knot was to the harness the less swing that was possible.

The 3 things that most influenced the swing were; how hard you grabbed the knot, the length of the loop of your figure-8 follow through and body weight. In the end we all concluded that under the right circumstances, pulling or even grabbing the knot could be very tragic. I headed back to my instructor office to tell him what we had found and all he had to say was “ Now you know why I tell you guys to never grab the rope, it’s a instinct that is very hard to get over.” So, if your in the habit of grabbing your knot, keep your figure-8 follow through knot close to the body and don’t pull/push on it. These are the facts I know to be true not speculation.

No, because if your harness fails, the rope will whip through your hand and burn it. And rope burns suck.

SNIP!

One thing I have done on occasion is to grab the draw or gear on my way by and this is allmost allways a VERY BAD MOVE. I tore my shoulder at least once that way. Stupid.

Jay,
Since you seem to be the main proponent of "grabbing your knot".

At what point in your fall do you grab the rope?

How small of a loop do you use in your tie in knot?

If I grabbed my "knot" I would have to push down on the knot in order to impart any force to the rope. It seems to me that most people that grab the rope grab it in such a manner that they can pull down on the rope. i.e. they grab the rope above the knot, the most vivid example of this that comes to mind is a cover shot of jason cambell on gutbuster 2000, dead horizontal, grabbing the rope about a foot from the knot.

How do you define steep?

Agreed that is doesn’t slam you into the rock, but it does have the potential of making the swing a little harder.

Wayne, shut up and go climbing. I don't care what happens in the lab.

In practice, the effect, if any, is negligible.

-Jay

if the route is STEEP its probably a good idea, since it will keep you upside up and if the belayer knows how to belay steep stuff you probably wont even get near the wall. but if its likely youre gonna hit the wall, use your hands to keep your head and ribs off it.

If you were say 3 feet from the vertical part of the wall when you fell, and you grabbed the rope at "shoulder height" and held it out in front of you, and when the rope went taught it didn't break or dislocate your thumbs, you would pivot violently around the point where the rope bends towards your body at your hands.

So I'd agree that in practice the effect, if any, is negligible.

Nonetheless, to expand on the "two points to make a rope swing" conclusion, look no further than a playground swing: at the rear apex of your swing, you pull back on the chains as you swing forward, increasing your swing arc by a few inches. Granted, a few inches shouldn't make much of a difference in a climbing situation, but the analysis is right.

I think that it is almost always a bad idea to try to grab your knot or anything else when falling. There is a significant chance that you may get your hand or a finger trapped in the rope when it pulls tight. At best you are looking at a nice rope burn.

This happened to a climber at Williamson while climbing World on Fire and the result was a completely severed finger.

In the video "The Professionals" Yuji Huriyama gets his hand caught in a loop of rope during a fall, the result being the end of his climbing trip. Luckily he didn't break anything.