Communication is one of the most critical yet underused components of rock climbing!

Communication, whether it is in the gym or on a big wall, is a skill that needs to be practiced even when it seems like it is not necessary. It can be very easy to get caught up in the glamour of climbing outside, or even climbing amazing indoor routes, which can sometimes result in sloppy communication. By using proper communication, you are not only ensuring your own safety, but also the safety of others.

In this article we will be talking primarily about communication while top roping. This applies to rock climbing both inside and outside. We will be covering communication in other settings in later articles.

Basic Commands

On belay? Belay is on!
This ensures that your belayer has you before you put yourself out there on the rope. It is important to do this when you are both on the ground, because in the instance of a belay from the top of the route, knowing when you are on belay is not always easy and intuitive.

Climbing! Climb on!
After you are on belay, ensure that inform the belayer when you are starting to climb. This does not only apply to the start of the climb, but it also applies to climbing after a rest mid climb. Always let your belayer know what you are going to do, before you do it, that way there are not as many surprises.

Tension!
This tells the belayer to pull the rope in and make it tight. You would use this if you are about to lower, or if you are below you last quickdraw on a sport climb and you want to rest on the rope.

Slack!
This lets the belayer know that you want them to loosen up on the rope. In many top roping situations, some climbers will want the rope looser, so they do not feel like they are constantly hanging on the rope.

Ready to lower!
So your climber has reached the top, and they are ready to come down. The climber should only say this when they have their weight completely on the rope, and have let go of the wall. A call for tension is appropriate prior to this.

Remember that good communication can save your life!

I cannot stress how important it is to use good communication when climbing. Many injuries and deaths have happened because of a lack of proper use of commands while climbing.

Make sure your partner knows you are talking to them

One further aspect of communication comes at busy areas, such as gyms or high volume outdoor areas. There have been many times where I have told my partner “Ready to lower!” and another belayer said in response, “What? You want me to lower you? You’ve just started!”, thinking that their partner had said it.

The easiest way to eliminate this confusion is to simply add your partners name into your commands. You would say, “Ready to lower, Joe.” This eliminates the majority of confusion, unless you are unfortunate enough to end up climbing next to someone named Joe.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of commands, but is merely a starting point. The most important element is that you and your partner communicate! Whether you use the commands here, or you come up with your own, you need to understand what the other person wants you to do. We will cover commands for lead climbing and multi-pitch climbing in later articles.

Welcome to the second part of learning how to belay. In this part we will talk about capturing the rope through your belay device as your rock climbing partner climbs.  Remember that we are talking about belaying a top rope rock climb with a slot style device, and that you need to do all of your safety checks first.

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Basic Position

The basic position that the belayer should take is with one hand above the belay device, on the rope leading to the climber, and another on the trailing rope that has already run through the belay device. Your feet should be about a shoulder width apart, with one foot back for balance, and your knees slightly bent.

The Break Hand

The goal of belaying is to minimize the amount of time that you have your hand outside of the break position. The break position involves holding the trailing end of the rope below your belay device, introducing sharp bends in the rope which increases friction. This ensures that the weight of the climber, in the case of a fall, will be transferred into the belayer’s harness, instead of into their hands.

The default position of your hands should be to return to the break position. If you do not do this, your belay will be useless and likely result in the injury of both belayer and rock climber in the case of a climber fall.

When I am teaching how to belay, I often teach the process as a four step process.

Step 1: Pull

With your break hand you should pull rope through the belay device by pulling straight up through the device. Your top hand will guide rope down into the belay device. Make sure that you keep just a little more force pulling up than you are pulling down, otherwise you will lose tension in your belay device and it can hang loosely, preventing the rope from running through properly. Learn to time your pull with the movement of your climber, so that you keep as little slack in the rope as possible, and it is a smooth ride for both climber and belayer.

Step 2: Lock

You have pulled in the rope, and now we return to the break position. Bring your break hand, which should be above your belay device at this point, back to the break position. We want to pull it all the way down, so there is no slack in your break rope. It will take practice to learn how much rope to take in during the Pull step, because what is comfortable is different for every person. Please note, you should not take your hand out of the break position until you are ready to pull in more rope.

Step 3: Grab

The goal is to now return your hands to the position that you started in. We do not do this by just moving our hands. We need to follow a specific sequence, in order to ensure that control of the break rope is maintained at all time.

Take the hand that is holding the climber rope and place it below your break hand. This will allow your break hand to slide up to the belay device without loosing a grip on the break rope.

Step 4: Slide

You may now slide you break hand up to 4-6 inches below the belay device. We keep a little distance between our hand and the belay device, because during a fall, the rope tends to pull a small amount through the device, even in the break position. If our hand is too close, our hand can get sucked into the belay device. Believe me, this does not tickle. Once you have slid your break hand up, you can return control of the break rope to your break hand, and return your other hand to the climber side of the rope. You are now ready to continue belaying.

That just about covers how to belay a rock climber on a top rope with a slot device. Please remember, reading an online article is not a replacement for training by a skilled individual. Take some lessons from your local climbing gym before attempting this on your own. It is often very difficult to troubleshoot our ourselves if we are doing something wrong. Climb safe.

Welcome to the next installment of ‘How To Rock Climb’, today we will be talking about belaying. In part one we will talk about how to get ready for the climber to leave the ground, and in part two we will talk about the actual act of capturing rope to keep a climber safe. I understand that many of you will be anxious for part two, but without this critical step of preparation, things can go terribly wrong. Before proceeding, please read the disclaimer on the about page.

So what is belaying?

Well that is a great question. As a nautical term it literally means to tie the rope around a cleat, however this is a blog about rock climbing, not nauticals. Belaying is the act of capturing or releasing rope as your rock climbing partner climbs, so that there is as little slack in the rope as is reasonable to maintain safety of the climber. This also includes arresting a fall.

This means that belaying can look very different in the huge variety of situations out there, so in the interest of making this a post that doesn’t take you five years to read, we will be talking about belaying with a slot style device, while top roping. A slot style device is a device like an ATC, which is Black Diamond’s version of the slot device.
How it works

Belaying in any case is made possible by introducing friction into the rope, thus preventing the rope from ripping out of your hands and causing your partner to plummet. This friction can come from something as simple as having the rope wrapped around your body (as in a body belay), or from a complicated camming mechanism (as in a Gri-Gri). With a slot style device, this friction comes from putting a bend in the rope.

How to get set up

In order to get a slot style device ready to go, you need to have your harness on, a slot style device, and a locking carabiner. You will also need to make sure that your partner is tied in, which if you don’t know how that works, read about it here. You attach the rope to the slot device by taking a bight of rope (that’s the technical term for a bend in the rope where the ends don’t cross) and passing it through one of the slots on the device. Then you clip the carabiner through the rope and the wire loop that is attached to the device. After that you connect the carabiner to your belay loop on your harness, and finally lock the carabiner. You are now ready to belay.

Preparing to leave the ground

The first thing that any belayer should do is make sure that they go through their safety checks first. This means checking their own gear, checking their partner’s gear, and checking to make sure there are no problems with the rope. I have already talked about the importance of safety checks here. A simple way to do this is with some simple climbing commands, and an ABC check.

Before the climber leaves the ground they need to ask if the belayer is ready. The usual way of doing this is by asking the question, “Belay on?” At this point the belayer will do the ABC check. They will check the Anchor, looking for twists and turns in the rope, ensuring that the rope runs cleanly. They will also check the Belayer, or themselves, to ensure that their own gear is loaded properly, that all their straps are doubled back properly, and that they are in a good position to belay. Finally they will check the Climber for the same things, and that their knot is tied properly. Once they are satisfied they will answer “on belay.”

The next command is that the climber will state “climbing!” to let the belayer know that they are leaving the ground. It is important that the belayer acknowledge this with “climb on!” because for any reason, if the belayer is distracted or not ready, this is the last point that you get to say anything about it.

Now that we’ve done the safety checks prior to belaying, next post we will talk about belaying you rock climber safely up the wall and/or rock face.

Click here for part two of how to belay.

This is going to be the beginning of a long series. As part of my mission to introduce as many people to the sport of rock climbing as I can, I have decided to write this series that will take someone who has never rock climbed before in their life, and give them the tools to go out and do it.

I cannot make you into a professional rock climber overnight. I also know that a lot of people have different goals in mind. If you have requests for content, please email me at admin@rockclimbingonsight.com with your suggestions.

Before continuing any further, please read the Disclaimer. All of the information contained in this series is given with the purpose of providing a resource, but this cannot, nor does it intend to replace face to face teaching. There will be many concepts and skills given here that are good, and fall within what is known as “industry standard”, but as the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. If you encounter something different in your travels, please keep an open mind, because you just might learn something that I didn’t tell you.

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Lets Get To It

If there is one thing that I cannot recommend enough, is that the best way to learn how to rock climb, or learn how to rock climb better, is to go rock climbing. If you have never had the experience of rock climbing, I would definitely suggest going to an indoor climbing gym near you, paying a little money to try out the sport. If you are unsure how to find a climbing gym there is a global listing of indoor climbing gyms at indoorclimbing.com.

Chances are however, that if you are reading this blog, you may have had an experience with indoor wall climbing before, and you want to know more. A good starting point, and something you can practice at home without ever leaving the ground, is knots. I understand that there are an absolute ton of knots out there, and this will not be exhaustive. This will however, give you enough knowledge to get you off the ground.

Figure Eight

This is one of the most used knots in climbing, and perhaps one that you have already encountered. Most commonly, it is used to secure a rope to a climber’s harness to catch their fall. While it has other applications, the point is to keep things simple for now.

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One thing to check when you are tying a figure eight is to make sure that the two strands don’t cross when you are doing the follow through. This is called making the knot “well dressed”, and in addition to making the knot easier to identify, it also makes it easier to untie after it has been weighted.

Fisherman’s

The purpose of this knot in this context is to create a backup knot, after the figure eight has been tied so that the end of the rope has no chance of slipping. This can also be used to join to pieces of rope together, but for now we are going to keep things simple.

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Harness

If you are at the point where you are considering buying your own harness, I have covered that in another post, which can be found here. Please go and read that now if you would like. For actually putting your harness on, here are some things to consider.

First and foremost what I tell people when putting on a harness is to look for a logo. This is the easiest way for you to tell if you have the harness right side up. For most seat style harnesses that you are likely to encounter at a beginner level, you step through the large waist loop, and put a leg into either leg loop (much like putting on shorts). Please remove anything from your pockets before tightening the straps, as they can cause uncomfortable pressure points, and possible break your iPhone if you take a fall. The waist loop will sit above your hips, such that the top of your belay loop (that’s the big loop on the front of the harness) is in line with your belly button.

A good way for you to tell if your harness is on tight enough is if you take three fingers, and stick them in beside your hip and turn them sideways. If they come out scrunched, then the harness is on tight enough. For your leg loops, they should feel like you are sliding your hands into pockets.

Some typical problems that happen are when your leg loops or belay rappel loop get twisted and or the harness is too loose. Often the best way to fix this is to take the harness off completely, and fix the the loops without it on.

After you’ve got your harness on, there are a few things to think about when threading the rope through. The front loop is called the belay rappel loop, and while it may seem like a great place to tie in the rope, but it is actually the two loops that the belay rappel loop run through. I’ve been asked many times by new climbers whether threading the rope up or down is better. While there are many things that are very particular about rock climbing, this one really doesn’t matter.

After the rope has been threaded through, having already tied the first part of the figure eight (prior to the follow-through), you can finish up by completing the follow through and then finally, the fishermans.

Once you’ve got this all put together, you are ready to go. I hope this has been helpful.