Trustworthy Belays and Soft Catches

Article Table of Contents

• Introduction
• belaying
• Video walk-throughs
  • The pinch and pump
• Slack Management
• Sandbags
• Getting falling practice
  • getting “free” fall/catch experiences
• In Conclusion
• Footnotes

Introduction #

What makes a skilled sport climbing belay?

How would one build trust in a belayer that gives a skilled-enough sport climbing belay?

This piece covers:

1. the pinch-and-pump method for feeding ‘clipping slack’
2. managing the pile of slack before it feeds into the belay device
3. How I use sandbags to balance weight gaps between me and a heavier climber.
4. My routine for efficiently practicing falling and building trust in the belay.

When I trust the belay, I climb harder, and with a bit more fun and peacefulness.

These are the skills and habits I use to build that trust in an efficient, progressive way. First, with myself and for myself, and secondly with my climbing partners.

belaying #

I love to sport climb, and am attuned to how safe I feel while climbing and belaying.

I’ve assembled some of the specific ways I find myself making adaptations to feel safe while belaying. I really want my climber to be safe, which means ‘have comfortable, soft catches, minimizing impact forces, not hitting walls or ledges or roofs, not having extra slack out, not short roping’

Those are just the things I can manage while belaying. The climber does lots of decision-making too, and one’s relative exposure to risk changes moment-to-moment while climbing, obviously. For example, when trad climbing, one’s safety does change, moment by moment, related to the location and relative quality of the last piece of protection, regardless of what the belayer does.

A large point/part of trad climbing is managing that risk. ¹

I am opinionated about the belays I give, and I note also being opinionated about the belays that I get, at times. ²

I dislike to shortrope others, even though I totally do sometimes. I also don’t like to have lots of extra slack in the system, usually. I could ‘solve’ the shortrope by letting slack hang out in the system, but that often doesn’t make me feel more comfortable as the belayer, at least as comfortable as some other options. I notice eventually feeling less trust and confidence in my own climbing, if I grow fears around getting shortroped, or certain falls, and I enjoy the vibe of easy clipping & comfy catches as the climber, so I give this to my climbing partners.

what kind of things do you notice in your own climbing?

I’ll find myself avoiding situations where I want to clip quickly, because there’s plenty of times that a sufficiently aggressive short rope would cause me to drop the rope, or otherwise jostling the system. Usually not a big deal, but as I get closer to maxing out on difficulty it matters more. I don’t technically mind big falls, but I dislike falling as a result of a short rope. ³

Video walk-throughs #

Can you already tell that written words are not the perfect format for the conversation?

So, I started gathering video of my own belaying, and making commentary on it, trying to draw attention to some key parts.

It’s most obvious, a skillful belay, when the belay is challenging. Big weight differences, fast clips, etc. So, to accomplish safety in these situations, I think I have thoughts about three specific interventions:

1. the pinch and pump
2. slack management
3. Sandbags

I’ve got a few different videos I made, to try to capture the vibe. I just put them all back-to-back as a single youtube video:

we’ll go one at a time

The pinch and pump #

First, the pinch & pump. it helps me manage slack between me and the climber, even with the limited mobility of the sandbag. At first I’d linked straight to the videos on tiktok, now they’re all embedded on this page, in case your browser supports the video embeds.

Notice the slack management moves throughout these videos, too:

@boardsfast this is sorta odd to get footage and edit and discuss, and I would love to get it in front of 100 lead belayers and get their discussion on it. #climbingtok #climb #rockclimb ♬ original sound - boardsfast

Here’s another 45 second video about the pinch-and-pump:

I think the main piece of all this is slack management + the pinch and pump. The rope could be, should be, always running smoothly from the pile into the device, and if this is true (and maybe even if it’s not) the pinch and pump is a key tool.

it allows one to feed a full handful of slack, and then keep feeding slack out, incrementally, without either hand needing to return to the belay device. It’s timing-based, as the climber pulls slack, the belayer uses their advancing of the rope to feed more slack. It’s a coordinated motion between pinching the rope with the left hand and pumping the right hand down and back up, to generate another foot of slack or so. This can be repeated as needed, if the climber needs more slack.

Most of these are short videos - less than 60 seconds.

I always hold the grigri, and the device when I’m feeding is tilted in a way where rope feeds effortlessly through the device. If there’s any friction of inhibition in the feeding, the device might not be tilted in the right way, or the hand holding it is putting friction on the rope somewhere. If the feed isn’t effortless or close to it, this thing won’t work.

This one has some slow-motion sections:

@boardsfast more on belaying trying to draw attention to some subtle things I like to be relaxed when I belay, I like my climber to be relaxed. this is how I get there. #climb #climbing #belay #belaying #sportclimbing #leadclimbing ♬ original sound - boardsfast

These were all different attempts at highlighting the same thing, so there’s certainly redundancy.

@boardsfast lead belay beta do you lead belay? if so, what do you think? there's 2 other things maybe that are related. something about holding the grigri in a certain way/hand position, and something about always having a few feet of flaked rope in front of you, so it can move thru the grigri without twists or needing to be pulled #climbing #belaying #ropes #sportclimbing ♬ original sound - boardsfast

Focus on the pinch-and-pump:

@boardsfast this is sorta odd to get footage and edit and discuss, and I would love to get it in front of 100 lead belayers and get their discussion on it. #climbingtok #climb #rockclimb ♬ original sound - boardsfast

More focus on the pinch and pump:

@boardsfast #climbing #leadclimbing #climbingtok #sportclimbing #ropes ♬ original sound - boardsfast

Slack Management #

Slack management - I do two different motions with my hands, to keep slack always ‘free’ ahead of the pile. I like to “flake” a few handfuls of the rope off the top of the pile regularly, while the climber is climbing.

In all the above videos, at times you can see me pulling slack over to where I’m standing, using one hand or two. Usually a little momentum.

Even when using both hands to manage slack, my device hand does very little, i might hook the rope over a single finger to hold the rope as the other hand pulls handfuls of slack through the right hand. If you look closely-enough in some of the videos I posted, you’ll see it clearly.

Sandbags #

next, sandbags: I spent a long time sorta never using sandbags, except maybe with really large weight differences. I weigh 145 lbs, and noticed how my own stress while belaying would certainly creep up if the climber weighed 175 lbs, and i really didn’t like belaying 200 lb people - that would be a 30 lb weight difference and 55 lbs.

It is pretty reasonable and clear when a heavy climber acts like someone who doesn’t like to fall. Climbing well within their limit, using lots of takes, etc. Regularly enough, when I put on a sandbag and coax a fall or two from the climber, when they notice how comfortable and right-sized the fall is, they express pleased surprise, and begin to go a little harder. I think most climbers who outweigh their regular climbing partners by 30+ lbs and there isn’t a sandbag in place adapt a little chronic hyper-vigilance to falling, and it saps some of the fun and smoothness from the climbing experience.

So, now, if the climber outweighs me by anywhere close to 30+ lbs, I’ll add a 25 lbs weight bag that the gym has floating around. (or the 40lb bag). It lets me move around and still give a soft catch, and makes me heavy enough that I don’t accidentally get pulled with too much force into the wall.

Getting pulled with too much force into the wall can be really unpleasant, injurious, chaotic, and then the whole belay is spent with a slight level of background anxiety, even if there are no falls or no unpleasent falls.

As I got better adjusting the length of the leash, deciding where to keep the sandbag relative to me, how to hold it with my feet as I fall - it’s gotten increasingly comfortable. The above videos often-enough feature

To use a sandbag means being a little less mobile, so it increases the need for quick, efficient feeding of slack. The pinch-and-pump does extra work, because I’m going to be stepping around less.

It’s nice being able to walk up to any wall, any belay, any climbing partner, be they 100 lbs or 200 lbs, and know I can give a perfect belay - no extra slack in the system, soft catches, no short ropes. I carry an peaceful, composed emotional energy with me into the belay, and I give some of the same energy to the climber.

Getting falling practice #

So much for skills building. Lets get some practice! I love a good belay, and can help anyone else improve their belay. I regularly climb with different partners, and have noticed that my ability to trust someone’s belay needs to be built on reasonable experiences. I cannot will myself into acting like I trust a belayer more than I actually do, and while everyone can start at a baseline of ‘I assume you’re competent’, it’s nice to get a few experiences under my belt contributing to additional trust.

It’s a lot to ask your nervous system to treat a belay partner as ‘fully safe in every situation, including exciting edge-case falls’ without getting some reps, practice, some experience where the fall was good, the catch was skillful-enough, etc etc.

Plenty of belayers climb regularly with climbers who don’t fall a lot, and they as climbers maybe also don’t fall a lot, so it’s possible that one finds themselves with a skilled belayer, perhaps even decades of climbing experience, but the belayer doesn’t have recent practice of catching a you-sized climber.

And, regardless of the belayer’s recent experience, if it’s not with you, your own system doesn’t yet recognize them as trustworthy.

I often-enough am climbing right on the edge of my competence and strength, so even with all the tools in my toolkit, I often-enough find myself very suddenly airborn. I’ve heard from many belayers, immediately after I’ve fallen, something like ‘I had no idea you were about to fall, you were looking so composed up there!”

To which I say:

Yes, I usually climb in a composed way, but it’s because if I climbed any other way I would have fallen off even lower on the wall.

So, I can fall at any moment, without warning. I also sometimes decide I don’t like the sequence I’ve started, and like a puppet getting the strings cut, I’ll abort the attempt by simply letting go. No warning. I expect good-enough, soft-enough catches even then.

If I get a hard catch, and keep getting hard catches, something in me clocks the belayer as ‘uncaring’, and its hard for me to find a comfortable groove with climbing.

getting “free” fall/catch experiences #

So, how to get good catches? It feels pretty strong, overwhelming, to say

I’m going to climb now, surprise you with falls, and extrapolate a bunch of things about my safety based on what happens.

Also, I don’t need anyone to be at any particular skill level! What this section of this long article covers is how to queue up a few shared experiences to nudge things in a helpful direction.

I never clip the chains #

My first easy, safe fall, that lets me calibrate to a belayer, or more importantly, lets them calibrate to me, is my ‘norm’ of always ‘taking the whip’.

When I get to the top of an indoor route, nearly every time I get to the top of a wall, instead of clipping the shuts/chains, I’d ‘take the whip’ and step off from the top.

It’s so routine I don’t tell my regular climbing partners - it’s just expected. When I climb with a new belayer, I inform them to anticipate a ‘victory whip’. Sometimes I might make eye contact or give a little thumbs up right before I step off the wall.

Ask the belayer to use a signal to announce two falls while I climb #

here’s the upgrade I only recently sorted out.

sometimes, I want, need, a little more practice and experience. If the catches are good, this extra practice helps me feel an embodied confidence in the belayer. One fall per route, from the top, is not usually a fast enough rate of experience to help me. Especially because the first catch of the session/climbing-belaying dynamic can be stressful, its easy to mis-time it, and it could end up being something besides well-timed.

I was noticing (with frustration) this lack in my climbing sessions. I couldn’t find myself comfortable while climbing. On indoor routes I can easily climb some 5.12s without a possibility of falling, so I was having trouble feeling taken seriously that I was having trouble feeling confident on lead.

I looked confident, but my inner experience was one of pretty constant awareness of ‘it is on me to not fall’. Not fun. I might try hard routes, but with half-effort, half-commitment. As soon as I felt uncomfortable about an upcoming sequence, or uncertain of the clipping position, I’d take a risk-mitigating exit, and maybe take an easy fall, instead of commiting to a sequence where I might fall, in a more compromised position.

So, here’s what I now do.

The first climb of the day, the warm-up, I’ll ask for the belayer’s help. I’ll say:

On the warmup, I want to get some extra milage. I’d like you to call to me, twice, to announce a fall. Once I’m past the third bolt, say my middle name or whistle at me, and I’ll step off the wall. Wherever the fall ends, i’ll resume climbing from there, and thats how I get extra milage. Cool?

if I’ve already begun clipping when you say it, I’ll finish the clip. Also, sometimes it’s hard to hear, so you might say something, expect me to fall, and i’ll just keep climbing. Please repeat yourself, a bit louder, but don’t short rope me because you called a fall.

next, then, above the third bolt, i’ll hear ‘douglas’ or a whistle float up the wall. I know that they are ready for me to fall (and sometimes they’re extra anxious about it, compared to if they didn’t think I was about to fall), and so i’ll let go.

The catch might be great, it might leave a little to be desired. This is why I ask for two falls on the route.

Wherever I end on the wall after the fall, i pull back on and quickly re-climb the section. It’s perfect for the warmup, getting extra moves. Helps me find ‘the groove’ of flowy, loose, comfortable climbing, re-climbing 15 foot sections of a climb on a mini TR. (i’ll get a video/time-lapse of this at some point)

A second time, when I’m higher, i’ll hear ‘douglas’ (or a whistle) float up the wall, and I’ll let go a second time. I usually notice even between the first and second fall, I feel better with the belay.

If the second catch is good, thrilling. If it’s still a hard catch, i might discuss it with the belayer when I get down to the ground.

Regardless, it’s almost always better than the first catch, which is ‘just’ a calibrating fall anyway. Regardless of the weight difference, all good belays involve some timing pieces, and it’s nice to get a few practice rounds.

Giving good catches isn’t a moral issue, simply depends on some attunement and a few rounds of exploratory

Finally, I still don’t clip the chains and step off at the top of the wall, even after the two belayer-announced falls. now, when I get back on the ground, me and the belayer have three more catches shared with the belayer, and we’ll discuss. I also often repeat routes on TR, so I might get back to the ground, and then do one more lap up the wall, on TR to the last bolt, then I’ll take one more whip at the chains.

In so many cases, maybe every case, this process has let me feel a lot more comfortable with the belay.

The belayer gets used to the idea that ‘to belay josh is to catch a lot of falls’ and the belay is often brought in a nice direction.

In Conclusion #

Thus, with everything on this page, you can see how I think hard about the belays I give, and how I think hard about safely getting good-enough/perfect catches/belays from others.

Less short ropes, soft catches, less stress, more trust. This system doesn’t work every time, but it’s how I handle this complex, safety-critical component of climbing. I love love love to climb, I love to feel comfortable while sport climbing, and I’d like to be taken seriously as an evaluator of my own experience.

Footnotes #