Showing someone the ropes
Aug. 24th, 2017 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylSuccessful evening of climbing with A, who had done a taster session a while ago but hasn't actually climbed for real. We're pretty close enough to the same circumference, so we managed to save a few quid by putting her in my BD Momentum while I wore my lightweight Petzl harness. Sadly no such luch with shoes — what can I say, I've got small feet!
The evening was good fun, especially trying to do the basics of teaching skills that have now become completely automatic. It's doubly hard to try to teach the knot tying because I'm so used to doing it on automatic pilot, facing the rope, where, teaching, I suddenly had to do it facing the other person — when teaching me to tie a four-in-hand tie knot, my dad was only able to do so standing behind me! I also tried to go through the basics of belaying — just keeping tension on the rope, not actually climbing — how to lock off and how to lower off.
On the climbing front, A did a handful of easy routes on top-rope on the slab — the hardest was a 4 which featured a little bit of an overhang. We then gave some of the auto-belays a go, which was harder because the routes were longer, and they were either vert walls or slight overhangs with bigger overhangs higher up. That said, she still managed to get up a 5 on her second or third try, which isn't too shabby.
We finished up with a little bit of easy bouldering — although some of Gavin's problems seemed hard for their grades — and went home tired, happy, and very much still alive and surprisingly intact...
The evening was good fun, especially trying to do the basics of teaching skills that have now become completely automatic. It's doubly hard to try to teach the knot tying because I'm so used to doing it on automatic pilot, facing the rope, where, teaching, I suddenly had to do it facing the other person — when teaching me to tie a four-in-hand tie knot, my dad was only able to do so standing behind me! I also tried to go through the basics of belaying — just keeping tension on the rope, not actually climbing — how to lock off and how to lower off.
On the climbing front, A did a handful of easy routes on top-rope on the slab — the hardest was a 4 which featured a little bit of an overhang. We then gave some of the auto-belays a go, which was harder because the routes were longer, and they were either vert walls or slight overhangs with bigger overhangs higher up. That said, she still managed to get up a 5 on her second or third try, which isn't too shabby.
We finished up with a little bit of easy bouldering — although some of Gavin's problems seemed hard for their grades — and went home tired, happy, and very much still alive and surprisingly intact...
