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Gently winding down
Nov. 3rd, 2017 07:54 pmA gentle morning working on some low priority background tasks before going on leave, waiting nervously for A to finish her job interview downstairs. Once she was done, we went for tea on the balcony while we talked things through and waited for the queue to go down in the canteen before going for lunch — a slightly-less-than-healthy combination of vegetable nuggets and chips, with peas for good measure.
After a brief stop off at home to pick up gear, we went to the climbing centre where we took advantage of the quiet and I started teaching A to lead belay. She picked up the basics pretty quickly, although, as Gav says, the actual process isn't really all that complicated. Rather, it's a case of becoming good by building experience: becoming more responsive, anticipating the climber's need for slack, and getting a feel for when you need to keep them in tight and when you can safely give them more rope.
It's also the case that clipping feels really awkward and fumbling at first; no matter how smoothly you can do it when you're on the ground, using a quickdraw at waist height, it's much harder to keep things smooth when you're on the wall, dragging up a whole lot of rope. But, that said, A managed a clean send of a 5+ and redpointed a 6a, which isn't bad for someone who has only been climbing for three months and who hasn't got much lead mileage.
I, too, managed to surprise myself by rather casually on-sighting a 6c on lead. Although clipped into the auto because my belayer wasn't signed off, I climbed the route properly, clipping every draw, fighting to stay on a move where I badly misread things — the QD was very awkwardly placed, probably because the route hadn't been set with leading in mind — and sent the route. This makes it the equal of the hardest thing I've led, it's certainly my hardest on-sight lead, and it's equal to the grade I'd expect to be able to on-sight on top rope. So I'm pleased. Newberry told me last year that there wasn't any real difference between what he could top rope and what he could lead, and told me I should aim for the same...
After a brief stop off at home to pick up gear, we went to the climbing centre where we took advantage of the quiet and I started teaching A to lead belay. She picked up the basics pretty quickly, although, as Gav says, the actual process isn't really all that complicated. Rather, it's a case of becoming good by building experience: becoming more responsive, anticipating the climber's need for slack, and getting a feel for when you need to keep them in tight and when you can safely give them more rope.
It's also the case that clipping feels really awkward and fumbling at first; no matter how smoothly you can do it when you're on the ground, using a quickdraw at waist height, it's much harder to keep things smooth when you're on the wall, dragging up a whole lot of rope. But, that said, A managed a clean send of a 5+ and redpointed a 6a, which isn't bad for someone who has only been climbing for three months and who hasn't got much lead mileage.
I, too, managed to surprise myself by rather casually on-sighting a 6c on lead. Although clipped into the auto because my belayer wasn't signed off, I climbed the route properly, clipping every draw, fighting to stay on a move where I badly misread things — the QD was very awkwardly placed, probably because the route hadn't been set with leading in mind — and sent the route. This makes it the equal of the hardest thing I've led, it's certainly my hardest on-sight lead, and it's equal to the grade I'd expect to be able to on-sight on top rope. So I'm pleased. Newberry told me last year that there wasn't any real difference between what he could top rope and what he could lead, and told me I should aim for the same...
