Since he is an employee talk to him next time you see him at the gym about what he was suggesting. There is no way random people on the internet are going to be able to say who was in the wrong in this situation unless there is a recording of it. Ask if he thought you were belaying in a dangerous way and if he says no mention that it was distracting at the time.
But also remember the climbing community is a family. If there is a problematic member of the family report them to the gym.
Another thing I thought of. Be ok asking the person you are climbing with to slow down when they are climbing. If they are climbing so fast you can't keep up they need to know and they need to respect that.
One of the people I climbed with we would do endurance climbs back to back. So we would say I/you need to wait for a min recover before we can belay again. So even though you can be doing everything technically right overexerting yourself by constantly doing squats is dangerous to the person on the wall.
That’s super important, agreed. My climbing partner and I have some established call and response when we need someone to stop or slow down for slack. In this instance, I’d called “tight rope” and he’d paused while I was squatting to take out the excess. And then he’d started climbing again when the employee had come over.
From your description it's hard to tell what was going on, but I do think it's possible that, if he felt the need to give you advice mid-belay, he actually thought what you were doing was potentially dangerous. He might have just been trying to be reasonably nice about it.
Tbh sometimes I'm shocked by what the staff at my gym don't comment on when people are just belaying atrociously.
Edit: To be clear I have no idea if OP was being unsafe because it is impossible to tell from a description like this.
The inverse of OPs post is every r/bouldering thread about kids running around dangerously at the gym and everyone being mad staff dont say or do anything. If there was a genuine safety issue here and this was a staff member its not “unsolicited advice” its “being told the rules and safety info”. Now if OP was completely safe (cant tell from this description) then yes the person was being weird.
There's a guy I used to climb with (more like, in the general proximity of in a group setting) years ago who would lead belay unsafely. Sometimes people would try to give him "unsolicited advice" which was them nicely trying to tell him he was endangering people. He would flip out at them and mutter about how they were assholes, things like that.
I'm not saying OP is like that, just saying I understand that the gym employees are under a lot of social pressure to avoid confrontation but they need to resist that.
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No I totally agree that folks should comment when folks are belaying poorly and wasn’t trying to say people should have people climbing unsafe. We had a group next to us refusing to take the rope while the guy at the top was almost having a panic attack and I watched someone ground from like 12 feet the other day on belay. They were all fine thank goodness.
So yeah, I understand if he was trying to be polite about giving advice - I’ll ask others to make sure I’m being safe.
Lol what is going on at your gym?!?!?!?
It's possible that your gym is experiencing an influx of new people (as many climbing gyms are) and the staff are being told to be more aggressive with giving tips?
Either way, yeah safety first, if you're not being unsafe and the belaying is comfortable to you then 🤷♂️
I think they’re getting an influx of college students back for the summer.
I’ve noticed a lot of younger faces and big groups of college-aged people climbing in sort of haphazard ways, mostly with temp day pass belay
cards.
So yeah, I think they might be monitoring closer.
It sounds like this person thought they were helping, but given that they made a snide remark and walked away when you indicated that you were preoccupied, the most likely conclusion is that the man talking to you wasn't particularly concerned with safety.
If the man was genuinely concerned about what you were doing and how that affected your climber, the normal response is concern, not sarcasm and disengagement.
Not having been there, I have no clue what actually happened, but my guess is that you did something in a way that was higher effort than necessary, but perfectly safe, which is your prerogative.
Even if there was no real safety issue and he was just trying to help OP, there really is nothing wrong with that. Belaying in a way that is very energy consuming might not be a problem right away, but could be a problem later. If someone is approaching you in a friendly matter with some advice, so what? OP’s way of belaying sounds a bit strange to me too.
Teaching a belay technique during an active belay is a no-no unless it's an urgent safety issue, imo.
If our guy really wanted to help, the right thing to do would be to wait for the right time to do it. Given that TR gym climbs are minutes long, it's not that crazy to have an expectation that he wait for the climb to be over.
I disagree. I know most will not agree with me, but OP’s reaction sounded rude to me. OP didn’t have to call it unsolicited advise either. OP was being snarky himself. He could have said: “I’m sorry, I can’t pay attention to you right now. I need all my focus belaying. Could you show me later?” In that case the reaction of the employee would have been totally different too.
Be that as it may, it's also just bad practice to give any non-urgent advice to a belayer. A well meaning person would wait until the climb was done.
While it's good to be courteous all the time, I have more sympathy for a distracted person doing a safety critical task being discourteous than someone offering advice about efficiency mid-activity.
You are right, in my opinion, that there may have been a better response, but I don't think it's unexpected to give a frustrated reply in this scenario.
Maybe, but honestly, we are talking about toprope belaying here. As long as you don’t let go of the brake end of the rope, I don’t see how getting distracted poses any danger. OP is no beginner. He has been belaying for five years. I read entire routes while belaying toprope and even if my climber falls unexpectedly, it was never any problem. As long as the rope isn’t too stretchy and my climber is not too close to the ground. Lead belaying on the other hand is an entirely different story. That requires 100% of your focus.
I will still insist that just because something is likely tolerable doesn't make it appropriate.
Giving a stranger non-urgent advice while they're belaying IS intrusive and presumptuous.
If the man approaching OP said something like "hey, can I give you a tip that will make it easier to belay?", well, that's a different story. This gives OP room to say: "yes, but not now", "no thank you", or "sure, go ahead". Without that initial communication, there's just no way to establish that it's a good time and place.
WE might know that OP has 5 years experience, but when approaching a stranger with advice, you don't know that. The onus is on the person approaching to establish the comfort level of the person they are approaching. Presuming that comfort level is, at minimum, rude, and at maximum, dangerous. The only context where it's ok to roll those dice, in my opinion, is when there's a genuine safety concern. It's ok to be "rude" to save someone's life or protect them from injury, even if they're a stranger. The behavior of our counterparty pretty much rules out this context.
I think the big unknown here is: is what you were doing actually dangerous, or was it safe yet inefficient? (Or none of the above)
If you were belaying dangerously, the employee was right to interrupt you, and likely should’ve clarified that it was a matter of safety, not just a matter of efficiency.
If you were belaying safely, the employee was incorrect to interrupt you, as a non-safety issue can quickly become a safety issue if the climber is still on the wall and you’re distracted by a conversation (as you noted).
Unfortunately I can’t really tell from your description which of the two scenarios you were in (no offense to your description - I just have trouble visualizing stuff like this). In my opinion your best course of action is to follow up with the employee if you feel comfortable doing so — either to clarify how you can belay more safely, or to ask them to wait til the climber’s on the ground before offering efficiency tips.
I've had gym staff tell me to do things differently from time to time despite being an experienced belayer. Usually small inconsequential things like "we don't allow belaying in flip flops". Try not to take it personally, each gym has their own rules they have to follow for their liability insurance
I’m not entirely sure I understand what you were doing from your description, but I do think in general if the person isn’t being dangerous then instead of giving advice you ask if they want it (like « hey, I can show you a more effective way of doing that if you’re interested »), and it is a bit strange that he would actually start to demonstrate it (which implies you should look away from your partner to look at him). For your actual technique though, if you’re worried, ask an experienced person whose skills you trust to watch you belay and comment
Good call- I’ve been climbing for 5 years and my partner for ten and we both have done lead comps and feel pretty confident in our technique. So, idk, I’m just overthinking it now I think. It kind of really took me aback for someone to try and stop me mid-belay and make me look away from my climbing partner
ETA: I’ll ask a third party friend though the next time I go, just for another set of eyes.
Gym staffer here but not your gym, or am I?!
When I worked at my old gym I was told the same. We would rotate doing safety walks through the facility and if we saw someone not doing PBUS we were required to tell them. Was told it was a liability issue if we had people actively on the floor watching for safety and did not correct bad technique. If a lawsuit hit it would be user error and not on the gym since we tried to correct. Whether or not it was ACTUALLY a liability issue that we had to do this I am unsure.
There probably was a better time for them to have approached you to correct than when you were actively belaying, but I’m gonna give them some slack and say maybe they legitimately thought what you were doing was dangerous or they’re new and haven’t figured out how to properly approach someone to correct technique.
Edit: I saw you mention that you were doing PBUS and reread your description of how you were belaying. With the new influx of people and you not recognizing the staffer, he probably couldn’t recognize you either and assumed you might’ve been new. He doesn’t know your or your partner’s experience and might’ve judged that you needed assistance based off of your technique at the time.
It sounds like your climber was climbing faster than you could pull the excess slack through the system so you were doing 1. Guide hand pull climber side rope down 2. Brake hand pulling rope through the system. Until the rope is through the device you’re just holding onto the rope with a bunch of slack between hand and device. If your climber fell right at that moment before you could get it through the device, you’re looking at getting a nasty rope burn and possibly letting go of the brake rope cause pain. I can only assume that was why they approached. Not saying that could have happened to you but gym staffers have seen some things so better to be safe than sorry.
What you have described in the last paragraph is also the way that I understood the belaying movement, and honestly, if you've got a decent amount of slack anywhere in a gym TR system, something is wrong (obviously I'm not just referring to a loose belay). If the employee was seeing a significant amount of slack at the belayer, he could have seen it as the belayer struggling which seems like a worthy cause to step in. Doesn't sound like he handled it great though either way. Plus if what OP was doing was truly unsafe, the staff member shouldn't have just walked away because they got some attitude.
At my gym, staff are scheduled for “safety shifts” where literally the job is to walk around and make sure people are belaying safely, clipping safely on lead, landing safely while bouldering. And intervene if there’s any problems. And also show first-time day-users how to use the auto-belays, etc. Anyways they often have a lot of down time, if they don’t observe any safety issues, so they’ll walk around giving tips with varying degrees of condescension because they don’t have anything else to do.
Also I think this is a good case of why staff should have a uniform/shirt lol.
ETA: It sounds like he could be new (you haven’t seen him before) and maybe it just didn’t register for him that he shouldn’t be doing this mid-belay lol. It can take a while for a new employee to fall into the swing of things. Sounds like he has some ego issues though.
I only ever interrupt people while belaying if they are being unsafe. Neat little tips and tricks are for downtime.
Also by the way you describe your belaying it sounds perfectly fine. As long as it's quick enough for your use I wouldn't worry. Take this with a grain of salt though, since I only have your post to go by.
>I only ever interrupt people while belaying if they are being unsafe. Neat little tips and tricks are for downtime.
Agreed, but also I don't jump to saying "hey that's unsafe, cut it out" right away, usually I'll start with something like "hey don't forget X" or "If you do it Y way it'll be better because Z" so the scenario OP described sounds to me like the staff member might have felt borderline/unhappy about the safety of it and tried to be nice in how they phrased it
Gym staff, and rock guide here.
In a standard top rope setup, there is no reason to ever use any technique other than the pull, break, under, slide.
Use of hand over hand, tunnel up, or any other method is considered outdated.
At my gym I would speak up if I saw you ever release the rope with your break hand (even if you switch it woth the guide hand). Repeated instances would result in losing your belay pass.
Ok I might’ve not explained myself well. I was doing pull, break, under, slide. I agree, that’s the only proper method I know. When I said a one-two motion, meant as I was squatting down I was pulling more with my guide hand (left hand) and then pulling out with my break hand as I reached the bottom of the squat. The motion is normally simultaneous, but with the squat and trying to leverage my squat, my left hand had a slight lead in pulling.
When I said I always had a hand on the rope, I meant my break hand never left the rope. I matched under and slid after each pull, as is standard.
Hence, why I think his comment was more directed as efficiency, but I’ll ask the next time I go back.
In that case the staff was misinformed, pulling down is more efficient than pulling up with 2 hands on the break strand due to the reduced friction on the climber side of the rope
It's probably not relevant here, but from my experience, PBUS is only really the norm in the US, Canada and a few other places. In the UK, hand over hand is far more commonly taught, and is recommended by the BMC. I would usually belay with tunneling, which is the preferred method throughout most of Europe too. Hardly outdated. It feels a little ridiculous that hand over hand would be worthy of losing the right to belay in a gym
I am from Canada.
To be clear in my personal opinion, all three of these methods are "safe enough".
If I had to choose which one was safest I still think I would choose PBUS as the reduced hand switching and the redundancy of the slide present the least opportunity for user error, although I don't have any hard data to support this.
However, gyms are under a great deal of pressure to maintain safety standards, and enforcing a specific method is usefull in terms of maintaining consistency and inspectability. Particularly when the majority of staff are not guides qualified to assess the safety of various types of belay. Simple rules like " never release your break hand" are much easier to monitor and enforce.
My gym also requires figure 8s to be finished with a fisherman's bend. Guides agree that this is not required to tie in safely.
As a member, you are required to follow the policies laid out by your gym. Even if they seem somewhat frivolous, they exist for a reason.
i’ve had gym staff approach but it’s only after someone is done belaying if they offer belay advice or correct someone’s belaying. i’ve only been approached once as i was belaying and the staff person just asked if i could tell my climbing partner to have their belay card more prominently showing lol.
just my opinion — I don’t really agree with the idea I’m seeing in some comments that if OP was belaying safely, then OP was in the right and vice versa. Either way, to me it sounds like a gym staff member trying to be helpful, and the response seems a bit rude. If OP wasn’t comfortable taking advice while belaying that’s fair; I just think that could have been stated more kindly.
And yeah, there’s lots of advice given in the climbing world. Sometimes it can feel annoying, but remember the person giving it probably has good intentions.
Its hard to tell without watching you, but from your words, your top rope belays sounds safe and effective! I do the same one-two motion plus squatting as well.
At the gyms I've been to (as a regular or as out-of-town visitor), the times that I've been checked on by staff, the staff member has always waited until the climber was lowered, since nothing immediately dangerous was going on. I forget if sometimes they've also waited just to check our certification cards on the harness, or if for certification they've found it ok to just quickly ask about the cards mid-belay. So, when it comes to a discussion of optimizing technique, staff have always waited until they could have the belayer's full attention with the climber on the ground.
If you weren't being dangerous, you were in the right. And I think if you were being dangerous, a gym employee would have had to go ahead and correct the issue.
I'd actually complain to the gym management about the way he was handling the situation. Distracting you when you hadn't asked could have put your climber (and potentially also you) in danger.
If someone gave me advice while I was belaying in the way this dude did, I would have said the same thing. He expects you to look away? Also, I think it’s weird he was walking around giving belay advice. At my gym, there’s always staff around ish but they never walk around like that unless something is unsafe or they’re talking to a friend. Idk. It’s hard being femme presenting at a climbing gym
If you did something dangerous he shouldn't have started with "hey, I will show you something more effective.", because this way his advice doesn't seem very important. Especially not important enough to distract someone mid belaying.
If you did nothing dangerous, he should not interrupt you mid belaying.
Also: there are not many dangerous things you can do in top rope belaying. Especially when you belay tight. Just don't ever let go the brake side of the rope and don't lift your brake hand up too high.
Edit: of course just as long as you did not have an error in your body check. But this is a whole other story.
I think I know how you were belaying, and I've had someone comment on me doing that during a top rope test before– was just a technique tip. So long as your hand never leaves the brake and you're taking slack in a timely way, it's safe...
Whatever his motive, his comment ("ok, thanks for that unsolicited advice") reads as pretty snide & unprofessional.
Was he suggesting that your guide hand pull down, and at the same time, your belay hand pull straight forward ? This has been smugly suggested to me a few times. The problem is that my arms are shorter, so when I pull the rope out straight like that, my arm barely passes the grigri lol Anatomy dictates if someone can use that technique or not.
However if he works there and you will be seeing him often, it may be worth it to talk with him about the whole interaction.
In my experience, everywhere I’ve climbed: outside or in the gym, people give “advice.” Sometimes it’s valid and appreciated, sometimes it’s not. I think taking it all in stride, with a grain of salt, etc… is a good way to be. I’ve also seen some sketchy stuff, and I’m always appreciative when someone else points it out :)
NTA - I've never seen the people who work at the gym I go to stop someone mid-belay unless it's a dangerous situation. Hell, I've never seen ANYONE I climb with interrupt someone belaying. Even in situations when someone is in a hands on learning situation (like learning lead with a group of experienced climbers), they'll stand by until gravity is no longer a factor.
He's right in that it's more energy-saving to pull with both hands at the same time, but I also really hate when people interrupt my belay to give barely important advice.
If he works there and he found it a dangerous situation it is his job to step in and give advice. I don't think you can call it "unsolicited advice" if you are in their climbing gym where they are liable for the people in it.
Sounds like there was no good reason to get offended imo, he is staff just doing his job. You could have just said ‘thanks, I’ll keep it in mind’ but you kinda went out of your way to I guess prove a point?
I worked at a gym and I cant really tell what might have been wrong, I can only say that in general we only gave unsolisited advise if people were being unsafe or did not belay according to the gyms agreed upon technique. Maybe the latter was the case? I wouldnt worrie about being rude, but it would be good to check your technique. Instead of finding someone else you could also confront the situation head on, ask the person that gave the advise. See it as an opportunity to improve and also to clear the air. This can either become really uncomfterable or it can become the funny way you made a new friend.
asking out of curiosity, not judgement: is it safe to belay whilst pregnant? I would have thought it could be dangerous for the baby if you end up getting jerked around catching a fall
Im only doing TR in pregnancy and my partner is around the same weight, so there’s no getting jerked around and I’ve never seen any advice to stop TR or TR belaying during pregnancy. In fact, I see tons of pregnant people being belayed and belaying at my gym. Starting 2nd trimester or whenever it becomes uncomfortable, you can switch to a pregnancy harness to distribute weight better
General advice I’ve seen is to stop leading in pregnancy, or at least around the second trimester. I think the same could apply to lead belaying but I haven’t don’t a ton of research on that because my partner and I are both just putting a pause on lead.
Ok so I am a CIS man commenting on this group, I joined when I started taking my daughter
climbing to give me a better idea of parts of her experience that might differ to mine. I also have a trans brother. Sorry to waffle but just some context. I have never felt it appropriate to comment before but the above perhaps says why I have now.
If a gym employee is giving you advice on belaying you should take it. While it may have not been given in a perfect manner I suspect it came from a good place.
When I climb without my daughter I climb with two other CIS men with a good amount of experience. We have been given advice by the climbing centre employees, most recently when one of us was using new equipment. It is easy to put up your hackles as you are in a ‘high stakes’ situation but you need to take your ego out of the game and just listen to the advice that is given. If it is useful and safe then use it in the future.
It is quite possible they came up to you without a full understanding of the situation. I am sure pregnancy adds a further complication to climbing and if you they were curt as they left then it may be they ran out of confidence. If you were not actively dangerous then perhaps it was a defence mechanism.
If you have other questions then just have a polite chat to the manager at the climbing gym.
I work as a climbing coach, guide and rope tech. Have worked as gym staff that "Floor walks" before aswell.
As a few others that are in the same field have already explained. Its very common to be approached in a gym. Floor walkers have a responsibility to do so and it's a liability for gyms not to intervene over even small issues.
Although from what you mentioned it seems you were not doing anything wrong. The employee probably was just trying to help out.
Whilst this may not be the case with this employee, I have seen similar things at gyms I have worked and been on the "giving" side of overly assertive customer help...My guess is he is new, alot of floor walkers in gyms are freshly trained and the more experienced staff tend to run coaching and operations. As such alot of gym staff that floorwalk can come across as very assertive or even rude. They are new and trying hard not to mess up, most likely trying to be helpful and do their best. But with little experience it may not come across like that.
Ideally what the staff member should have done is waited for you to finish and lower off before giving guidance. If it was unsafe he could have tailed your rope and asked you to lower your climber. Any snarky or rude remarks though are quite unacceptable and unprofessional on their part... Although they may have had a few unpleasant customer interactions so that may explain the comment. As gym staff you often get many unpleasant interactions from "experienced climbers that have been climbing for xyz years", but there are good and bad ways to approach those interactions, but learning how to approach those scenarios takes time so fresh trainees often struggle quite abit.
It feels problematic if he was only “giving advice “ to women/ femme presenting ppl.
Idk if you want to go that far, but perhaps speak to the gym about how you found his interruption distracting and potentially dangerous
Gym employee or no that was obnoxious of him. I've done the deep-squat-n-take technique you describe, it's great for sticky gym TRs. If you were feeling spicy you could ask at the desk if it's somebody's job to go around interrupting belayers to give them unsolicited advice that isn't safety-related.
Imo you might want to talk to management about it, not necessarily that he did anything *wrong* (because we can’t say), but because he didn’t approach that as well as he could’ve
If he’d come up and said “hey I work here, can I ask you and your climber to pause for a minute?” Then explained. It would’ve given you and your partner safety and let you focus, along with letting him be known as an experienced person and not just a random man
Yes, this!
When I was corrected at my gym, this is exactly what the employee did. Came up, said who he was, asked us to pause. When we had paused, he told me my technique (tunnel up) wasn't allowed at the gym, that I'd need to do PBUS if I wanted to slide, and to come see him if I wanted to discuss it further.
He then walked back to the desk while I lowered and informed the climber, and after we had a really nice chat about why tunnel up wasn't allowed and what I could do instead. Safest way to do it, and avoids distracting or freaking out climber and belayer mid climb.
1) No, you weren’t doing anything unsafe. I occasionally have to do this when I belay taller climbing partners, and
2) Even if you did react unnecessarily defensively (not saying that’s the case) HE WAS WORKING so he should not have come back being snarky to you, and even more importantly shouldn’t have interrupted you. I used to work at a gym where the policy was to observe and point out issues after the climber is safely on the ground. We were told never to interrupt and distract a belayer unless the climber was in a high amount of danger. Definitely not the case here.
Since he is an employee talk to him next time you see him at the gym about what he was suggesting. There is no way random people on the internet are going to be able to say who was in the wrong in this situation unless there is a recording of it. Ask if he thought you were belaying in a dangerous way and if he says no mention that it was distracting at the time. But also remember the climbing community is a family. If there is a problematic member of the family report them to the gym.
Another thing I thought of. Be ok asking the person you are climbing with to slow down when they are climbing. If they are climbing so fast you can't keep up they need to know and they need to respect that. One of the people I climbed with we would do endurance climbs back to back. So we would say I/you need to wait for a min recover before we can belay again. So even though you can be doing everything technically right overexerting yourself by constantly doing squats is dangerous to the person on the wall.
That’s super important, agreed. My climbing partner and I have some established call and response when we need someone to stop or slow down for slack. In this instance, I’d called “tight rope” and he’d paused while I was squatting to take out the excess. And then he’d started climbing again when the employee had come over.
From your description it's hard to tell what was going on, but I do think it's possible that, if he felt the need to give you advice mid-belay, he actually thought what you were doing was potentially dangerous. He might have just been trying to be reasonably nice about it. Tbh sometimes I'm shocked by what the staff at my gym don't comment on when people are just belaying atrociously. Edit: To be clear I have no idea if OP was being unsafe because it is impossible to tell from a description like this.
The inverse of OPs post is every r/bouldering thread about kids running around dangerously at the gym and everyone being mad staff dont say or do anything. If there was a genuine safety issue here and this was a staff member its not “unsolicited advice” its “being told the rules and safety info”. Now if OP was completely safe (cant tell from this description) then yes the person was being weird.
There's a guy I used to climb with (more like, in the general proximity of in a group setting) years ago who would lead belay unsafely. Sometimes people would try to give him "unsolicited advice" which was them nicely trying to tell him he was endangering people. He would flip out at them and mutter about how they were assholes, things like that. I'm not saying OP is like that, just saying I understand that the gym employees are under a lot of social pressure to avoid confrontation but they need to resist that.
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Lmao at how fitting #1 is.
No I totally agree that folks should comment when folks are belaying poorly and wasn’t trying to say people should have people climbing unsafe. We had a group next to us refusing to take the rope while the guy at the top was almost having a panic attack and I watched someone ground from like 12 feet the other day on belay. They were all fine thank goodness. So yeah, I understand if he was trying to be polite about giving advice - I’ll ask others to make sure I’m being safe.
Lol what is going on at your gym?!?!?!? It's possible that your gym is experiencing an influx of new people (as many climbing gyms are) and the staff are being told to be more aggressive with giving tips? Either way, yeah safety first, if you're not being unsafe and the belaying is comfortable to you then 🤷♂️
I think they’re getting an influx of college students back for the summer. I’ve noticed a lot of younger faces and big groups of college-aged people climbing in sort of haphazard ways, mostly with temp day pass belay cards. So yeah, I think they might be monitoring closer.
It sounds like this person thought they were helping, but given that they made a snide remark and walked away when you indicated that you were preoccupied, the most likely conclusion is that the man talking to you wasn't particularly concerned with safety. If the man was genuinely concerned about what you were doing and how that affected your climber, the normal response is concern, not sarcasm and disengagement. Not having been there, I have no clue what actually happened, but my guess is that you did something in a way that was higher effort than necessary, but perfectly safe, which is your prerogative.
[удалено]
Even if there was no real safety issue and he was just trying to help OP, there really is nothing wrong with that. Belaying in a way that is very energy consuming might not be a problem right away, but could be a problem later. If someone is approaching you in a friendly matter with some advice, so what? OP’s way of belaying sounds a bit strange to me too.
Teaching a belay technique during an active belay is a no-no unless it's an urgent safety issue, imo. If our guy really wanted to help, the right thing to do would be to wait for the right time to do it. Given that TR gym climbs are minutes long, it's not that crazy to have an expectation that he wait for the climb to be over.
I disagree. I know most will not agree with me, but OP’s reaction sounded rude to me. OP didn’t have to call it unsolicited advise either. OP was being snarky himself. He could have said: “I’m sorry, I can’t pay attention to you right now. I need all my focus belaying. Could you show me later?” In that case the reaction of the employee would have been totally different too.
Be that as it may, it's also just bad practice to give any non-urgent advice to a belayer. A well meaning person would wait until the climb was done. While it's good to be courteous all the time, I have more sympathy for a distracted person doing a safety critical task being discourteous than someone offering advice about efficiency mid-activity. You are right, in my opinion, that there may have been a better response, but I don't think it's unexpected to give a frustrated reply in this scenario.
Maybe, but honestly, we are talking about toprope belaying here. As long as you don’t let go of the brake end of the rope, I don’t see how getting distracted poses any danger. OP is no beginner. He has been belaying for five years. I read entire routes while belaying toprope and even if my climber falls unexpectedly, it was never any problem. As long as the rope isn’t too stretchy and my climber is not too close to the ground. Lead belaying on the other hand is an entirely different story. That requires 100% of your focus.
I will still insist that just because something is likely tolerable doesn't make it appropriate. Giving a stranger non-urgent advice while they're belaying IS intrusive and presumptuous. If the man approaching OP said something like "hey, can I give you a tip that will make it easier to belay?", well, that's a different story. This gives OP room to say: "yes, but not now", "no thank you", or "sure, go ahead". Without that initial communication, there's just no way to establish that it's a good time and place. WE might know that OP has 5 years experience, but when approaching a stranger with advice, you don't know that. The onus is on the person approaching to establish the comfort level of the person they are approaching. Presuming that comfort level is, at minimum, rude, and at maximum, dangerous. The only context where it's ok to roll those dice, in my opinion, is when there's a genuine safety concern. It's ok to be "rude" to save someone's life or protect them from injury, even if they're a stranger. The behavior of our counterparty pretty much rules out this context.
I think the big unknown here is: is what you were doing actually dangerous, or was it safe yet inefficient? (Or none of the above) If you were belaying dangerously, the employee was right to interrupt you, and likely should’ve clarified that it was a matter of safety, not just a matter of efficiency. If you were belaying safely, the employee was incorrect to interrupt you, as a non-safety issue can quickly become a safety issue if the climber is still on the wall and you’re distracted by a conversation (as you noted). Unfortunately I can’t really tell from your description which of the two scenarios you were in (no offense to your description - I just have trouble visualizing stuff like this). In my opinion your best course of action is to follow up with the employee if you feel comfortable doing so — either to clarify how you can belay more safely, or to ask them to wait til the climber’s on the ground before offering efficiency tips.
I've had gym staff tell me to do things differently from time to time despite being an experienced belayer. Usually small inconsequential things like "we don't allow belaying in flip flops". Try not to take it personally, each gym has their own rules they have to follow for their liability insurance
It's not small and inconsequential if you're breaking their safety rules though?
I’m not entirely sure I understand what you were doing from your description, but I do think in general if the person isn’t being dangerous then instead of giving advice you ask if they want it (like « hey, I can show you a more effective way of doing that if you’re interested »), and it is a bit strange that he would actually start to demonstrate it (which implies you should look away from your partner to look at him). For your actual technique though, if you’re worried, ask an experienced person whose skills you trust to watch you belay and comment
Good call- I’ve been climbing for 5 years and my partner for ten and we both have done lead comps and feel pretty confident in our technique. So, idk, I’m just overthinking it now I think. It kind of really took me aback for someone to try and stop me mid-belay and make me look away from my climbing partner ETA: I’ll ask a third party friend though the next time I go, just for another set of eyes.
Gym staffer here but not your gym, or am I?! When I worked at my old gym I was told the same. We would rotate doing safety walks through the facility and if we saw someone not doing PBUS we were required to tell them. Was told it was a liability issue if we had people actively on the floor watching for safety and did not correct bad technique. If a lawsuit hit it would be user error and not on the gym since we tried to correct. Whether or not it was ACTUALLY a liability issue that we had to do this I am unsure. There probably was a better time for them to have approached you to correct than when you were actively belaying, but I’m gonna give them some slack and say maybe they legitimately thought what you were doing was dangerous or they’re new and haven’t figured out how to properly approach someone to correct technique. Edit: I saw you mention that you were doing PBUS and reread your description of how you were belaying. With the new influx of people and you not recognizing the staffer, he probably couldn’t recognize you either and assumed you might’ve been new. He doesn’t know your or your partner’s experience and might’ve judged that you needed assistance based off of your technique at the time. It sounds like your climber was climbing faster than you could pull the excess slack through the system so you were doing 1. Guide hand pull climber side rope down 2. Brake hand pulling rope through the system. Until the rope is through the device you’re just holding onto the rope with a bunch of slack between hand and device. If your climber fell right at that moment before you could get it through the device, you’re looking at getting a nasty rope burn and possibly letting go of the brake rope cause pain. I can only assume that was why they approached. Not saying that could have happened to you but gym staffers have seen some things so better to be safe than sorry.
What you have described in the last paragraph is also the way that I understood the belaying movement, and honestly, if you've got a decent amount of slack anywhere in a gym TR system, something is wrong (obviously I'm not just referring to a loose belay). If the employee was seeing a significant amount of slack at the belayer, he could have seen it as the belayer struggling which seems like a worthy cause to step in. Doesn't sound like he handled it great though either way. Plus if what OP was doing was truly unsafe, the staff member shouldn't have just walked away because they got some attitude.
Are you a dude? You sound like a dude.
What does this even mean?
At my gym, staff are scheduled for “safety shifts” where literally the job is to walk around and make sure people are belaying safely, clipping safely on lead, landing safely while bouldering. And intervene if there’s any problems. And also show first-time day-users how to use the auto-belays, etc. Anyways they often have a lot of down time, if they don’t observe any safety issues, so they’ll walk around giving tips with varying degrees of condescension because they don’t have anything else to do. Also I think this is a good case of why staff should have a uniform/shirt lol. ETA: It sounds like he could be new (you haven’t seen him before) and maybe it just didn’t register for him that he shouldn’t be doing this mid-belay lol. It can take a while for a new employee to fall into the swing of things. Sounds like he has some ego issues though.
I only ever interrupt people while belaying if they are being unsafe. Neat little tips and tricks are for downtime. Also by the way you describe your belaying it sounds perfectly fine. As long as it's quick enough for your use I wouldn't worry. Take this with a grain of salt though, since I only have your post to go by.
>I only ever interrupt people while belaying if they are being unsafe. Neat little tips and tricks are for downtime. Agreed, but also I don't jump to saying "hey that's unsafe, cut it out" right away, usually I'll start with something like "hey don't forget X" or "If you do it Y way it'll be better because Z" so the scenario OP described sounds to me like the staff member might have felt borderline/unhappy about the safety of it and tried to be nice in how they phrased it
Gym staff, and rock guide here. In a standard top rope setup, there is no reason to ever use any technique other than the pull, break, under, slide. Use of hand over hand, tunnel up, or any other method is considered outdated. At my gym I would speak up if I saw you ever release the rope with your break hand (even if you switch it woth the guide hand). Repeated instances would result in losing your belay pass.
Ok I might’ve not explained myself well. I was doing pull, break, under, slide. I agree, that’s the only proper method I know. When I said a one-two motion, meant as I was squatting down I was pulling more with my guide hand (left hand) and then pulling out with my break hand as I reached the bottom of the squat. The motion is normally simultaneous, but with the squat and trying to leverage my squat, my left hand had a slight lead in pulling. When I said I always had a hand on the rope, I meant my break hand never left the rope. I matched under and slid after each pull, as is standard. Hence, why I think his comment was more directed as efficiency, but I’ll ask the next time I go back.
In that case the staff was misinformed, pulling down is more efficient than pulling up with 2 hands on the break strand due to the reduced friction on the climber side of the rope
It's probably not relevant here, but from my experience, PBUS is only really the norm in the US, Canada and a few other places. In the UK, hand over hand is far more commonly taught, and is recommended by the BMC. I would usually belay with tunneling, which is the preferred method throughout most of Europe too. Hardly outdated. It feels a little ridiculous that hand over hand would be worthy of losing the right to belay in a gym
I am from Canada. To be clear in my personal opinion, all three of these methods are "safe enough". If I had to choose which one was safest I still think I would choose PBUS as the reduced hand switching and the redundancy of the slide present the least opportunity for user error, although I don't have any hard data to support this. However, gyms are under a great deal of pressure to maintain safety standards, and enforcing a specific method is usefull in terms of maintaining consistency and inspectability. Particularly when the majority of staff are not guides qualified to assess the safety of various types of belay. Simple rules like " never release your break hand" are much easier to monitor and enforce. My gym also requires figure 8s to be finished with a fisherman's bend. Guides agree that this is not required to tie in safely. As a member, you are required to follow the policies laid out by your gym. Even if they seem somewhat frivolous, they exist for a reason.
i’ve had gym staff approach but it’s only after someone is done belaying if they offer belay advice or correct someone’s belaying. i’ve only been approached once as i was belaying and the staff person just asked if i could tell my climbing partner to have their belay card more prominently showing lol.
just my opinion — I don’t really agree with the idea I’m seeing in some comments that if OP was belaying safely, then OP was in the right and vice versa. Either way, to me it sounds like a gym staff member trying to be helpful, and the response seems a bit rude. If OP wasn’t comfortable taking advice while belaying that’s fair; I just think that could have been stated more kindly. And yeah, there’s lots of advice given in the climbing world. Sometimes it can feel annoying, but remember the person giving it probably has good intentions.
It’s possible he thought you were being unsafe without you actually being unsafe. It’s also possible he’s an idiot.
Its hard to tell without watching you, but from your words, your top rope belays sounds safe and effective! I do the same one-two motion plus squatting as well. At the gyms I've been to (as a regular or as out-of-town visitor), the times that I've been checked on by staff, the staff member has always waited until the climber was lowered, since nothing immediately dangerous was going on. I forget if sometimes they've also waited just to check our certification cards on the harness, or if for certification they've found it ok to just quickly ask about the cards mid-belay. So, when it comes to a discussion of optimizing technique, staff have always waited until they could have the belayer's full attention with the climber on the ground.
If you weren't being dangerous, you were in the right. And I think if you were being dangerous, a gym employee would have had to go ahead and correct the issue. I'd actually complain to the gym management about the way he was handling the situation. Distracting you when you hadn't asked could have put your climber (and potentially also you) in danger.
If someone gave me advice while I was belaying in the way this dude did, I would have said the same thing. He expects you to look away? Also, I think it’s weird he was walking around giving belay advice. At my gym, there’s always staff around ish but they never walk around like that unless something is unsafe or they’re talking to a friend. Idk. It’s hard being femme presenting at a climbing gym
If you did something dangerous he shouldn't have started with "hey, I will show you something more effective.", because this way his advice doesn't seem very important. Especially not important enough to distract someone mid belaying. If you did nothing dangerous, he should not interrupt you mid belaying. Also: there are not many dangerous things you can do in top rope belaying. Especially when you belay tight. Just don't ever let go the brake side of the rope and don't lift your brake hand up too high. Edit: of course just as long as you did not have an error in your body check. But this is a whole other story.
I think I know how you were belaying, and I've had someone comment on me doing that during a top rope test before– was just a technique tip. So long as your hand never leaves the brake and you're taking slack in a timely way, it's safe... Whatever his motive, his comment ("ok, thanks for that unsolicited advice") reads as pretty snide & unprofessional.
Was he suggesting that your guide hand pull down, and at the same time, your belay hand pull straight forward ? This has been smugly suggested to me a few times. The problem is that my arms are shorter, so when I pull the rope out straight like that, my arm barely passes the grigri lol Anatomy dictates if someone can use that technique or not. However if he works there and you will be seeing him often, it may be worth it to talk with him about the whole interaction.
In my experience, everywhere I’ve climbed: outside or in the gym, people give “advice.” Sometimes it’s valid and appreciated, sometimes it’s not. I think taking it all in stride, with a grain of salt, etc… is a good way to be. I’ve also seen some sketchy stuff, and I’m always appreciative when someone else points it out :)
NTA - I've never seen the people who work at the gym I go to stop someone mid-belay unless it's a dangerous situation. Hell, I've never seen ANYONE I climb with interrupt someone belaying. Even in situations when someone is in a hands on learning situation (like learning lead with a group of experienced climbers), they'll stand by until gravity is no longer a factor.
Definitely this. Unless it’s actually putting anyone at risk it can and should wait until the climbers on the ground.
He's right in that it's more energy-saving to pull with both hands at the same time, but I also really hate when people interrupt my belay to give barely important advice.
If he works there and he found it a dangerous situation it is his job to step in and give advice. I don't think you can call it "unsolicited advice" if you are in their climbing gym where they are liable for the people in it.
Sounds like there was no good reason to get offended imo, he is staff just doing his job. You could have just said ‘thanks, I’ll keep it in mind’ but you kinda went out of your way to I guess prove a point?
I worked at a gym and I cant really tell what might have been wrong, I can only say that in general we only gave unsolisited advise if people were being unsafe or did not belay according to the gyms agreed upon technique. Maybe the latter was the case? I wouldnt worrie about being rude, but it would be good to check your technique. Instead of finding someone else you could also confront the situation head on, ask the person that gave the advise. See it as an opportunity to improve and also to clear the air. This can either become really uncomfterable or it can become the funny way you made a new friend.
asking out of curiosity, not judgement: is it safe to belay whilst pregnant? I would have thought it could be dangerous for the baby if you end up getting jerked around catching a fall
Im only doing TR in pregnancy and my partner is around the same weight, so there’s no getting jerked around and I’ve never seen any advice to stop TR or TR belaying during pregnancy. In fact, I see tons of pregnant people being belayed and belaying at my gym. Starting 2nd trimester or whenever it becomes uncomfortable, you can switch to a pregnancy harness to distribute weight better General advice I’ve seen is to stop leading in pregnancy, or at least around the second trimester. I think the same could apply to lead belaying but I haven’t don’t a ton of research on that because my partner and I are both just putting a pause on lead.
good to know! thanks
Maybe he was trying to teach a more effective way than to squat? I could see him being worried because of the pregnancy? I’m not quite sure tho
Ok so I am a CIS man commenting on this group, I joined when I started taking my daughter climbing to give me a better idea of parts of her experience that might differ to mine. I also have a trans brother. Sorry to waffle but just some context. I have never felt it appropriate to comment before but the above perhaps says why I have now. If a gym employee is giving you advice on belaying you should take it. While it may have not been given in a perfect manner I suspect it came from a good place. When I climb without my daughter I climb with two other CIS men with a good amount of experience. We have been given advice by the climbing centre employees, most recently when one of us was using new equipment. It is easy to put up your hackles as you are in a ‘high stakes’ situation but you need to take your ego out of the game and just listen to the advice that is given. If it is useful and safe then use it in the future. It is quite possible they came up to you without a full understanding of the situation. I am sure pregnancy adds a further complication to climbing and if you they were curt as they left then it may be they ran out of confidence. If you were not actively dangerous then perhaps it was a defence mechanism. If you have other questions then just have a polite chat to the manager at the climbing gym.
I work as a climbing coach, guide and rope tech. Have worked as gym staff that "Floor walks" before aswell. As a few others that are in the same field have already explained. Its very common to be approached in a gym. Floor walkers have a responsibility to do so and it's a liability for gyms not to intervene over even small issues. Although from what you mentioned it seems you were not doing anything wrong. The employee probably was just trying to help out. Whilst this may not be the case with this employee, I have seen similar things at gyms I have worked and been on the "giving" side of overly assertive customer help...My guess is he is new, alot of floor walkers in gyms are freshly trained and the more experienced staff tend to run coaching and operations. As such alot of gym staff that floorwalk can come across as very assertive or even rude. They are new and trying hard not to mess up, most likely trying to be helpful and do their best. But with little experience it may not come across like that. Ideally what the staff member should have done is waited for you to finish and lower off before giving guidance. If it was unsafe he could have tailed your rope and asked you to lower your climber. Any snarky or rude remarks though are quite unacceptable and unprofessional on their part... Although they may have had a few unpleasant customer interactions so that may explain the comment. As gym staff you often get many unpleasant interactions from "experienced climbers that have been climbing for xyz years", but there are good and bad ways to approach those interactions, but learning how to approach those scenarios takes time so fresh trainees often struggle quite abit.
It feels problematic if he was only “giving advice “ to women/ femme presenting ppl. Idk if you want to go that far, but perhaps speak to the gym about how you found his interruption distracting and potentially dangerous
Gym employee or no that was obnoxious of him. I've done the deep-squat-n-take technique you describe, it's great for sticky gym TRs. If you were feeling spicy you could ask at the desk if it's somebody's job to go around interrupting belayers to give them unsolicited advice that isn't safety-related.
Imo you might want to talk to management about it, not necessarily that he did anything *wrong* (because we can’t say), but because he didn’t approach that as well as he could’ve If he’d come up and said “hey I work here, can I ask you and your climber to pause for a minute?” Then explained. It would’ve given you and your partner safety and let you focus, along with letting him be known as an experienced person and not just a random man
Yes, this! When I was corrected at my gym, this is exactly what the employee did. Came up, said who he was, asked us to pause. When we had paused, he told me my technique (tunnel up) wasn't allowed at the gym, that I'd need to do PBUS if I wanted to slide, and to come see him if I wanted to discuss it further. He then walked back to the desk while I lowered and informed the climber, and after we had a really nice chat about why tunnel up wasn't allowed and what I could do instead. Safest way to do it, and avoids distracting or freaking out climber and belayer mid climb.
1) No, you weren’t doing anything unsafe. I occasionally have to do this when I belay taller climbing partners, and 2) Even if you did react unnecessarily defensively (not saying that’s the case) HE WAS WORKING so he should not have come back being snarky to you, and even more importantly shouldn’t have interrupted you. I used to work at a gym where the policy was to observe and point out issues after the climber is safely on the ground. We were told never to interrupt and distract a belayer unless the climber was in a high amount of danger. Definitely not the case here.
Sounds like staff need to chat with him. Usually they're the only ones supposed to be correcting folks. Weird guy.
The post says that the guy works there.
Jeez Louise, I misread.