To practice fall or not to practice fall? In the beginners forum, specifically the Falling on Lead thread, this subject came up yet again.

I will put this question to rest. Practice falls are a good idea only once you have anylyzed that your fear of falling is holding you back. Not just a fear of falling, but you have gotten to the point where you are physically climbing at a level where can climb climbs with safe falls, but more importantly, you are placing solid gear and have the mental awareness of what makes a safe fall and what doesn't.

So you have gotten a lot of mileage on rock, placing gear, downclimbing, analyzing different situations, etc. You know when you can't fall and when you can, but you still can't bring yourself to climb confidently above your gear if a fall is a good possiblity. THen...MAYBE...practice falls in the gym are for you. I say maybe for two reasons. One....Not everyone needs this separate practice. They grow out of it with more experience or they learn to control the fear using it to their advantage..and...TWo... Not everyone should have to move past it. You can climb your whole life and never fall. That is up to you. It will be hard to push your physical limits, but not every one climbs for that.

SO....Giving the advice as a blanket for everyone is STUPID advice. To give that advice, you need to know the experience and mental state and capabilities of that person. You CAN'T do that over the internet.

Discuss....


Josh

Christ, this is just what we needed, TWO threads on this.


Great.


People around here never learn.

This is DIFFERENT from the other thread. It was one idea that I thought warranted attention. As for people not learning, you are partially correct. People DON"T learn if they do not discuss . Now...DO you have anything relavent to say?

Josh

Practice falls, even for beginners on trad gear, can be perfectly safe on the right terrain with adequate back-ups in place. Are beginners capable of judging that terrain and creating those back ups? Depends on the beginner, I suppose.

You are wrong

Jay, really, what happened to the killfile?

Killfile would not help you when you are still wrong about giving advice to people that is perfectly safe to fall.

Killfile only help pu**ies who have not done their homework .

No, not really. Not going to bother with relevance, as this thread will soon turn into a repeat of the last one.

Ja, you are more annoying than Majid, if you don't like the thread don't read it!! .

Notch , You are on the right track. In addition to bomber gear skills they need the skills to acess the other dangers involved in lead falling. What am I going to hit? what direction is my belayer going to be pulled, how much of a factor is rope streach, belayer movement and belay devise slippage going to be in this fall? any sharp rock arround that is going to possibly cut my rope, cut the sling or quick draw. etc, Etc? Not the kind of stuff you want your averege noob playing with. INMOP

Notch , You are on the right track. In addition to bomber gear skills they need the skills to acess the other dangers involved in lead falling. What am I going to hit? what direction is my belayer going to be pulled, how much of a factor is rope streach, belayer movement and belay devise slippage going to be in this fall? any sharp rock arround that is going to possibly cut my rope, cut the sling or quick draw. etc, Etc? Not the kind of stuff you want your averege noob playing with. INMOP

Dan, the reason you take practise falls is is so that you can learn how to fall without slamming into the rock, so you can build confidence and your belayer learns how to catch properly. Practice falls are the last place you want to learn how to mannage objective dangers and gear placement issues. If you have not mastered the objective dangers, gear placement and risk assesment issues you have no buisness takeing practice lead falls.

I really wish I had had more falling experiance to know if the flipping upside down thing was a valid concern or not.

Dan. the beginning leader can bennifit from practice falls if done under expert supervision. They will however benifit a whole lot more from learning how NOT to fall, how to down climb and how Not to climb themselfs in over their head. Ground work is great for learning placements and risk assment but they won't have the guide or mentor there the next day when they head for the crag with their noob friend. That session would be much better served in practiceing climbing in control on a lead that they can handle than it would be in working on their whips and finding out the hard way that they didn't know quite as much as they thought they did One of the things that I reccomend for my students is that they lead something within their limits every time they go out and then set a top rope on whatever hard climb they are working. i usually recomend a specific rout that i know the student will be safe on but will offer some challange. This way the student works their lead skills and then top ropes the heck out of something hard. They get lots of fall practice and belaying practice on their top rope session while getting stronger and more proficient with their climbing skills. All too often the student just goes to the crag and top ropes because they don't want to bother their partner with their learning process or they are lazy or whatever. if you lead every time you go out you will learn how to lead. if you just top rope you will get phisicaly strong but won't develop the mental skills to lead safly. If you fall every time you lead, sooner or later you are gonna get hurt

Beginning leaders can benefit from practice falls.

You are wrong