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donald949
Mar 5, 2013, 5:45 PM
Post #26 of 30
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Registered: May 24, 2007
Posts: 11455
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olderic wrote: hyhuu wrote: Sport belayers certainly catch more often but I don't know if that means they are better. Bingo. The pure sport climber is undoubtably far superior is giving sport type catches (the almighty soft catch) in a pure sport climbing context. But will he: run backwards to shorten the fall when required? funcion well when he is on a hanging belay? Keep the rope neatly stacked over his tie in? Cope when the leader is out of sight? Cope when the leader is out of earshot? Cope when the leaeder ir out of sight, out of ear shot and just run out of rope and is pulling hard? Cope in a"don't fall now or we'll both go" situation? Cope in the dark, cold rain while all the above are happening? Move in coils? Escape the belay and rescue an inconscious leader? Be a ceryitied WFA? Belay with a munter? Hip belay? Contruct a 3:1? etc. When I want some one to belay me while shouting "allez - you got it bro" on some overbolted overgraded 50 foot shoss pile by all means I will look s for an experienced sport belayer. When I want someone to go CLIMBING with I'll look for someone with trad experience. Ah yes, the all mighty soft catch. Note to my belayers: I don't need you to give me a soft catch, cause I out weigh you by more than a little a bit. So I'm just going to go ahead and take it from you. Please do try to hold on and not drop me. Thats all I need from you.
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camhead
Mar 5, 2013, 5:55 PM
Post #27 of 30
(1058 views)
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Registered: Sep 10, 2001
Posts: 20939
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donald949 wrote: Ah yes, the all mighty soft catch. Note to my belayers: I don't need you to give me a soft catch, cause I out weigh you by more than a little a bit. So I'm just going to go ahead and take it from you. Please do try to hold on and not drop me. Thats all I need from you. More important, based on the style and grades that you climb, if you ever got a soft catch you would get seriously hurt.
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bearbreeder
Mar 5, 2013, 6:10 PM
Post #28 of 30
(1050 views)
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Registered: Feb 2, 2009
Posts: 1960
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its not the "soft" catch itsef ... nor "trad vs sport" what it is is experience catching ALL type of falls ... and catching em over and over again id take a trad climber who catches trad falls constantly, an you WILL fall on trad if you climb near your limit ... vs a moderate sport climber who never falls or catches falls anyday the person and how often they keep in practice is what matters a good belayer should pay ATTENTION,ANTICIPATE the potential falls, EXECUTE what needs to be done, and COMMUNICATE with their partners the only way to be sure you can execute correctly is to practice catching falls in the gym or someplace with "safe" clean falls over and over again ... you would never claim to be an "experienced" and "competent" leader if you dont constantly lead, belaying is no different the reason why many poor belayers can get away with it is simply a matter of numbers ... most climbers, especially on moderates dont fall that often, and take more often than not ... a person climbing at their limit on sport, the gym or even trad on good gear however falls quite often ... consider that a weak ass climber like me takes 5-10+ falls easily on the gym or sport on any given day working out stuff at my limit ... in fact even on warm ups ill simply lob off the top of the gym to get it out of the system and i climb sport/gym/trad at my limit twice a week minimum ... many stronger climbers climb even more thats up to and over 1000 falls a year ... so its NOT good enough for my belayers to be 99.9% certain of a catch ... because i would be dropped once a year ... they need to be functionally 100% certain of a catch ... which is why i dont climb with crap belayers ... and i generally favor assisted locking devices, providing the person knows and is experienced in their operation many "moderate" sport or trad climbers will never catch that many falls in a decade ... its that siimple
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clymbrchk
Mar 5, 2013, 11:04 PM
Post #29 of 30
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Registered: Mar 25, 2007
Posts: 115
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camhead wrote: First off, OBVIOUSLY sport climbers are better belayers than trad climbers. Try to explain a "soft catch" to a traddie sometime. Or, you could go for a disproportionately light climbing partner. Regardless of trad or sport, I tend to offer a "soft catch" simply because physics gives me no other option...
camhead wrote: I disagree with this...It's just that rc.com does not provide a good environment or platform for discussing these things. I think it is the combination of the two. The very nature of what climbers discuss online (combination of social outlet and technical content that requires more than just typed words) - if the first point didn't matter, the old platform wouldn't matter, and the second point would be mute. Crap, off to the next meeting. Sorry guys.
(This post was edited by clymbrchk on Mar 5, 2013, 11:06 PM)
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moose_droppings
Mar 6, 2013, 12:13 AM
Post #30 of 30
(977 views)
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Registered: Jun 7, 2005
Posts: 3371
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As always, it depends. Lead belay, bringing up a second, single pitch, multipitch, belay device being used, and on and on and on. Some catch on quickly, others not so much. Some are very good at one type of belay but lack at another. The ones that are good at all are far and few between. To say one style of climbing is better at it than another climbing style is way over generalizing.
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