UKC

I want my wife to learn to belay properly.
I have contacted a mate who has coached BMC teams and he tells me there is no set standard. Which strikes me as odd. I would have thought belayers in World comps or the Olympics would have to conform to a standard.
I saw on another thread a DAV belay course. Does anyone know about this.
Yes I or my mates could teach her. Just wondered if there is something proper, for mine and her reassurance. 

This is in the beginners forum as  a genuine and serious request for information. Even though I am very experienced, I know enough to know there are things I do not know.

In reply to J1234:

Is this belaying indoor top-rope/lead from the ground? Or belaying outdoors from above or below, or on stances? Including setting-up anchors?

In my experience, for the former its just something that is taught informally. My local wall does ten-minute instructional sessions for non-climbing parents who want to belay their children, for example. For the latter a rock climbing course. I don't remember ever seeing a belaying-only course.

 

In reply to J1234:

As Andy Johnson Says, I've only ever seen learning to Belay either as a mate showing you how, or as a section of a rock climbing course.

The local wall suggestion is a good shout - worth looking if one near to you does that? Our local wall has a "Belay Buddies" group where people who are just starting can come down and find a partner to climb with/be belayed by instructors/be shown how to.  

They also run "learn to climb" courses which would include that element in a formal setting. 

Hope that helps

 

 

In reply to J1234:

here you find different videos about the subject:

https://www.alpenverein.de/Bergsport/Sicherheit/Videos-Sicher-Klettern/

In reply to J1234:

Thanks for the replies. This will all be single pitch sport, outside, with me stripping the route.

I and my mates will teacher her.
I have ordered a Click Up belay device and will get an Ohm.

Still surprised there is no defined standard for belayers, particularly with respect to comp sport climbing.

In reply to J1234:no set agenda, but I took the course for teaching outdoor sport climbing in Norway and we were given a series of points we needed to cover so someone could safely sports climb outdoors, and I'm sure a UK equivalent course would have the same.

 In Norway there is a universal 'competent to climb/belay' course all walls require you to have passed if you want to climb alone, and it's a pretty decent course.  You ,I recall,  did not see the use in the UK, but it would help you here.

No set course for belaying comps - just use a plate, not a grigrii and no short roping so often a fair bit of slack out

 

In reply to J1234:

I'm not sure how you'd define a standard. 'Manages slack adequately' and 'doesn't let go of the dead rope' are the only two absolute requirements really, and if you ignore the severity of getting it wrong it's really not that complicated.

The other things - knowing how best to spot your leader when they're making hard moves off the ground, understanding where to stand so your mate's gear doesn't zip out on a trad leader, etc - they're all best learnt with experience as you climb more with competent leaders, in my opinion. You can't distill that into a course or a set of rules, you need to have an understanding of how it fits in to the overall situation. This comes with experience.

In reply to J1234:

 

Why not teach her then?

We've just had two new people join our club and it took about ten minutes, after one session at the climbing wall, I'm happy for both of them to belay me or my daughter. Both of them have held a number of falls without incident.

Obviously not everyone picks it up this quickly, we have people who've been belaying for years and still do things wrong, but this is more to do with the person and not the instruction.

 

In reply to J1234:

This may not be the answer you were after, but as you say, are very experienced, and therefore (presumably) confident in your own belaying: I suggest you teach her yourself.

In reply to J1234:

The standard for comps is that you must be competent at belaying in comps; At each bmc comp there is a chief belayer and a jury president (chief judge), who watch out for belaying standards, by choosing belayers that are known and trusted, and there is always the sanction available to remove them if we choose to (I've been JP at pretty well all BMC comps for the last 3 years). This sanction hs been used. They are all briefed at the start of each comp, and its a case of knowing what you are getting. The competitors all know that the belaying will be reliable and as safe as its possible to get.

Much different to the outdoor environment though; many climbing courses, however, include safe belaying, but its all really being taught good practice, backed up by experience and common sense.

In reply to J1234:

DAV is the German Alpine Club.

They do lots of safety research and how to avoid accidents esp cially indoors.

There's a difference between just belaying and belaying well. Like how to belay dynamic with an autotube device.

I did a DAV belay course after I  had been climbing a while and  I learned quite a lot of tactics on where to stand best and how to handle the autotuber to give a good soft catch. 

It's just for indoor climbing though.