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trad + grigri 29-Feb-2012 At 1:46:13 PM pecheur

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On 29/02/2012 Linze wrote:
>i get the feeling we climb in differnt styles. i sport climb almost exclusivly,
>in which (in my mind) soft belays are a matter of safety... i think that
>a larger danger in this case is, as friend did, smacking the wall and breaking
>something. so for me dynamic belays are a part of climbing safely and
>enjoyably, ocassionally in this particular situation it means soft scrapes
>with the ground... but i would consider creating a static belay system
>a far greater danger
>
>my gf and i have climber together for 4 years and it seems to be working,
>on occasions the falls gets pretty outragous but never dangerous, i never
>accused her of dropping me and not sure why you put this in your post,
>she is a damn good belayer. she stands what she deems to be the correct
>position in relation to the first draw and understands that this can be
>used to improve the dynamic nature of a a belay were required. she would
>probably think you were a bit of a @ss for assumung that i should dictate
>where she stands and how she belays. she hates hanging/static belay arrangments
>becasue they create drama for her becasue of weight. we havent trad climbed
>together yet, but will soon, and she didnt wanna use an atc becasue she
>is comfortable with the currrent set up. because i do little trad climbing
>i still held onto the no gri gri for trad rule, im sure if you come sport
>climbing up in the bluies there will be some equally trival piece of knoweldeg
>that your not sure about that i may be...
>
Kieran gets a little fired up but genuinely cares about climbing safety.

Try this for size (even in sport), this is what I do when I have partners greater than 20 kgs lighter than me. Being tied down does not mean zero movement. If you tie your partner with enough slack so that they can't reach the first draw, in general that's at least 2 metres worth of slack. For argument's sake, put her on a 1 metre leash worth of slack, gives her room to move, to belay from beside you in the early part of the climb, then stand below you later or whatever.

If you take a whipper and she gets dragged up 1 metre in the air, that's cool. If you're worried about damage from a hard fall after your partner's moved up 1 metre (besides grounding at the second draw which grigri or atc, that won't help) even in sport then you need to look at what you're doing because that's a soft catch at any normal human weights.