Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Belay On!

After rock climbing sporadically over the past year, my boyfriend and I finally signed up for the introductory class in order to get certified to belay. The first class was Monday night and it felt so gratifying to get one step closer to accomplishing a goal I had set for myself so many months ago!

While we picked up the knots and harness ties pretty quickly, we struggled with the commands for communicating between climber and belayer (duhr – me hold, you climb).

Fortunately, we were given a cheat sheet to take home in order to practice for our upcoming belay test and I couldn’t resist sharing them with you because the gym added a cheeky translation to each that made me giggle!



Climber says: “On belay” – I’m ready, are you?
Belayer says: “Belay on” – Yeah I’m ready, what’s up?
Climber: “Climbing” – So here I go (yikes…)
Belayer: “Climb on” – I’ll catch ya…
Climber: “Falling!” – Catch me!
Climber: “Take!” – Please hold me before I fall!
Climber: “On you?” – Can you hold me?
Belayer: “On me” – I gotcha!
Climber: “Lowering!” – Get me off this rock!
Belayer: “Lowering” – Ground floor here we come!


Detail of the “Figure 8 Follow-Through” knot

2 comments:

  1. that is something I always wanted to try but I can't. I broke my shoulder very badly a few years ago, and I still have many problems with it. Somedays I can't even go to the pool because I can hardly move it from pain...
    Congratulations, have fun!

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  2. Bobbi - I'm so sorry to hear about your shoulder! But that makes it all the more impressive that you've set such lofty swimming goals for yourself. You are very inspiring to not let the injury stop you :)

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