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Beginner's Course Resource

Each week this resource will be updated with material, links or pdfs that will assist you in your course. All the information will remain on the page and be there for you to refer to over the coming weeks

Session 3 - Further Consolidation of Skills and Preparing For Assessment

By now, having completed 3 sessions of your course you should be tying-in and bel;aying with confidence, even if your personal climbing still needs some work.
If you have all the basic safety skills in place you will be able to confidently practice hard on any indoor wall and improve your climbing skills over the coming months.

During your assessment session you will be doing the following:

Choosing and fitting your own equipment
Selecting a belay device and karabiner to you
Pairing up and setting up to climb
Tying-in
Setting up the belay
Checking each other
Using recognised climbing calls
Showing effective belaying and lowering off
Being able to arrest the a climber's fall

The criteria for passing a candidate for assessment is always the same: As assessor would I let this person belay me, would I let them belay my child? If the assessor cannot confidently answer yes to both questions then a pass cannot be awarded and you will need to do further work on your safety techniques.

Your "pass certificate" is only a certificate awarded by Rock Frog to say that on the day of assessment we deem you to be operating safely on the wall. There is no nationally recognised wall climbing certificate and any certifacate we award will not be of any validity if you do not keep up your skills once the course is over.

We would strongly recommend that you continue climbing and furthering your skills. Please speak to your instructor about further courses.

Below are some links and downloads that may help you:

Warming up before your climb. To see a BMC video - click here

Moving effectively. To see a BMC video - click here

How to climb steep rock. To see a BMC video - click here

How to tie-in using a figure of eight. To see a BMC video - click here - Have a close look at the video. there is something different in the demonstration to how we teach climbers to tie-in. what is the difference and why is it important?

Belaying and lowering off. To see a BMC video - click here - Have a close look at the lowering off technique in the video. We teach that it should be done slightly differently. what is the difference and why is it important?

BMC Summit Magazine Article on Basic Climbing Wall Technique

BMC Safe Belaying and Abseiling leaflet

Session 2 - Consolidation of Skills

During your first session you were learning your basic skills. Your second session concentrated on consolidating those skills.
Now you should be able to:

Safely fit your harness
Warm up effectively
Tie in
Set up a belay
Check your buddy
Use climbing calls
Move more effectively over the wall
Arrest a falling climber
Boulder safely

In our next session we will look at :

Advancing your personal climbing skills
A further consolidation of your safety techniques
Choices of equipment
Using different belay systems
The use of prussiks
Preparing for your assessment
Looking forward to assessment day and where you can move your climbing on to

If you have not already looked at our links below then please do so now.

Session 1 - Basic Skills

The Climbing Wall

The climbing wall you attend is only one of many around the country. Each wall will have it's own safety guidleines and terms of use and it is important that you know these in order to ensure you and others are safe.

Safety

it is very important to make climbing as safe as possible for the grade of climbing you are participating in. Climbing on an indoor wall is one of the safer ways to climb because such factors as weather and rock falls have been removed from the equasion but indoor walls can still be dangerous places because of one of the following reasons:

Not understanding or following the rules and regulations
Not climbing within your ability
Not checking equipment
Not working effectively in a team or pair
Using the facility or the equipment for purposes it was not made for
Over confidence
Horseplay / playing around

In your first session you learned

Basic Wall safety
How to fit a harness
How to tie in
How to belay
How to work in a pair

On your next session we will consolidate what you have learned, move on to some more challenging climbs and look at advanced belay techniques.

You will need to be able to:

tie a rethreaded figure of eight with a stopper knot
Set up a belay and use it effectively
Use the standard climbing calls
Climb effectively using 3 points of contact
Understand the risks

These are sites and links that may help you

http://thebmc.co.uk This is the website of The British Mountaineering Council. Their website is full of information about every aspect of climbing and mountaineering

http://www.animatedknots.com This website is a great resource to help you learn climbing knots and other knots

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=ROCKFROGOUTDOORS&p=r This is a link to some of the Rock Frog videos on Youtube. You will be able to see some of our climbers doing particular moves on the wall. Watch how they use their bodies using 3 points of contact.

There are a huge number of climbing videos on Youtube . http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qkOJV05Goqg is a link to a video compild by Brunel Students; the end of which is not for the squeemish!

http://www.ehow.com/how_1252_belay-rock-climbing.html A helpful (if rather wordy) "how to" site.

Your next session notes will be available 48 hours after the session

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