How to Use Climbing Commands Properly

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Scott and I'm the owner of Climb On indoor rock climbing gym in Wilmington, North Carolina and today we are going to discuss using climbing commands properly. The use of climbing commands is very important in rock climbing. Rock climbing is inherently dangerous and can result in serious injury or death so please make sure you get qualified instruction at your local indoor rock climbing gym. Any time that we use our climbing commands we are using them to make sure that our belayer is ready and our climber is ready. So if I'm speaking to the belayer and I'm the climber I'm going to say on belay, basically asking the question are you ready. If they're ready and we have done our double checks my belayer is going to say belay is on. At that point I may look at the route that I am going to follow and chalk up my hands. Before I leave the ground to start climbing I am going to reiterate climbing and wait for my belayer to say climb on. Once my belayer says climb on I know that he is ready and I'm ready and I can begin the climb. The important aspect of this is that even though it is a redundant command we want to make sure with no doubt that the belayer is ready in holding the rope so that in the event I take a fall he can utilize the brake mechanism on his belay device and stop me from falling. Again I can't stress how important it is to get the proper instruction by a qualified instructor on how to do this. This has been using your climbing commands properly."