How to Use Proper Top-Rope Belay Method | Rock Climbing

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Rockin’ Rock Climbing Commodities

Okay everyone. Right now I'm going to show you how to use the proper belay method for top roping indoors. It's a four step process that can be abbreviated as PBUS. Which stands for pull, brake, under and slide.

The first step being to pull which is when I'm pulling up with my right hand and down my left left hand. Moving slack through the belay device. The second step. To grab under my right hand. Third step, sliding my right hand back to the belay device.

Full method looking like this. So, I pull. I come down to my brake position. I grab under my right hand. I slide back to the belay device. I pull that slack through, back to the brake position. Grab under. Slide back to the belay device.

So, pull, brake, under, slide. Making sure that, as I'm belaying, I'm spending as much time as I can in the brake position. Which is, with my right hand below the belay device, not above it.

So this way, in case the climber were to take a fall all you need to do as the belayer is pull down. And that locks the belay device preventing rope from feeding in the opposite direction.

At this point, if guys were to start climbing again all I would need to do is resume my pull, brake, under, slide method to continue moving rope through the belay device.

And that's how to use the proper belay method for indoor top roping.

[samuelford]

why would you leave out the part about lowering them down

[MisterFusion]

I just came back to a gym after 4 years and they taught this method for a top rope test. It felt like the most awkward, clumsy and inefficient way to do it. Every new step in a process creates a chance for a mistake and a slower method lets the climber get ahead of you. Their justification was that the technique is transferable.

[corybrooks]

I have been belaying like this for 15 years, I have held 100 foot whippers from aid climbers using this. Just saying.

[badgerboy]

You shouldn't really slide your hand up the rope as if the person fell and there was slack the rope would run through your hands and burn and cut your skin, personally, I find the "Create a V, down to the knee, 1, 2, 3" method far better purely for this reason

[blithespeak]

really really bad method, do not do it this way

[chadfarwell]

Horrible method, most of his time was spent looking down…no climber down there