How to tie into the harness with Perfect Figure 8 knot every time

The fastest method to tie a Figure 8 knot into the climbing harness.
100% perfect and easy to untie.

Figure 8 is the most popular knot for Rock Climbing, because it is very hard to mess up and super easy to double check.

Alternatively people choose to use Bowline (one of the 5 safe variations), because they have / had trouble untying Figure 8 after hard Climbing falls.
However as I've shown in this video: https://youtu.be/QAr-uHd8h8o
If you tie your Figure 8 properly you won't have any trouble to untie it later.

If you are a bowline user keep in mind that most of the people don't know how to double check your knot.
And if you never tied a bowline before and someone asks you to double check his bowline - don't do that! Instead, tell the person "I don't know how to check your knot please double check it your self".

P.S. If you wonder why I call this NINJA method it's because I learned this from Korean climber who looked super strong and fast like a NINJA :DDDD

0:00 Intro
0:53 Doing initial figure 8
4:21 Harness
7:08 Follow through method
10:34 Don't cross load figure 8
10:53 Bonus

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Because that makes a big difference and is the main reason I do this project!
Deep Thanks!
Ben

- In this video,

we are gonna learn the
fastest way of tying your rope

into the harness, using
the figure of eight knot.

And this method is great
because it will always,

always end up as a
perfect figure of eight.

Like so.

Ta-da.

It will never have any
overlapping strands,

and it will be in a version
which is easy to untie.

If you missed this video,

I showed you that there are
two figure of eight knots.

Two versions of the same
knot that look very similar,

but we load completely
different during the fall.

And one of them is easier
to untie after a hard fall.

And then I received a lot of questions,

"But which version is stronger?"

(mechanical whirring)

So you will see that a little bit later,

but first, let's learn how
to tie the good version.

In case you're left-handed,

you might want to mirror everything

what I will be explaining.

So when I say right hand,

you use your other right hand.

Okay?

So let's begin.

Grab the rope with your right hand

and extend it to the side.

And with the left hand,

you will be measuring the amount
of rope that you will need.

This measurement will eliminate the issue

of not having enough
rope to finish the knot,

or having too much of the rope,

where you end up with
a very, very long tail.

And this is bad because during the climb,

you might actually accidentally
grab it and try to clip it.

To deal with this problem,

you will see people tying a stopper knot,

or a double fisherman's knot,

or some even call this a safety knot.

And you have to know

that this knot adds absolutely
no safety to figure of eight.

Figure of eight does not
need any extra backups.

It's a safe knot by itself.

And then the second problem with this is

that it gets in the way

if you are clipping close to yourself.

So if the quickdraw is here,
you will grab the rope.

And then the knot kind of
gets stuck in the quickdraw,

if you are unlucky.

So it's better to eliminate
this tail completely

and have a tail, which is short,

but not shorter than 10 centimeters,

which is about the width of your palm.

So in my case, I have one and a half.

Now, where to measure
depends on two things,

the thickness of your rope,

and of course your body size.

So personally, for me,

with 9.5 millimeters rope,

I measure around till this point.

If the rope is thicker, I go more.

And if the rope is slimmer,
of course, I go less.

So just tie a couple of figure of eights,

and then you will find
out what works for you.

Okay, now you will need to do
a little bit of multitasking.

At the same time when your
right arm goes to the side,

you need your left arm in a way

that its palm facing the same direction,

and the thumb is facing down.

So then you put your
rope on top of your thumb

and make a little loop, like
so, with the index finger.

So you extend,

you measure the rope,

and then the next step is
to twist the wrist like so.

And then you have this loop

where you put your tail
through and pull up.

You twist and twist,

and then put the tail
through the top loop.

At this point, don't let
the knot drop, like so.

This is bad because you
will lose the measurement

that you did.

Instead, you need to hold
the loop with your left hand

and pull the tail up.

So, slow-mo, extend,
measure, twist, twist,

and the tail goes through the top.

And full speed version,

extend, twist, twist, bam.

So if you did everything correctly,

you will have something like
this, the figure of eight sign.

But if you get this, then you
didn't twist it enough times.

Okay? And now we pass the
rope through the harness.

Most of the harnesses
have three loops, 1, 2, 3.

The leg loop, the waist
loop, and the middle loop

which connects these two.

And the middle loop is called belay loop.

So you want your rope
to go through leg loop

and then waist loop, like so.

Now, a fun question.

Do you think this will hold me or not?

It already connects to these two, right?

So it should hold.

So the answer is, yes, it will hold you.

But this is why you don't want to do that.

You use your belay loop
for attaching many things,

like your sling and a belay device.

So as you can see, this
might get really crowded

and uncomfortable to work with.

And the second reason is because leg loop

and waist loop has extra protection

to protect from the rope
wearing the harness quickly.

Okay, then another question.

Can you do this?

Where you're tying only into the leg loop?

It's connected to everything.

It has extra protection, right?

So in this case, the answer is no.

Because when you take a fall,

your legs will be loaded
more than the waist,

and you will have a tendency
to flip upside down.

So ideally you want your
rope to go through leg loop

and the waist loop.

And probably I hurt some
expert feelings right here

that will say that going
bottom up is incorrect.

What they will say that you
need to go top down, like so.

And the only reason why they say this is

because if you go bottom
up and somehow you manage

to miss the waist loop,

you will end up only on the
bottom loop, which is dangerous.

Where on the contrary,

if you go top down and
you somehow miss a hole,

you will end up with the
top loop, the waist loop,

which is okay.

So if you're a person who
can easily miss a hole,

then better go top down.

But for the rest of you,

bottom up is more convenient

and that's what most of the people do.

A little pro tip.

While putting the rope
through the harness,

you have your belay loop
kind of in your way.

So you will be choosing
whether you want your rope

to go on this side or that side.

And actually going this side is easier

than you have your belay loop
on the right of the rope.

You can also go that way,

but then you have to
take with your left hand

on your right side, which
is not so convenient,

but it works.

Then you would have your belay
loop on the left of the rope.

But I prefer going to this
side because it's faster.

Next, you need to trace the
original figure of eight

with your tail.

And this is where the most people mess up.

And actually you can blame
a lot of climbing coaches

and video tutorials for this.

Because all they say is to
follow the figure of eight

with your tail and you will be fine.

But there are so many ways
to do this follow through.

And most of these ways lead
to a really funky knot.

So instead,

just follow what I will
be doing very precisely

and you will have no problems.

First of all,

make sure that this line
goes to the right side.

If I would flip the knot,

now this line goes to the left.

So you want your knot to look like this.

Then you put your tail in
between of these two strands.

So you kind of make a
little bit of space here

and push your tail through.

At this point,

you need to pull the knot
close to your harness.

And this is very, very important.

If you don't do this,

you will end up with the big
loop in front of your knot.

And this is dangerous because
it can get stuck somewhere

on the rock, or you can
even accidentally clip

into the quickdraw into it.

And I've seen this happen.

Okay?

And then you continue tracing
the original figure of eight

by putting your tail on top of it.

Then it goes into this hole.

Like so.

Then it goes around and
finishes in this hole.

Like so.

And the only thing left
is to tighten the knot.

So I like to grab all the knot
loosely with my left hand,

take the tail with the right hand

and pull and push at
the same time, like so.

And then switch right hand to another tail

and repeat the process.

Done.

If you want the knot to be even tighter,

you can grab this, pull,
left hand switches,

pull, right hand switches, pull,

left hand switches, pull.

This will make the knot even tighter,

but usually this, and switch,

this is enough.

So if you did everything correctly,

you will have 1, 2, 3,
4, 5 parallel strands

on both sides of the knot.

And none of these strands
are crossing each other.

And if you messed up with
your original measurement

and your tail is slightly too long,

you can still tie a stopper
knot by going around

and putting the tail through itself.

Like so.

And make sure that it's
close to the figure of eight.

So this is the end result.

But as I already said, this
knot doesn't add any safety.

It is just to manage the
rope from dangling around.

So it's much better if you
have something like this,

where this tail is short
and you don't even need

this knot to begin with.

And so repeat this process multiple times,

and then you will develop a muscle memory

where you can do it blindfolded.

Just in case you will get stuck in dark

and need to tie your figure of eight,

which will probably never ever happen.

Boom.

Like a ninja.

And like a true ninja,

you should know what you should
not do with figure of eight.

Figure of eight is designed to be pulled

along this axis only.

Never clip and pull like this.

This is called a cross loading,

and it will make the knot to
slip and do all funky things.

And it might even undo.

(rope whooshing)

Bonus time.

In the beginning of the video,

I told you that there are
two figure of eight knots

or two versions of the same knot.

And one of them is easier to untie.

But the question is,
which one is stronger?

So let's find out.

Load line goes on the top.

Here, load line goes in the middle.

So let's find out which one is stronger.

(car engine whirring)

(he laughs)

So do you think that
I'm so crazy to do this?

Hell, yeah.

(he laughs)

No, no, no.

I don't want to risk some
projectiles flying into my van.

Instead, I called my good buddy Ryan

from YouTube channel HowNOTtoHIGHLINE,

where he makes things go kaboom.

- And welcome to my garage,

where we have a slack snap machine.

It's a big giant rectangle.

Let me show you how it works.

- And so, after he
snapped a bunch of knots,

the results were that all
of them were way stronger

than any climbing fall
that you might encounter.

So don't worry about that.

But if you want to find out
which version is stronger,

watch Ryan's video.

No, for real,

go check out this guy's channel.

He does a lot of cool stuff.

He breaks a lot of climbing equipment

and he even pulls out the cams and friends

out of real rocks to
show how much they hold.

And if you like what he's doing,

don't forget to support him.

And same, don't forget to support me.

Because you like my videos, right?

That's it. Done.

Ah no, I'm gonna steal the Ryan's outro.

- It's that's simple.

If you're gonna take 20 minutes

and try to perfect your knot at the gym,

and you're holding up other parties,

tell them about our videos
and share it with them.

So they don't hate you nearly as much.

And they understand why
you're holding their party up.

Instead of you smashing your
figure eights with hammers,

trying to untie them
because you did it wrong,

smash that like button and
make sure you subscribe.

See ya.