Not so obvious GriGri Mistake!

Oh boy, oh boy. I received a picture

from a follower of mine and she told me

that she was using GriGri

and managed to burn her left hand

quite badly.

So long story short this is what happened.

She was giving slack

and the climber fell at that moment.

Did you notice something wrong?

This is actually very common mistake

I see people do with the GriGri.

When we give slack like this.

So as always instead of telling you
what to do or

what not to do I put this to the test.

OK, go!

Fuck!

Oh, shit!

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep, yep, yep.

My hand would been completely burned.

All right, so as I demonstrated
many times already

pressing on GriGri's cam

and not holding the
brake side of the rope

the GriGri will not lock.

If you hold the brake side of the rope

and press on GriGri's cam,
GriGri will lock.

Having a loop here

is exactly the same

as not holding the rope

while all of this loop goes in.

And then the GriGri will lock.

So why do people do this?

And there are two reasons for that.

First one is that belayers are afraid to

short rope the climber

in case there is a tangle in the rope.

So we are afraid that

something is there wrong

and they will be giving slack

and the GriGri will lock. Accidentally.

So to avoid that problem

obviously ideal is to stack the rope

nicely before the climb,

but things happen.

So instead of doing this

I recommend when the climber is
in less intense situation

and you have more freedom
at your belaying

you should prepare
the rope in front of you.

So this is what you do.

You take some of the rope,

you untangle it if it's needed

and you put in front of you.

Notice that I will never lose the control

of the brake side of the rope.

And then I will have
no trouble giving slack

Now reason number two why people do this

is in situations where we just took slack

and now we need
to give slack quickly back.

So we do this.

Which is again bad idea.

Instead of that

you should simply give slack like this,

now press on GriGri's cam,

grab here and give more slack if needed.

So that's it. Enjoy climbing. Stay safe.

Consider supporting me.

And see you in the next video. Ciao!