Tuesday 17 September 2013

Climbing Wall Leading Award Training

Today I was directing a CWLA Training for myself at The Ice Factor. Oli, James and Cam were all keen to get to grips with the skills, drills and judgments involved in getting students leading on artificial surfaces.
We looked at gathering information on students, equipment, warming up and a nice slow progression with lots of games to introduce the new lead climber to clipping efficiently in the morning. In the afternoon we were looking at the other end of the rope at first with lead belaying exercises, the importance of belayer position and then putting it all together on the right route for the new lead climber and belayer. Then it was on to 'm belaying' and larger falls and problem avoidance and solving. A final session on lesson planning for 3 different types of potential students and we moved onto a discussion of consolidation and the requirements for assessment before our final review.
George from MTS was there to moderate most of the day and give me feedback too.
These courses are relatively rare in Scotland but are as interesting to direct as they are to attend. If you are interested in this sort of thing then Ian Fenton's book Lead Climbing from Pesda Press is a great reference.
I was a little busy to take many pics for much of the day but here are some of the very end of the falling progression.





 (7 stone weight difference in favour of the belayer and he still takes to the air)
Ummm, spot the problem... and then what?

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