Famously Racist
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9:33 para auriculares y cacao
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Wednesday
Tuesday
USA Belay
Informally and organically formed in 2019, USA Belay is a national coalition of highly skilled competition lead and top rope belayers. Members serve the Elite, Youth, Paraclimbing, and Collegiate competition climbing series’ primarily for USA Climbing, the national governing body for competition climbing in the United States. Core members of USA Belay are known to be among the world’s best belayers. Approximately 50 percent of USA Belay members identify as women and 50 percent as men.
USA Belay deploys officials-level supervisors (Head Belayers and Assistant Head Belayers) as well as many of the top-tier line belayers to U.S.-hosted Elite, Championship, and International climbing competitions for USA Climbing and the International Federation of Sport Climbing.
In late 2019, USA Belay members partnered with USA Climbing to publish a comprehensive Competition Belaying Handbook and official companion video. The Handbook was updated in 2023 and has been used by climbing federations around the world. USA Belay continues to create supportive collateral and develop procedures for USA Climbing including content for the USA Climbing website.
From 2021-2023 USA Belay produced demonstration videos for USA Climbing. Beginning in 2024 USA Belay began independently publishing collateral to Instagram and Youtube.
Since 2021, the overarching philosophical principals, or “pillars,” of USA Belay are:
Safety • Consistency • Professionalism
USA Belay belayers use the Modern US Belay Style which was developed in the US northeast and mid-Atlantic regions in the mid-2010s. Charlie Lamb is credited with standardizing a particular methodical physics-based approach; becoming the US Belay Style. ty hardaway is credited with the evolution of this technique adding field of play procedures and a belay organization structure: the Modern US Belay Style.
Modern US Belay Style is characterized by the use of manual belay devices (as mandated by IFSC), dynamic rope control, and active footwork in order to minimize extraneous hand, rope, visual, or focus adjustments. Modern US Belay emphasizes mental and physical training in addition to direct belay practice. In 2024 ty hardaway coined, “reps make reps” as in, repetitions make reputations.
Among many techniques and terms, Dynamic Rope Control, first appeared in 2019. The Soft Drape was initially deployed in 2020. Processional Safety Belayer first appeared in 2022. Rope Services appeared in 2024.
USA Belay has no formal leadership or organizational structure outside of the systems used by USA Climbing. USA Belay has an informal membership of somewhere between 12-20 top-tier belayers. There are well over 100 belayers associated with USA belay worldwide. USA Belay members work in partnership with USA Climbing Event Coordinators.
USA Belay counts on its membership to offer support and detailed critique to belayers who ask. It is important to members that ideas are shared freely for deliberation. It is equally important for the organizational structure to be democratic, agile, and fast-acting. The model for professionalism is as top-down as it is bottom-up.
ty hardaway served as the USA Climbing National Belay Coordinator from roughly 2018-2024. Toby Monroe is slated to serve as National Belay Coordinator beginning in the 2025 season.
delivering value to others by facilitating outcome they want to achieve
Wednesday
2424
"I hate the idea that I might know something"
"But other people celebrate you for knowing things"
"I know nothing"
Tuesday
Cardboard Box Factory
Cardboard Box Factory
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9:33 para auriculares y cacao
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Friday
2424
there are certain clarities that now exist
that may have not existed before
certain symbioses revealed as plainly obvious
and as plainly essential to quality survival
the clarity of data so utterly astounding
once interpretation is better understood
learning shall continue for one and for all
if one and all accept learning as essential to quality survival
with open heart and mind and spirit
space and opportunity for learning opens
irrefutable evidence pointing
to certain conclusions
more puzzle than dictum
more exam than rule
Wednesday
Monday
USA Belay
photo by James Whitesides
Anyone who has belayed at an event with me has heard me ask, often at surprising or intense moments, "How do you belay?" It's a line that's always good for a funny and distracting moment of lightness. I don't want anyone belaying tense.
In 2017, John Moriarty and I decided to volunteer at a Youth Series competition in Pennsylvania. The volunteers were summoned to the back of the gym and the event organizer asked, "Who knows how to belay?" Several dads raised their proud papa hands and one fella kind of half raised his. John asked, "Well, can you belay?" The volunteer said, "On paper, but I've never done it at a..." John nudged (shoved?) him to the other side of the room and declared, "There! You're a judge!" If you know John, you know that he slayed with that bit. To this day, whenever we see each other we say, "On paper", or ask, "How do you belay?"
Competition belaying has come a very long way in the past decade. No longer is "the belay team" the four dads drinking beer in the parking lot of the local youth competition along with two day-of volunteers in flip flops. No longer are women given the top rope climbs because they are too light to belay lead.
At current championship and elite series climbing events, trained and experienced women and men deploy from around the country ready to serve athletes and sport in a safe, consistent, and professional manner. Every belayer is prepared and ready to rope like pros they are. And, yes, women belay men and men belay women. It's a skills thing, not about relative weight. We buried that myth.
In 2015, and after careful study, I really started to understand competition belaying. There were needs and there were aspirations. Varying belay friends and colleagues nerded out into the wee hours about technique, style, process, and procedure.
I was brought up by my mentor, Ike Jariel, and studied under Charlie Lamb. These are legends in the US Style. Mostly what I learned from them was that belaying was serious business. Belayers hold life and limb in their hands. Athletes had to have faith in these grubby strangers. But I noticed that when people saw Charlie and Ike they knew they could focus on climbing and not as much on their safety.
We discussed angles, slip speed, S-curves, vocabulary, and footwork. We pondered how to destroy the old boy's club image, how to eliminate glory and pity belaying. We talked of systems, data, teams, and supervisory responsibilities. We wanted to build something self-sustaining. We wanted to build something beautiful, important, and powerful.
We debated with host gyms over techniques and equipment. We convinced the US federation that we had ideas and plans. We wrote a book. We shared resources.
Why we do what we do is a bit of a mystery--perhaps there is a certain thrill in engaging the mind for hours of intense, sustained focus or maybe we have all learned to use our bodies and skills to give the softest, safest belay. Maybe it's the purity of the challenge or maybe it's a rare opportunity to demonstrate something so skilled that mostly only those who knew really knew. We saw what happened at the intersection of belief and skill.
The modern competition belayer is intelligent, fit, practiced, and holds
their work to the highest standards. The modern elite belayers train as
athletes and practice their craft. And, for certain, those who do it the best really, really know how to do a thing. And this group is growing quickly.
I believe it was these words that I came across many years ago that solidified that we were not alone and that we were absolutely right:
"The goal is actually more practical than just a 'soft catch', it is more centered around physics of keeping all the fall forces downwards and preventing them from turning into dangerous lateral momentum. In competition climbing there are often big traverses and they can sometimes be a bit run out in a way. By gradually slowing the fall rather than catching it, all the force generated is absorbed by gravity, rather than turning into lateral motion that could potentially slam the climber into the wall and cause injury.
If you catch a big pendulum fall, the sudden force of the rope going
taunt will slam the climber into the wall, or maybe even sideways into
another climber, which is very dangerous."
C250585 • 9y ago • Edited 9y ago
I will never know who C250585 is but never were there truer, clearer words. Thank you C250585!
And because of intense cognitive and financial resources utilized in conjunction with thousands of belays, we have landed here: the Modern US Style. We have introduced a ton of new concepts and vocabulary. We know how to perform to the highest standards. Safety, consistency, and professionalism is baked into everything we do.
We will continue to publish documents and videos. We continue to share. Our big tent is open to anyone and everyone. While only a few belayers will become legendary like Ike and Charlie, a giant group will be far, far about serviceable. I will continue to try hard to do a good job.
Wednesday
Friday
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