Picture this: You’re on a desperate lead and fighting to stay on. You’re trying to get your fingers to close but your forearms are absolutely destroyed. You half-heartedly lunge for a hold, knowing that you’ll probably take a fall. But all of a sudden you’re upside down and you’ve smacked your head on the wall. What happened???
The likely culprit? Your foot got in front of the rope! Here’s a nifty little pic I drew to illustrate what I’m talking about:
[This is a view of the back of the climber.]
Note that the rope is behind the climber’s right leg. Go through in your head what would happen if this climber were to fall. Instead of falling normally, the rope going behind his leg would flip him upside down. I should have drawn a nasty little spike or ledge that he could hit his head on…
Keeping your leg behind the rope is what you need to do. This is still something that I struggle with from time to time. One way to get out of the bad habit is for you and your partners to watch each other and call each other out if one of you mess up.
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