Page 47 - 2019 AMA Summer

The main thing I realised when doing RCI training was that its’s a very intense course with lots to learn if you’re new to it; rigging bottom ropes, group abseils, top ropes etc as well as group management situations which were alien to me such as managing a dozen 9 year olds in a climbing wall all riding the sugar-high of birthday cake and jelly. This was a great refresher and highlighted a couple of bad habits I’d picked up over the years which I can now iron out before assessment. It also confirmed to me that I did know 90% of what I needed to know and was probably at the assessment standard overall.
The handy thing was that after I made Sam aware of my long-term goal of MIA, she drip fed me extra pointers to take forward to build good habits for that. I think that whoever you did a training course with, if you could show that you are already competent then they will attempt to give you additional training beyond the bare requirements of the course syllabus.
The best thing was that after I did the maths I realised that the £210 I paid for my course, minus my SLC allowance (80% of the course cost up to £175) was actually cheaper than the £50 I would have to pay the MTA for my exemption,
and that’s assuming that I would be granted exemption first time and not told that I needed to do more and pay a further £50 at a later point.
So to summarise; is it worth doing the training course even if you have the pre requisites to get exemption? Yes, absolutely.
Is March the perfect time of year to do your RCI Training? No, it’s bloody freezing.
ARMY MOUNTAINEER / 47