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Top tips for climbing coaches
1. Don’t be upset that not everyone wants to be a climber - give them credit for trying.
2. If you have to encourage and cajole someone every inch of the way up, you may have chosen the wrong route.
3. Never work beyond your ability, experience or insurance cover.
4. Learn about the local flora, geology and history. Your days out will be richer and so will those of your clients.
5. Protect yourself. If you are not attached to something you are not setting a good example to your group.
6. Try to belay where you can see your seconds, even if that means that you don’t belay where the guidebook suggests.
7. Appropriately used, a guidebook with the grades removed is a good tool to help with the mental issues associated with breaking through personal grade boundaries.
8. A group with time on their hands and nothing to do will find something to do. It won’t always be sensible!
9. If you allow your client to check everything with you every time, what will they do when you’re not there?
10. Don’t second-guess your assessor; you’ll be trying to work out what they want, instead of concentrating on what you should be doing.
The above tips are an extract from “Top tips
for climbing coaches” by Paul Smith which is published by Pesda Press www.pesdapress.com. It contains over 300 top tips and handy hints
for climbing coaches. The book
is a must have for all aspirant
Rock Climbing Instructors.
Also available is Climbing Games also written by Paul Smith
Appointments 2 Foreward 3 Membership Benefits 4 Diary 5 Lake District Meet 7 Book Reviews 8 Sleeping Mat Review 16 Photo Competition 18 When is a big wall, not a big wall? 20 James McHaffie Interview 22 Exercise Dragon Venturer Canada 2014 24 Good Morning Yosemite 27 Army Cadet Expedition Kenya 2014 30 DMM Ice Axe Review 32 Exercise Black Gendarme 34 A Guide’s guide to The Matterhorn 38 Exercise Cadet Rock, Spain 40 Exercise Alaskan Bugle 42 Exercise Tiger Torres 47
Cover photo credit: Dick Gale
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