Lead belay question

[Frogger]

General question about lead belay:

Should the belayer always be within arm's length of the wall, or directly below the first bolt while belaying?

The reason I ask, it seems that whenever my belayer stands away from the wall ~8ft, he tends to give me a really hard catch. Seems like he simply gets dragged towards the wall, instead of jumping up. Most of the shocks seems to be taken up by the rope stretch and my back. Even if he did jump, by standing farther from the wall, it seems like unnecessary extra rope in the system that will increase the length of the fall.

He tends to dis-agree with me on this point and I see a lot of people regularly standing away from the wall/first bolt. I feel like a dick asking him to stand closer to the wall, so I want to make sure that I am correct on this point and not missing something.

[pkananen]

I generally am right under the bolt (or slightly to the side, so I'm not right under the climber) until they are at bolt 4 or 5, then I back up a bit.

[tbwilsonky]

I generally am right under the bolt (or slightly to the side, so I'm not right under the climber) until they are at bolt 4 or 5, then I back up a bit.

yep. tell your buddy to get with the program.

[Andrew]

yep

[climb2core]

http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/for ... ost=813337

[bcrock]

Get a new belay person.

[pigsteak]

stay in the gym

[Josephine]

Get a new belay person.

+1

[Brentucky]

In climbing I don't think the belayer should "always" be anything, other than aware. In general you are correct and your buddy is wrong.

[krampus]

maybe not in general, but this time at least