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i knew a guy who fell once with the rope in his mouth. he didn't lose any teeth, but hurt his neck (whiplash or some such thing).

I was pumped out of my gord on Defy the Law at Left Flank yesterday and have only lead 5 climbs to my credit(officially on lead 1 week). I made the clip and fell off 1-2 moves afterward, but at the last bolt it is a little runout (a long way for my gumby psyche) i was biting the hell out of the rope as i kept dropping it, a bystanding group had their video camera out and were waiting for a massive whip from a hopelessly outmatched gumby (10A is within my limit, leading scares the pee out of me though), afterwards they reminded me to NEVER put it in my mouth, and explained they knew from prior experience how paper covers rock and rope obliterates teeth. i'll try gumming it from now on, but the thought did occur to me i could do some serious damage to my chompers and made clipping even more unenjoyable. I think do the pull, gum it, pull (while releasing rope), clip method from now on

For those who don't bite (or "gum") the rope at all, do you just never clip above your head, or do you do that little pull-pull-pull-pull-okay finally clip dance all the time?

I heard if you knock the sand out of your vagina, and just use your brain, you don't have to be a fucking pussy about climbing. Is this true?

Josephine wrote:So I heard this story about someone that was leading. He put the rope in his mouth to draw up more so he could clip. While the rope was in his mouth, he fell - and the rope pulled out lots of teeth.

can anyone verify if this is this true?

last year (while competing in the mixed open comp in ouray), the guy climbing in front of me did just this...

it's tougher to spit out a frozen rope...i think i saw a picture somewhere.

regards.

r.r.

I like to pick up the rope and drop it a couple of times to make sure my belayer is with me... Adds some flavor to the climbing experience..... I am still working on knocking the sand out of my vagina though. Maybe then I will start to send hard shit!

I was going to ask the same question Yasmeen. I think good advice to give a beginner instead of don't put the rope in your mouth is: don't get over your head to the point where you are risking more insisting on clipping instead of just taking the fall. Bite the rope if you need to in order to clip just don't get to a point where you are so afraid of falling that you'll not drop the rope out of your mouth when falling.

Good call, rhunt.

dmw - try the Matt Nasty trick of jumping off the route if you feel like your belayer's not with you.

Meadows wrote:I try not to put it in my mouth now, but when I do, I hold it with just my lips.

Hmm. No comment. Great quote though.

I always try to put as much rope down my throat as possible. If you jam enough in there you don't have to bite down.