Post by kensmall on Mar 29, 2014 10:18:44 GMT -8
In 1978, Chouinard published "Climbing Ice" and introduced the Chouinard Doctrine: Always hold the head of the axe with the pick-forward when self-belaying. The advantage is that "Most climbers don't ram the axe in with enough vigor to do them much good, and often the reason can be attributed to holding the axe with the pick backward. It becomes quite painful having the palm over the narrow pick." (pp.44-45) (But note the wider pick of the current BD axes.) His only defense of this doctrine against the obvious objection that if self-belay fails you must switch the position of the hand on the head of the axe is that "...this changeover shouldn't take more than half a second." (p.47).
Cosley and Houston ("Alpine Climbing") endorse the doctrine, but their defense against the obvious objection is not Chouinard's and is rather peculiar. Mike Zawaski, in the new Mountaineers book "Snow Climbing", explicitly takes the opposite line: "The self-belay technique entails using the self-arrest grip (one hand) or stake grip (two hands)...." (p. 83). and the pictures show that. (My own view, shared with some instructors in the Mtnrs is that the Chouinard doctrine is a crock, but let's forget that.)
This brings us to Freedom 8. You might think that by using the term "self-belay grasp" Freedom is fully endorsing the Chouinard doctrine. Not quite. After describing the necessity for changing to a self-arrest grasp in the event of a failure of self-belay (surely not just "after a slip"?) it says: "This takes practice. If a climber lacks the skill to shift from the self-belay grasp to the self-arrest grasp, it is safer to do self-belays while holding the ax head in the self-arrest grasp." (p. 332) This is odd. How do you know whether you have the skill or not? Can you just assume that if you can do it reliably in practice, you will surely be able to do it in a real failure of self-belay? That requires a stunning lack of intellectual caution. In a real fall there is a large element of surprise that you don't have with practice falls and its effect on the relevant probabilities is not known or knowable but surely could be quite large.
My recommendation here is that Freedom 9 drop the term "self-belay grasp" and present the pros and cons of the alternative practices as clearly as possible. When there are serious climbers on both sides of such an issue and no possibility of a knock-down argument that will snow that one side is right, that is the only reasonable line for a textbook to take.
Cosley and Houston ("Alpine Climbing") endorse the doctrine, but their defense against the obvious objection is not Chouinard's and is rather peculiar. Mike Zawaski, in the new Mountaineers book "Snow Climbing", explicitly takes the opposite line: "The self-belay technique entails using the self-arrest grip (one hand) or stake grip (two hands)...." (p. 83). and the pictures show that. (My own view, shared with some instructors in the Mtnrs is that the Chouinard doctrine is a crock, but let's forget that.)
This brings us to Freedom 8. You might think that by using the term "self-belay grasp" Freedom is fully endorsing the Chouinard doctrine. Not quite. After describing the necessity for changing to a self-arrest grasp in the event of a failure of self-belay (surely not just "after a slip"?) it says: "This takes practice. If a climber lacks the skill to shift from the self-belay grasp to the self-arrest grasp, it is safer to do self-belays while holding the ax head in the self-arrest grasp." (p. 332) This is odd. How do you know whether you have the skill or not? Can you just assume that if you can do it reliably in practice, you will surely be able to do it in a real failure of self-belay? That requires a stunning lack of intellectual caution. In a real fall there is a large element of surprise that you don't have with practice falls and its effect on the relevant probabilities is not known or knowable but surely could be quite large.
My recommendation here is that Freedom 9 drop the term "self-belay grasp" and present the pros and cons of the alternative practices as clearly as possible. When there are serious climbers on both sides of such an issue and no possibility of a knock-down argument that will snow that one side is right, that is the only reasonable line for a textbook to take.