Ok i must confess, sometimes for the fun of it, i like to point at the little overhand knots some climbers like to tie at the end of their Fig. 8 Follow Through knot on their harness and ask, “What’s that for? Decoration ahh?”
Trainee Instructors attached to me for that day will be grilled on the significance of that overhand knot especially if they teach it to the participants for the day. And the most common answer i get from climbers alike for the overhand knot is,
“I was told that it serves as a back-up knot”
Followed closely by, a sheepish grin and…
“I have too much excess rope in the tail…”
The devil in me will then start to probe the reasoning. Everything we do has to have a reason, a logic else why are we wasting time doing it? If there is excess rope at the tail end of the rope, it probably means you didn’t measure it properly right? So should we go back and retie the knot if we are trying to inculcate good habits in the climbers?
If that knot is meant to be a back up for the main Fig. 8 knot, then do you really think it will hold a climber’s weight if you get the Fig. 8 wrong? That tiny little knot with a miserable 1-2cm excess of tail just so that it looks tidy on your rope? Really? Some would point out to me that most adventure centres’ SOP’s are to have the knot and some books advocate it, even to the extend that some would say the knot is totally unsafe for climbing until the overhand knot is present. I do not reject any of those explanations, as long as you yourself are convinced by it. And that you are able to convince your participants about your reasoning. Because people will ask and if your answer does not hold water, then your standing as an instructor in front of them will decrease gradually.
This brings me to the question, was tying that overhand knot a standard or a preference? Standards are things that we need to teach because they are mandated in the syllabus. Preferences are what we prefer doing because of some reason or some past experience. Preferences usually do not have any safety implications. If it is so important, it would usually be a standard rather than a preference. So should an instructor be teaching standards or preferences? This is a fine line to draw and many of us will be grappling especially if the guidelines or syllabus or passing standards are not clear and definite. Are you able to differentiate between your preferences and the standards you are suppose to be teaching as an instructor?
Confessions of an Accidental Climber, Instructor 