Hi! My name is Jason Montecalvo with Sportrock Climbing Centers and today were learning how to safely top-rope climb in an indoor rock climbing facility. Remember, climbing is inherently a dangerous activity and you need to seek professional assistance from certified instructors prior to engaging in this.

Now, what were going to learn is our 10 safety checks as a climber and belayer. We are not only responsible for checking ourselves but checking each other out as well. In order to do this, we have an easy way to remember our safety checks and were going to do our A-B-C's, A standing for Anchor, B standing for Belayer and C standing for Climber. We start by looking at the ground anchor and we have two checks on the ground anchor. Check number one is the ground anchor tight. Second, we want to make sure that our carabiner we use to clip in is locked. Next, well move to B, B for belayer. The first check a belayer gets is, making sure their harness in on properly meaning that it is closed, and snug on your body. The second check is the fact that I have clipped in to my belay loop with my carabiner appropriately. Third check, my carabiner is locked and I can do that by squeezing it. The fourth check is, by making sure that my belay device is loaded properly with a brake coming out in front of me and the climbing rope inside the carabiner.

The last check will be C, C stands for climber. On the climber we have four checks as well. The first check is at the harness, is fit on her properly meaning that again, it is snug and all three buckles are closed then we will work our way out by making sure the climber has tied into the crotch strap as well as the bridge, the two points worth of contact. Third, were going to look that this knot, the Figure Eight Follow Through, is tied correctly, where we see three sets of parallel lines and last, for our fourth check, we want to make sure that our backup knot or our double overhand knot is tied correctly as well with a little equals and a multiplication sign leaving us a little bit of access to finish. Next, we will be learning how to use our belay commands properly and our belay vocabulary.