How to Tie Knots

Chris Conrad: Hi my name is Chris Conrad and I am an Assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 165 in Fredericksburg, Virginia and we are here at camp William B. Snyder in Haymarket, Virginia and today I am going to be teaching you about everyday knots that can be used for a variety of the applications. Some of the knots are Boy Scout knots, like the square knots, two-half line hitch and clove hitch. Other knots since they have really interesting names like the alpine butterfly and the turquoise turtle. Now, to get started you need a piece of cord or rope two or three pieces if possible. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 8 feet in length and if you have different color cords, that can really be useful in understanding the structure of various knots. In addition to the cord you will need a stationary object like a rail or the back of a chair or even a door handle, for some of the hitches that will be tie. One thing to keep in mind is that some of the knots that I will teaching you today, could be used for rock climbing or for sailing or for other hazards activities and you need to make sure that if are going to be engaging in any of these activities that you receive training from qualified instructors. Make sure that whenever children, little children are using cord or rope that they are supervised. Now, knots are called by various names, but they all break down into three or four different categories. Anytime you attach a line or a rope to an object and tie off to that object that s called a hitch. If you ever tie one piece of rope to another piece of rope and make a connection that s called a bend. Knots that are created without using the end of the line, they are called loops and just of that everything else is called a knot, although there is no real hard rules about that. In general we could really just call everything a knot. Some other terms that we will be using today are for example, working end. The working end is a line that we were using is the one that does all the work. So, this end of the line is the one who is going to be doing all of the overs and unders and tucks and turns. The other end of the rope which isn t doing anything is called the standing part and for the most part, it does stand still. We will on occasions create what is called a bite, which is simply like a loop. We also have what s called a turn, when you go around an object and a round turn when you go around an object twice. Now, we were just about ready to get started tying knots, but before we do I wanted to tell you a little bit of about myself. I have been tying knots and teaching Cub Scout, Boys Scout and adult leaders, how to tie knots for about 12 years. I have organized and run two Guinness world records in knot tying events and I am a member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers.

Well, I think we are ready to started tying knots.