Joel Self - 179189

On this date I assisted CWA qualified, Sarah Allan. This particular session ran for an hour and a half, and was a competent adults group. I am unaware of the age range we had present at this session. The session had the same plan as the two earlier competent juniors sessions but was far more relaxed. The group all kicked off by doing some very simple traversing and then to move onto top roping (bottom roping).
Having attended this group personally when I lived locally to this wall I knew the standard of climbing was high from most of the group. It was for this reason Sarah gave me the two beginner climbers who had just moved out of the adult course, in which they learn to belay, tie-in and the fundamentals of climbing.
As Sarah chatted and worked through routes with the rest of the group I worked with my pair. It became apparent rather quickly that one of my pair was very competent and the other not so. As the more competent of the pair climbed I backed up the belayer, and explained how he could better his technique and how also his position in relation to the wall could be better.
After that initial reminder from me the pair were quite happy to rotate around through some different routes and to belay for one another as I backed them up, pointing things out when necessary.
At the end of the session the group slowly dispersed and went off home.
The group knew how to tie-in using a re-threaded figure of eight and to use a fisherman`s bend as a stopper knot above that figure of eight. They also all knew how to belay competently with a bug, and some different belaying patterns were shown by different group members, which was good to see. Sarah explained to me that just as with the group from earlier in the day, she had taught them three or four different ways of belaying with a bug and allowed them to use whichever they felt most comfortable with.

After tying in to each of their climbs and `buddy checking` they would start climbing. As the group started rotating around a bit through some different routes Sarah asked me to belay for one of the boys whilst she belayed the other. My young climber and I moved through several routes during the course of the session, all the while I was also keeping an eye on the pair of girls who remained climbing independently. With about fifteen minutes left mine and Sarah`s climbers paired back up and did their last climbs together. Whilst we discussed the group dynamic and how the two pairs had worked.
At the end of the session the group all did one last little bit of traversing before they left for home.