Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

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Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Crockett » Jun 8, 2012 8:49 am

Is "Sit Stand" in the vertical contest a classic (or modified) frog system with mechanical ascenders?

My grandson thinks he wants to compete so we are practicing beyond the typical rope walker with frog and knots.

Getting a frog system adjusted for a small person is a challenge. We found some success replacing the chest harness (I have tried 3 different styles on him) with a bungee cord over the shoulder (Pup style?) and then just as a bungee cord loop around his neck with some shielding. Any opinions or advice about Pup style? Any additional ideas?

One more question for you contest experts: is a Mitchell system allowed in the mechanical competition? I assume yes but you never know. I read the rules online and they made my head spin.

Color this with the enthusiasm of a 10 year old. I have explained that it is a fun way to be ready to go places on a rope, not an end in itself. He is likely to lose interest in the vertical competition upon his first encounter with the JSS.
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Extremeophile » Jun 8, 2012 9:32 am

Crockett wrote:Is "Sit Stand" in the vertical contest a classic (or modified) frog system with mechanical ascenders?

My grandson thinks he wants to compete so we are practicing beyond the typical rope walker with frog and knots.

Getting a frog system adjusted for a small person is a challenge. We found some success replacing the chest harness (I have tried 3 different styles on him) with a bungee cord over the shoulder (Pup style?) and then just as a bungee cord loop around his neck with some shielding. Any opinions or advice about Pup style? Any additional ideas?

One more question for you contest experts: is a Mitchell system allowed in the mechanical competition? I assume yes but you never know. I read the rules online and they made my head spin.

Color this with the enthusiasm of a 10 year old. I have explained that it is a fun way to be ready to go places on a rope, not an end in itself. He is likely to lose interest in the vertical competition upon his first encounter with the JSS.

Hi Mike.
I believe the "Sit Stand" category is as broad as the title, i.e. any Frog or Texas style ascending system where you sit and stand with both legs at the same time. I don't think there are any restrictions regarding the type of ascenders. Even a Pantin foot ascender has been allowed, as long as it is a sit-stand climbing motion.

The "mechanical" category captures most other climbing systems including rope-walker and Mitchell.

My kids did the JSS program last year and had a blast. The people that run this program are my heroes.

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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Scott McCrea » Jun 8, 2012 11:00 am

I don't know if it will work on a mini-person but I find the neck bungee to work better if I put one arm thru the loop—sort of sling style.

I haven't started my kids with vert stuff, yet. I'm hoping for more attention span before we try.
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Rick Brinkman » Jun 8, 2012 12:24 pm

Over the past few weeks I've been making a series of videos showing the different types of chest harnesses for the frog system. Feel free to watch all the videos, but I'd have your grandson try this one. It's a Figure 8 type harness that mimics an H type.

The link will take you directly to the correct place in the video.

http://youtu.be/e_qxfPQaHvw?t=3m14s
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby UnderGroundEarth » Jun 8, 2012 1:32 pm

Crockett wrote:Is "Sit Stand" in the vertical contest a classic (or modified) frog system with mechanical ascenders?

My grandson thinks he wants to compete so we are practicing beyond the typical rope walker with frog and knots.

Getting a frog system adjusted for a small person is a challenge. We found some success replacing the chest harness (I have tried 3 different styles on him) with a bungee cord over the shoulder (Pup style?) and then just as a bungee cord loop around his neck with some shielding. Any opinions or advice about Pup style? Any additional ideas?

One more question for you contest experts: is a Mitchell system allowed in the mechanical competition? I assume yes but you never know. I read the rules online and they made my head spin.

Color this with the enthusiasm of a 10 year old. I have explained that it is a fun way to be ready to go places on a rope, not an end in itself. He is likely to lose interest in the vertical competition upon his first encounter with the JSS.


The Pup's Pal that Bruce at On Rope 1 sells was actually invented by Jason Hardy. Jason designed it a few years ago at a caving event using a bungee he bought from Bruce and 1/2" webbing he bought from Howie. Pup wanted one and built one too. Bruce then dubbed it the Pup's Pal and now sells it with a 1" webbing on it. Jason actually doesn't recommend using it for beginners.
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Chads93GT » Jun 8, 2012 10:19 pm

I take it by not using the traditional harness, and using the bungee, requires more core strength yes? Afterall, ive always had to wrench the harness down to keep the croll from flopping, this keeps me closer to the rope without trying, but also makes so i cant stand up once i get off rope without loosening the harness.
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby UnderGroundEarth » Jun 11, 2012 3:48 pm

Chads93GT wrote:I take it by not using the traditional harness, and using the bungee, requires more core strength yes? Afterall, ive always had to wrench the harness down to keep the croll from flopping, this keeps me closer to the rope without trying, but also makes so i cant stand up once i get off rope without loosening the harness.



Yes because the bungee is not going to hold you close to the rope like a traditional chest harness can, you need to have good form for it to work best.
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Chads93GT » Jun 11, 2012 9:34 pm

But the main benefit is reduced bulk right?
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby chh » Jun 11, 2012 9:39 pm

I'd stick a 10 year old in a bungee over the shoulder vs. a sewn or webbing harness for a couple of reasons. First, if they're just learning, throwing a loop over your shoulder makes sense, there's nothing to cinch or tie. You can't put it on wrong. One less thing they have to keep track of, one less thing for you to harp on while teaching them.
Second, it's cheap and easily replaceable, important if you anticipate a wane in enthusiasm.
Third, you can't get the wrong size.
Fourth, if competition is a goal, good form is important. If you need more strength and better form with a bungee harness (not entirely sure I buy that btw, but that's another conversation) then it makes sense to practice with a chest harness that makes you stronger and better, right? :big grin:
Fifth, kids won't care what they have so long as it works, simpler is better.
Sixth, if I can get by with it, a 10 year old shouldn't have any problem, since we're probably on similar wavelengths. And now, back to my regularly scheduled cartoons...
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Crockett » Jun 12, 2012 9:53 am

Thanks for all the great replys. He likes the "Hardy Harness" for most of the reasons listed. He made the all star baseball team and that may interfere.
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby NZcaver » Jun 13, 2012 3:24 pm

UnderGroundEarth wrote:The Pup's Pal that Bruce at On Rope 1 sells was actually invented by Jason Hardy. Jason designed it a few years ago at a caving event using a bungee he bought from Bruce and 1/2" webbing he bought from Howie. Pup wanted one and built one too. Bruce then dubbed it the Pup's Pal and now sells it with a 1" webbing on it. Jason actually doesn't recommend using it for beginners.

Interesting.This is similar to the bungy neck loop I made up for myself and a bunch of grotto members 10 years ago, except my version was joined with a small brass spring clip which attaches to the top of the Croll. Unfortunately I don't have any photos, but this post from 2008 has a few more details. I recall getting the idea from a Texas caver at NCRC in 2002. He was using a simple bungy cord, and I added the webbing and clip in my version. Funny how 'original' ideas move around the caving community, isn't it?

Crockett - if I still had one of these neck loops laying around I'd happily give it to you. They are really simple to make. Hope your grandson has a fun time climbing!
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Tim White » Jun 19, 2012 7:47 am

Trying not to get :off topic: but there is very little being "invented" in the vertical rope world today that is original. Good ideas that are improvements on older inventions. Sometimes the “inventions” are ideas and techniques that were tried before and abandoned for good reasons.

Take a look at the Nylon Highway archives and there you will find many old and what you may think are new inventions or techniques that were developed long ago.
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby UnderGroundEarth » Jun 19, 2012 2:57 pm

Tim White wrote:Trying not to get :off topic: but there is very little being "invented" in the vertical rope world today that is original. Good ideas that are improvements on older inventions. Sometimes the “inventions” are ideas and techniques that were tried before and abandoned for good reasons.

Take a look at the Nylon Highway archives and there you will find many old and what you may think are new inventions or techniques that were developed long ago.


Tim, can you be more specific as to which issue this frog bungee chest harness was mentioned? There are a ton of issues to go thru to find it. When Jason came up with his design in 2007 he never knew about it before or that someone else has tried this in the past. I'd be interested in reading more about it.

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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby NZcaver » Jun 19, 2012 10:50 pm

I may be wrong, but I think Tim was just making a general comment rather than referring to a specific article about using bungy cord as a frog chest harness.

If you're looking for some kind of precedent, I might have written about this in an old grotto newsletter but I'm not sure. I know I have photos of cavers in frog systems with bungy cord neck loops (can't really call this thing a "chest harness") from pre-2005. One thing I'm sure of - this wasn't my original idea either.

If you're really interested, here's the gist of what I recall about using bungy cord to support the Croll in a frog system:

NZcaver wrote:Back in 2003 I noticed another caver using a simple bungy loop around the neck in place of a regular frog chest harness/loop. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so naturally I copied it. Other friends also liked this design, so I made up a handful of these cheap loops for them. My versions used elastic bungy cord inside tubular webbing, tied in a loop with a small brass spring clip to attach to the top of the Croll.

The neck loop concept is small, light, cheap and works pretty well, but there are a couple of caveats you should know about. If you're climbing with a heavy pack (eg multi-day trip, lots of camera gear, rope bags, etc), you will lose efficiency big-time. As you stand up, the bungy will stretch because of the weight of extra equipment hanging off your central screw link. Therefore the Croll will only move up the rope a small amount with every climb stroke. From personal experience, I can assure you this is rather tiresome and frustrating. The second caveat is if you ever need to lift a person's weight during a pickoff, the bungy will most likely make that impossible for the same reason. Both of these issues can be worked around by using a length of webbing or cord to tie a "real" chest harness if/when you need one.

Another personal preference consideration is whether you like your frog chest harness to provide a little back support for you while you climb. The bungy option provides no real support. The old figure 8 loop isn't much better, and although popular it is notoriously uncomfortable for many people. The H-strap GGG etc designs seem to do better, but they don't suit everybody. I ended up phasing out my bungy loop after about a year or so of use, and made sure the cavers who had them were aware of the above caveats.


(This was discussed last year in the improve efficiency of frog system topic.)
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Re: Vertical Contest Sit Stand ?

Postby Tim White » Jun 20, 2012 7:16 am

Kelly, NZ is correct. I was was just making a general comment.
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