Climbing Knots & Techniques How to Remember Them | Ep.9

Essential Climbing Knots that can get you out of any situation.
And techniques how to tie them super fast and in a way that you will never forget.

00:00 Intro
00:27 Overhand Knot
00:42 Double Overhand / Stopper Knot
02:08 Tripple Overhand Knot
02:28 Scaffold / Poacher’s Knot
05:21 Double Fishermans Knot
07:17 Figure 8 - Follow Through
07:56 Figure 8 - On a Bight
10:31 Knot vs Hitch
10:59 Cloves Hitch
13:39 Munter / Italian Hitch
16:15 Friction Hitches
16:48 Prusik
18:28 Klemheist
20:26 Autoblock / French Prusik
21:42 Choosing a Prusik - Extras
23:51 If you wanna feel good

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Deep Thanks!
Ben

all right let's learn some knots shall we?

now if you are one of these people

who cannot remember how to tie knots and

when to use which knot good news I

gotcha in this video I'm gonna show you

the most essential knots that can get

you out of any situation and techniques

how to tie them super fast and in a way

that you will not forget how it's done

alright let's begin if I would ask you

to tie the most simple knot you can on

the Rope you would do something like

this

and if you tighten this you will get an

overhand knot

now if you would do the same what we

just did

and wrap the tail once more

you get something like that and if you

tighten this and dress it well

you will get a double overhand knot

which is also known as a stopper knot so

this is the knot that should always live

at the end of your rope and it's

obviously used

to stop your rope from slipping through

your bling device and dropping your

climber to death or yourself alright

let's continue

make a gun with your right hand and

place the Rope like so where the gun is

pointing towards the end of the Rope

now take the rope and wrap around your

fingers like so and make an X here

wrap the Rope again

and put the tail through the X

like so

so now if you look into this you will

notice that on one side we have two

parallel strands while on other side we

have an X and the Rope is going through

the X if we tighten this we get a double

overhand again or a stopper knot again

so in full speed it looks something like

this

and if you would want a triple overhand

you make an X and then you make one

extra Loop

kind of like extra X and put the detail

through

both of them

like so

so you would get that triple overhand

knot

okay let's make a gun again and

previously we had the gun pointing

towards the tail this time we flip it

around the gun points away from the tail

and we will tie the same knot as before

where we go once make an X

and now we make a byte and put this byte

through the X

like so

if you tighten this

you should get exactly the same knot

which has two parallel strands on one

side and an x on the other side so this

knot is a sliding knot if I load it it

slides

until it cannot slide anymore so this is

really great knot if you need a tight

connection to some object for example in

rope axis it's very commonly used to

hook to the carabiners it prevents the

Carabiner from flopping around or cross

loading plus this knot is very very

small and compact so this might be very

useful in certain rigging situations

where you need to get very close to your

Carabiner now one really important

aspect about this knot is that it's

pretty much impossible to visually check

it that's why you have to do a function

test meaning take your load line and

pull

the loop should get smaller and the knot

will tighten if you tied it incorrectly

as you pull on the load line this is

what happens

the tail will slip out

and this is called the death knot for a

reason and Def not basically happens

then during the tying if you point your

gun towards the tail so instead of that

as I showed you before you point away

from the tail and then you will get a

knot which functions properly

but always always function check now to

tie this knot around an object take the

tail and then you start wrapping this

tail around the Rope like so so you go

once

and then when you go second time you

form an X here and now you want to take

the tail and pass through the X

as always

tail goes through the X and since this

knot consumes very little rope I like

using it as a stopper knot tied to my

red end of my row bag

so a great little knot

but the biggest disadvantage of it is if

you load it really hard you will have

really hard time untying it in this case

when you have a carabiner it's okay

because you can unclip from Carabiner

and then it's much easier to untie

however if you would tie onto some

object

then it's another story alright let's

make another stopper knot but this time

don't make it tight leave a little hole

here so you can stick your finger

through however instead of sticking my

finger through I'm gonna stick another

rope through now I'm gonna tighten the

orange knot a little bit

and now here is the trick notice the

last strand on the orange knot on the

right side so it's this one and it kind

of goes that way

so the trick is to start tying the green

knot the same direction if I go the

other direction it's not going to be

good so I go the same direction I cross

over itself

which forms an X as always and then I

put the tail under the X as always

so if I tighten the green knot

I tighten the orange knot

and now if I pull them together we come

together

and form a knot which looks like this

where I have four parallel strands on

one side and if I flip it over I have

two x's one

two so this knot is called double

fisherman's knot and it's because

fissures use this knot to join their

fishing lines however in fishing lines

since they're very skinny and slippery

we often use triple or quadruple version

of this knot while in climbing it's

obviously a great knot to join two ropes

it's really secure you can use different

diameters of the ropes however one

disadvantage of this knot is that same

as with scaffold before if you load it

really heavy it's gonna be hard to untie

and of course there are other knots for

joining two ropes that are even better

in certain situations I will cover them

in future episodes but for the basics

double fisherman's is what everybody

should know okay next is the king of the

knots a figure of eight and there are

two versions of this knot

and if that's something new for you I've

already made a video showing you my

ninja method how to tie this knot in in

a way that's easier to untie now if you

know how to tie figure of eight into

your harness you also know how to tie it

into some other object so you follow the

same procedure of follow through

so in case you don't want to use a

carabiner here this is a great option so

the method where you tie into your

harness or you tie around some object is

called the figure of eight follow

through however there is another way to

tie a figure of eight when you want to

do this in the middle of the rope and as

you can see this method is really fast

okay so this method is actually easier

to show and to explain but I will try to

do my best so I have a loop here with

the tail at the bottom of my poem it's

not here it's here

like so and now I will have to whip this

tail

and this is how it looks you whip like

so

now at this point notice the hole where

this thumb is poking through

and use the left hand to take this tail

under and through that hole where the

thumb is poking through and I use my

index finger of the right hand to come

and help to pull it through

pull it through

and at this point this strand which goes

to the tail sometimes wants to be on

this side but actually it needs to be on

the other side

now if you tighten everything

so the tail strand needs to come

kind of on top

this is bottom it needs to come on top

if that's the case you will get a

perfect figure of eight which is also

going to be easy to untie because the

load line this line

goes in the middle

so real live speed looks something like

this

where I just need to fix this strand

sometimes a little bit

so this way of tying figure of eight is

called Figure of eight on a byte

so basically you need the secure

attachment point on the Rope figure of

eight

now when it comes to safety you don't

need any stopper knots for figure of

eight but this tail should be at least

10 centimeters long so basically one

fist or longer

in my case I have two and a half fists

so it's more than enough and if you

would have a thinner rope you can

obviously proportionally have this tail

shorter alright now let's learn about

hitches now if you're wondering what's

the difference between a hitch and a

knot and not can hold its own shape

without any external objects needed like

figure of eight while a hitch

cannot so this is holding me but if I

remove this external object from the

hitch the hitch will fall apart okay

let's start with the cloves hitch take

the rope with the right hand like so now

the left hand crosses under the right

hand and takes the Rope legs so notice

that the thumbs are pointing away from

each other and I have a little bit of

rope slag between the hands now at this

point uncross your arms and you will get

something like this

now the right Loop goes in front of the

left one like so

so once again I cross my arms I uncross

them and then the right Loop slides on

top of the left one and then you clip

this to your Carabiner or any other

object

so and then you can pull on the ends to

tighten it

now what's great about this hitch is

that you can pull on either side of the

rope and it's gonna hold and if you want

to adjust

you loosen the belly in the middle of

the knot

like so let's say I want to stay at this

length so I'm going to pull the other

end now like so

and I'm secure so this cross and

uncrossed technique works really well

when you have two hands

and if you don't have two hands

available this is what you do you clip

the Carabiner as always normally now

since the gate is pointing to the right

I'm gonna use my right hand and I'm

gonna flip it upside down with the thumb

pointing down and take the other rope

which is behind the Carabiner at this

point I'm gonna untwist my hand and clip

it to the gate

and screw the carabeter

now when the gate is pointing left you

need to use your left hand so the same

flip it upside down with the thumb

pointing down grab the Rope untwist your

hand

and clip it to the gate

and cloveshitch is another great knot if

you like playing with sticks

it holds really well

I guess this will get a lot of comments

right

a great visual check if you did it

correctly both strands that exit the

hitch need to exit from the middle of

the knot so we are both kind of squeezed

inside

and we're exiting on the opposite sides

there is a rope between them okay next

hitch starts exactly the same as before

but at this point instead of sliding the

right Loop over the left one imagine

that you have a book in front of you and

these Loops are kind of like pages of

the book and you want to close the book

like so

so here is another angle I cross my arms

I uncross and then I close the book now

what I'm doing here I'm twisting this

like so before I'm clipping to the

Carabiner and the reason for this twist

that I did is to keep

the brake side of the Rope this one away

from the gate so that this rope when

it's running it's not running over the

gate

so when I load the knot will flip this

is totally normal and then I can go down

like so

and as you might have guessed this is

the knot or the hitch that you would use

in case you would drop your billing

device and now you need to go down so

take a bit of Slack

like so

now one thing to know about this hitch

is that the most breaking strength it

has when this

Trends are parallel to each other it's

not down here like on normal billing

devices it's actually up in the case of

the repel like so

so

like so and then you can lower yourself

down

so hopefully you will never need to use

this but in case you do close your book

or pray that's also a good way to

remember you can also belay a climber

using this one thing to know about that

is that when you're switching between

giving slack and taking slack the knot

will flip upside down this is totally

normal

so it keeps flipping every time you

switch taking slack to giving Slack

that's how it should be another very

critical thing to know is that it will

twist your rope like crazy so this is

not the best knot if you want to repel a

lot a lot a lot you will have a lot a

lot a lot of tangles in your rope so in

case of emergency once again cross your

arms uncross and then pray

and before you go down don't forget to

test it before you unclip any other

protection

all right moving on to friction hitches

these are special hitches that can slide

on the Rope but when you load it it

bites and this is super useful in wide

variety applications from backuping your

bling device to rigging something where

you need to tension the Rope more or

rescuing somebody or yourself and I'm

gonna show you three most common hitches

but don't worry they're kind of similar

so I'm gonna explain the differences so

you can understand in which application

which one is better all right let's

start with the prusik the first thing I

do when I type prusik is move my Loop

to the side a little bit

then I pass the knot through itself like

so

and make it tight again

then I pass the note one more time like

so notice that I'm keeping these coils

coiling inwards towards each other like

here

and then pass a third time

like so

now at this point I want to pull on one

of these strands to offset the knot so

I'm gonna pull on this strand

while maintaining

the knot neat

and the result now to double check the

prusik you can kind of see a big smiley

with the tongue and all the coils are

nice and parallel to each other there is

nothing overlapping here

and you can clip it to yourself like so

and it should hold you

now prusik are not releasable under

tension

and when you load it hard it might be

hard to release and to help to release

you kind of want to open that mouth that

I was talking and that helps to loosen

up the prusik so prusiks are very

strong and they work in both directions

so if you're not planning to move it

much in certain rigging situations this

is great all right next one is the Klemheist

for this one I like to offset the

knot from the beginning and then take

the other end behind the Rope kind of

measure one finger here and then you

start rolling around or wrapping around

or coiling around this is much easier

than original prusik and at this point

you take the knot pass through the upper

Loop like so and pull it down

so again it's important to make it very

nice and tidy and also to make sure that

this Loop that you just passed your rope

through is not longer than entire length

of the knot

of course when you're gonna load it it's

gonna stretch and that's okay but if you

make it too long you will have way less

friction all right the Klemheist

same as the Prusik it's very strong and

not releasable under tension however

unlike the Prusik

well tight Klemheist should be easier

to release and similar to prusik when

you want to release it you want to open

this lip that you passed your tail

through that helps to loosen it up

now unlike Prusik, Klemheist is

single directional so it works best if

you pull it downwards in my case it kind

of works if you pull up as well but it's

not designed for that and it's going to

be much weaker so due to the fact that

it's a little bit easier to release

sometimes and it's holding very strong a

lot of climbers prefer this knot over

the prusik when you need to ascend the

Rope so you can move it easier up and

then load it move it up and then load it

all right and the last one is an auto- block

it starts similar to the Klemheist

I like to offset this knot a

little bit and then start wrapping

around like we already did before

and now at this point instead of putting

the knot through the loop what we did

with the Klemheist you want to take

both of these loops

and clip it with the carabiner

so once you load it it's gonna look a

little bit funky but it should grab and

auto block is commonly used as a backup

for your blade device and extended repel

situation

so since it doesn't bite that much

it's still okay because you don't need

that much force to hold the brake side

of the Rope however the ability to

release this not under tension is what

it makes it great option for repelling

so here's another demonstration auto

block although being the weakest out of

the three it still can hold my weight

however if I pull on it from top down it

will out now the great thing about this

Prusik that we can be made simply out of

the accessory cord tied into the loop

using double fisherman's knot one thing

you need to know is that your cord has

to be at least three millimeters thinner

than the Rope you're gonna be using it

on and in general the thinner the chord

is the stronger the Prusik is gonna grab

and for climbing applications the good

diameter is between five and six

millimeters now other things that affect

how strongly the prusik is gonna bite is

the amount of Loops you're gonna make so

with every Prusik you can Loop it as

many times as it's needed there is no

hard rule usually you start around three

and then you have to test it to see if

it's strong enough but not too strong so

it's great idea to test on your own

ropes because it also depends on the

stiffness of your cord and on your

slippiness of your rope and if your rope

for example is wet or Frozen it's gonna

be even slippier so you might need more

wraps

also you can tie Prusik on two ropes

for example when you're repelling the

thing you need to know is that two robes

have more surface for the Prusik to

bite and usually the pressure will bend

harder so you might need less reps so

very budget friendly and super useful

thing to have

but you can also buy already pre-made

Prusiks they are even better because

they are more friction resistant they

are softer and it's easier to tie them

however make sure to not buy too thick

one they're used for other applications

you need a thinner one for sport

climbing and in the case you get stuck

on the route and you want to escape but

you don't have a prusik well maybe you

have shoes with laces that you can make

your project out of and here I forgot to

mention one very important thing about

Prusik but you should not rely on

them fully you always have to have a

very very solid backup

all right so of course there are many

other knots but to keep your brain from

melting I'm gonna keep them for the

future episodes and for now I want to

say special thank you for Mammoth for

sponsoring this video since I put a lot

of energy into these videos to make them

as quality as possible it's great to

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about quality a lot so thank you mahmut

and thank you every single of you who

are supporting me by visiting my website

that helps a ton

so I can

make more of these videos

so bad in these outros

I'm gonna leave it like that