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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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.

All right, 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 belaying device

and dropping your climber to death
or yourself.

All right, 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,

like kind of like extra X,

and put the tail through both of them,

like so.

So you would get the 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 bite
and put this bite 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 the 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 a death knot
for a reason.

And death knot basically happens
when 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 rope 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.

All right, 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 gonna 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,
they 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 Xs.

One, two.

So this knot is called
double fisherman's knot.

And it's because fishers use this knot

to join their fishing lines.

However, in fishing lines,

since they're very skinny and slippery,

they often use triple or
quadruple version of this knot.

While in the 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 and
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 than to explain,

but I will try to do my best.

So I have a loop here

with the tail at the bottom of my palm.

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.

If 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 gonna be easy to untie

because the load line,
this line, goes in the middle.

So real life 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 bite.

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.

All right, now let's learn about hitches.

Now, if you're wondering
what's the difference

between a hitch and a knot,

a knot 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 clothes hitch.

Take the rope with the right hand,
like so.

Now the left hand crosses
under the right hand

and takes the rope like so.

Notice that the thumbs
are pointing away from each other,

and I have a little bit of
rope slack 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.

Like 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 gonna pull the other end now, like so.

And I'm secure.

So this cross and uncross 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 carabiner.

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 clothes hitch 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 they are both kinda squeezed inside,

and they'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 break side of the rope,

this one, away from the gate.

So with 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 belaying 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 these strands
are parallel to each other.

It's not down here like
on normal belaying devices.

It's actually up in the case of a rappel.
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 rappel 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 belaying 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 tie 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 knot
one more time, like so.

Notice that I'm keeping
these coils coiling inwards

towards each other, like here.

And then I 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.

So that's the end 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, Prusiks 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 a Klemheist.

For this one, I like to offset
the knot from the beginning,

and then take the other end
behind the rope,

And I 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 Prasic,

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 Prusiks,
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 gonna 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 autoblock.

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 autoblock is commonly used as a backup

for your belay device
in 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 break side of the rope.

However, the ability
to release this knot under tension

is what makes it
a great option for repelling.

So here's another demonstration,
autoblock.

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... ouch.

Now, the great thing about these Prusiks

that they 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 cord 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 Prusiks on two ropes.

For example, when you're rappelling,
the thing you need to know

is that two ropes have
more surface for the Prusik to bite,

and usually the prasic will bite harder.

So you might need less wraps.

So very budget-friendly
and super useful thing to have,

but you can also buy
already pre-made prasics.

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 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 Prusik out of.

And here, I forgot to mention

one very important thing about Prusiks,

that 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 going to keep them
for the future episodes.

And for now, I want to say
special thank you for Mammut

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 partner with the brand

who also cares about quality a lot.

So thank you, Mammut.

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.

I'm so bad at these outros.

I'm going to leave it like that.