In the last episode of The RunOut podcast, I shared a story about taking a belay test from a Generic Gym Gumby (G3) who told me that there was no “back-stepping” allowed during the lead-climbing test.
“No back-stepping?” I thought. “WTF is bro talking about?”
It took two seconds to realize that he wasn’t referring to the climbing movement of placing the outside edge of your foot on a foothold; rather, he meant that I needed to know not to climb with the rope behind my leg. Ah, I chuckled, silly gumby.
Just for my own giggles and shits, however, I took the G3 literally and climbed the lead-test route as straight-on as possible, like a ladder, not even daring to turn a knee inward. The only way to bear the indignity of being tested on your climbing competence by someone whose experience so drastically pales in comparison to your own is to have a sense of humor about the situation.
Mix it up! Make it fun, I say.
Throw in some all-points-off dynos between jugs.
Cop a bat hang at the fourth clip.
Get a no-hands kneebar.
Pretend to have “Elvis leg” every time you clip.
Get creative!
Whatever you do, just make sure that you don’t fucking back-step any of the footholds!
Jen and I have been laughing about this G3 misusing “back-step” for years. Since we don’t climb in gyms all that often, we thought it was a freak one-off, a delicious, idiosyncratic malapropism that we and only we got to experience in our own private hell of getting belay-tested by a twig-armed virgin climber.
However, since this podcast came out, I’ve received literally dozens of messages pointing me to the fact that this “back step” malapropism has leaked out of the gumby lab and is very much out in the wild, wreaking pandemic levels of havoc. I mean, just look at this shit!
Because the back-step malapropism is everywhere, some people have argued to me, we should accept defeat and allow “back step” to have this secondary definition, and just move on with our lives.
My only thing is, well … NO! We don’t actually have to accept living in a dumber world simply because we’re too lazy to bother correcting people who don’t know what they’re talking about as they just started climbing yesterday.
“But we need a word for ‘climbing with the rope behind your leg!’” people say.
Do we? Learning to not climb with the rope behind your leg is a readily graspable concept, even if you’re IQ-challenged. It’s one of those things that takes 10 seconds to understand, and then you may go about your climbing life without it ever resurfacing to the front of your conscious experience.
We don’t have a single word for “putting one foot in front of another” because we don’t need to tell people how to walk once they are able to do so.
Of course, everyone inevitably finds themselves on lead with the rope behind their legs from time to time. When this happens, some people on the ground feel as if it is their moral duty to yell up at the climber with the urgency of alerting a child they’re about to step out into traffic and get hit by an oncoming bus.
If this fretful proverbial person on the ground were to shout up at me, “You’re back-stepping!” I’d be very, very confused!
“Watch the rope!” is a sufficient-enough prompt to get anyone to realize that the rope is running behind their leg. And besides, 90 percent of the time, the situation corrects itself as soon as the climber makes the next move and their position changes, which probably happens before that distracting prompt even registers with the climber themself.
Of all the climbing scenarios that I can imagine, climbing with the rope behind your leg is not one that begs to have its own special panic-word, especially when that word already means something entirely different. Maybe “OMG, look down because you’re about to rap off the ends of your rope!!” could be a good contender for needing its own single word, as your partner might be free falling to their deaths by the time you get to the end of your sentence. That said, I suppose “STOP!” said with the right amount of horror and urgency is probably good enough.
Anyway, this is an urgent PSA to the climbing community. Stop saying “back step” to mean “rope behind your leg.” It doesn’t meant that. You’re fucking up our jargon. Stop it.
And if you’re on the side of understanding what back-step actually means, but you’re too much of a pessimist to do anything about it, remember, it’s up to all of us to “flatten the curve” on this viral spread of stupidity.
Finally, if you see someone back-stepping in the gym, ask them how they passed their lead-belay test.
Nah. That battle’s already lost. Sorry.
Him: “Did you clean it?”
Me, befuddled: “uhh this V2?”
Him: “yeah did you climb it clean?”
Yup; didn’t even carry a hammer – never mind use one. Climbed it free, as well.
April 1st was months ago.