What is wrong with your figure-of-8?

There is one thing about your climbing technique that you probably think you are doing right. Or, more likely, you are doing it right sometimes out of sheer luck. Let´s talk about the nitty-gritty of the figure-of-8!

For most of us, the (rethreaded or follow-through) figure-of-8 was the first specific climbing "thing" we ever learned. It is a standard tool for climbers for good reason. It is strong. It is easy to learn and hard to get wrong. It is easy to inspect. And it is easy to untie.

"Weeell..." you say about the last statement. Maybe you prefer a bowline variation, because when you work those routes and fall a lot, your figure-of-8 gets really hard to untie. Hmmm, maybe we can do something about that. Let´s look at how we usually teach the figure-of-8, and how that can be improved! 

The way I learned, and continued to tie the knot for a long time, was something like this: 

1. Make a single figure-of-8.
2. Pass the end of the rope through your harness´ tie in point.
3. Trace the rope back through the figure-of-8 in whatever way.
4. Tighten it (a bit).
5. Make sure you have a super-long tail.

This method works very well. The knot, even if tied quite sloppily, will hold a fall. This is the way most gym visitors will tie in: a loose knot, lots of crossing strands. Messy. But "super safe enough".

Typical figure-of-8 as seen at the gym wall.

A few years later I started getting picky about how I tied and taught this knot. I wanted the strands to be nice and parallel, and I wanted the knot well dressed and tightened from all four ends:

A lot better, but still something missing.

I did not really have a good rationale for this. The thinking went that the knot should be neat, in order to signal heightened attention and care, and perhaps to make the knot really easy to inspect. Really, it was just a bit anal.

Then along came this guy Ben from Lithuania, who runs a Youtube channel called Hard is Easy. Ben systematically investigates different ways of tying the knot, and explains why some people find the figure-of-8 hard to untie. You should really check it out.

The reason we tie the knot so that strands do not cross, and then dress it meticulously, is not to make the knot safer or stronger. We do it to keep it from deforming and seizing up really hard after being loaded. This is all well documented in the video from Hard is Easy. If this was already obvious to you, here is the bonus: Hard is Easy found that it is important to tie the knot so that the loaded strand makes its first loop close to the center of the knot. This further prevents deforming under load.

A properly tied and dressed figure-of-8.

Is this rocket surgery for nerds only? No. Every climber should have a METHOD for tying the figure-of-8 - a muscle-memory sequence that works in the dark, when the zombies are attacking. If you teach the RIGHT method from the start, your students will get all of the above right and never have to think about it ever again. What is this method? I am glad you asked, because I happen to have made a short video: