rope traverse techniques

[dilletante]

i've been trying to find a comparison of the different techniques we saw at the obstacle race for crossing a single rope. mostly because there was one method that we saw someone get, oh, about a third of the way across with, that looked very skill-intensive but also very energy-intensive, but i heard someone allege that it was a military technique

Comments

[blk]

Interesting. My only wild guess is that an advantage of the commando crawl is that you can see ahead of you while you're doing it (without looking at the world upside down). In the Ruckus we did a couple years ago the crossing was a metal bar, so the monkey crawl was super easy to do with crossed ankles (metal slides along clothing very easy).

[mzrowan]

Hm...it seems like if you have the balance to pull off the commando crawl, it would be less tiring because most of your weight is supported by the rope.

[pierceheart]

Exactly how/why I learned that style in a military school in the '90s, although we also did real fast monkey crawls because we were required to wear swiss-seats and a d-ring, and our ropes tended to be a little slack = gravity assist from near end to middle.

[cruiser]

The advantages that I recall are that your default view is in front of you & right side up, all views except down are unobstructed (in the monkey crawl your arms & legs get in the way), and that your rifle (your ruck should be pulled across with a line, rather than carried when you cross) is less likely to get hung up on things. An advantage over using the rappel-seat method (which is actually an advantage of both commando & monkey) is that you're never attached to the rope, so if you have to get away quickly, you're not fumbling to get yourself loose. Having checked the relevant Army Field Manual, I found that it doesn't actually describe the tradeoffs (the text on the web site you linked to is taken verbatim from the FM).