hellroaring wrote: I like so many others now-a-days was pretty much gym trained, and reading this post makes me realize that all this time I thought I was being safe but perhaps not! I've always belayed with both hands above the device like I was first taught (ironically at an outdoor climbing class). So are you all saying that you should belay with your brake hand below the device and near your hip? Do you just quickly feed out slack then with your non-brake hand? I'm thinking that I need to retrain myself when climbing outside in non TR situations..
Okay I`ll weigh in on this also...palm down, thumb toward the device is the safest manner to give a bomb belay. Playing in slack [top roping]you simply hold the rope below your brake hand with your other hand and slide your brake hand up. This is facilitated by allowing the device and rope to run between your legs in front of you, much as in a rappel. Playing out slack to a leader, pull slack from the stack with your non-breaking hand above the device while throwing slack into the device with the brake hand, this is usually done with the line playing out to the brake hand side.
The major advantage to this technique is that the rope and hand are always in a braking position, ready for the unexpected fall. Secondarily, the brake hand/arm is in a much stronger position to hold the force of a fall in a palm down position. Thirdly the rope is managed in a more efficient manner, as it never has to be brought parallel with the tension line to get a new grip. The free hand does all the pulling and rotating instead of the brake rope hand.
In short, gym belay technique sucks! The only time I can see it being acceptable, is if the leaders weight is considerably less than the belayers. Even then it is poor form.
I got certified at the local university gym with my palm down technique, with out even an argument!