Tying In

Learn it

The figure eight follow-through is the only knot they need here, and it is the one thing on the rope nobody else can tie for them.

Tie one slowly with the group around you, naming each step so they have words for it afterwards: the eight, through both hard points, back along its own path, dressed flat, a tail about as long as a hand.

Then tie one wrong and ask them to find the problem. Spotting a bad knot is the skill that keeps working after they have forgotten how to describe a good one.

Apply it

Everybody has a rope from the first minute. One tie-in length each, and two circles of five, a coach in each, so nobody is watching somebody else practise and nobody is sitting outside a coach's reach.

1. Tie it, untie it, tie it again, five times through. Repetition is the point, not speed.
2. Pair up and inspect each other's. The inspector says out loud what makes it right, or what is wrong with it.
3. Sabotage. One of the pair ties a knot with one deliberate mistake in it and the other has to find it. Swap. This is the round they will ask to keep doing.

You move between the pairs in your own circle while this runs. Nobody is waiting on you, because the pair is what checks the work.

Demonstrate understanding

• A dressed figure eight through both hard points with a hand-length tail, tied without being talked through it.
• They catch a sabotaged knot without hints.
• A knot that went wrong halfway gets untied and started again rather than tidied.

If the concept isn't sticking

The shape is right and it is sloppy. Dressing it is part of tying it. Have them untie and start again rather than tidying it for them.

They lose it at the follow-through. Stop after the first eight and have them trace the return path with a finger before the rope goes anywhere. The second pass is the first one backwards.