Building Blocks - Junctions - Drill

I was teaching the rope track at Swinkation in 2025. Two of the people that run Swinkation – PhoenixPhyre and Myrina -- were at a class where I was going over the Junctions and how they relate to each other. Afterwards, Phoenix pulled me aside to show me this very cool practice drill! Thanks, Phoenix!When the working end of your rope comes to a line you have already layed down, you have several choices for how they will interact. You will do different things depending on which direction you want your rope to flow as it moves away from that line. It turns out that most of those options are tightly related! I talk about those relationships in the Building Blocks - Junctions tutorial.

Once you have gone through that tutorial and understand how they all relate, you now need to practice! Practice – specifically practicing the right things, doing them the right way – is how you build skill and confidence, developing the muscle memory to move quickly and surely.

Here is a great drill to practice your junctions and build experience and good rope handling. Each connection on this line only takes one more move than the one before it!

Start slow, make sure you are doing it correctly, that the ropes have the right tension (tight enough to hold, but not so tight that they are sinking into your skin deeper than half their diameter), that you are doing each step in the drill as it will make sure you are practicing asymmetric techniques both directions so you don’t fall into the habit of only ever doing it one way and having trouble doing it the other!

Remember: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. The point of the drills is smooth and clean motions. Speed will come as a natural result of practice.For this tutorial, I used one 30' (~9m) piece of Natural 1/4" (6mm) hemp.I use an amazing Natural hemp rope provided by my affiliate Twisted Monk. Check them out!