Hey there Sam,
I was just trying to reach out to you and comment on some things that you brought up in this thread in the hope of keeping a dialog open, and to bring it back around to stuck throwbags. (As usual, Moss did a good job of answering the original question in one post, but since the thread went off the rails after that, I was just hoping to keep it from ending on a shocking bad note.)
It probably looked like there was a sudden and extreme shift here, but it had been building up over time. Rob's posts (and climbing) had been getting bolder, and he was surprisingly defiant in response to even gentle advice from more experienced climbers. His sudden topic change from throwbags to advancing an anchor by breaking it down was when the thread changed, but also when he crossed a line.
Rather than go back to that right now, I think the big picture is something like this: TCI has spent thirty years thinking about one thing, and that is how to make technical tree climbing techniques, equipment, and instruction as safe as possible, affordable, repeatable, consistent, accessible to as many people as possible, and easily inspected by the climber, by an instructor, or even by a climbing buddy who may be tens of feet away. The results of this lifetime of work speak for themselves when you consider they have inspired 750,000 climbers in those thirty years using their techniques without any serious injuries. Their reputation leads people to this website. This website leads to these forums. That means that a thirty year reputation stands behind these discussions. If discussions on a thread threaten to recommend practices that they consider dangerous to new climbers, it's important that they use their powers of forum-moderating to respond.
Remember that these private forums, which only people who are registered on the TCI website can post to, are nonetheless viewable by anyone on the internet. For every person who explicitly posts to these boards asking how to start learning to climb, there's a number of invisible readers lurking quietly in the background, wondering the same thing. (In fact I know there are, because I started as one of them. Hello fellow invisible lurkers! We worry about you, too!!)
I want you to climb, Sam. I want everyone out there who is curious about climbing to have the experience of being in the canopy. Trees absolutely do not look the same to me since I began to climb, and they will never look the same again. I am grateful for this new perspective, and want to share that--as safely as possible--with as many people as I can. I think you'll find this sentiment common among most/all experienced climbers.
I hope that helps soothe your Spidey senses a bit.
