Hi! Lack of stopper knots shouldn’t prevent this technique from working! 

Michael Betser Maybe! If the knot is popping then opting for a stronger lock could be good. Granny knots often do a great job of closing a cuff. It’s really more about how you use it next that matters and if it’s working for you. We think it’s good to notice the directionality of your lock as a way to assess why it may or may not be working as expected.  

The collapsibility of SCTs is sometimes a feature and not a bug. Often (especially as you’re first learning) it’s good to be able to untie the start of a tie under tension, especially if your partner needs their arms free right away and if your untying skills are still a bit slow. Other reasons you might opt for a square or a granny knot are that these two ways of locking a cuff are a little lower profile (the lock offs sit flatter on the cuff than the somerville bowline), and as you progress along your journey, you might find that millimeters of space matter to you. Some people also care about honoring the traditions of the styles that they tie in, and you’ll find that more traditional Japanese ties utilize square and granny knots! 

Reef and square knot are used synonymously :)

Thanks for sharing!

Hi! An 8 meter length of rope is standard!

You can definitely go through the Y-Hanger. You might opt to use the double bight if your hanger is perfectly balanced and you don’t want to change that and/or if you anticipate leaning your bottom back on the upline, which might make it hard to then untie (and in which case a lock off above the double bight would remain accessible)

Musing Thanks for asking! Fuoco here, and I’m going to reply as myself. The simplest answer to your question is that we always defer to the creator of any harness regarding best practices for use, as they have likely played and experimented with their own harnesses more than we have. What I personally see here as things I would want to adapt about this harness if I were to use it in suspension are: 1) the stem in the back hasn’t been constructed to isolate the tensions in the wraps. This would be a fairly simple modification, but I would suggest a more robust friction at both the top and bottom wrap in the back. 2) because the harness comes together in the middle in the front, there’s a greater likelihood of the bottom wraps slipping up in suspension, especially on someone without a lot of chest tissue as Anna Bones mentions. You could adapt this on a case by case basis, but I would consider adding some sort of downward anchor to the waist using a hishi pattern technique!

Thanks for asking! You can find the tutorial about how to connect two ropes here :)

Including the feet contributes significantly to the stability of the position, locking the legs open. If you left the feet out you would find that the legs could butterfly open and closed very easily, which would create instability in the tie and sequence.