Holding some interesting falls

Hi, on last two weekends I have held a couple of interesting falls when new routing of the type that get discussed on MP. These are anecdotal, so there may not be any general lessons.

1. leader fell just above belay, fell below belay. The rock was poor and overhanging. The anchor was poorish. He wasn't expecting to fall, but pulled a block off. This would have been a FF2 except we had clipped the top piece. Hence FF1. No major force on belayer (me) or leader. Easy catch. Much better than having the belay plate invert. I was pulled upwards, and although this put a pulley force on the top piece, it was all very gentle and I felt that my acceleration up slowed everything down rather nicely. No worries. Do it again. Will always clip to piece or similar.

2. Traverse. Second fell above the piece nearest him. So a lead fall in many ways. Overhanging face. He takes 20 ft. FF=0.3 or so. All hell breaks out. Cordellete style 5 piece belay with long arms on poorish rock. Me hanging below the powerpoint on the rope. Reverso in guide mode on the PP. I am picked up and thrown side ways and smashed into wall like a doll. The peg hammer follows at high speed and tries to kill me. Not sure I would have held it without the reverso being in guide mode. All force at a guess was on one piece in the belay: a zero cam.

The difference I put down to gravity. In the first my gravitational mass slowed me. In 2, it was all inertial mass. My error being that I didn't put a piece off to the side and clip it directly to me - not the cordellete. Will remember to use such a counter piece in future on traverses.

Hoping next weekend will pass without incident.