Who invented hand jamming?

Feels like a fairly non-intuitive very technical technique. Just feels like someone had to invent it, also seems like it's probably been around for a long time. Would love to learn if anyone has any answers. Or maybe it's just more intuitive than I think and it's the obvious thing to do. 

Joe Brown is credited with the invention, probably in the ‘50s. Others might have used it before, without naming it. 

Locker wrote:

Possibly, Johnny Otis...

The Locker was named after Locker. 

There is actually a fair amount of discussion about this in the British historical climbing literature. While, as George wrote above, it is often stated that Joe Brown 'invented' the technique in the late '40s, the technique was reportedly used by either Fred Pigott or Morley Wood in 1924 on the first ascent of Pigott's Climb on Cloggy in North Wales and, if so, they (and others) had very likely used it previously on gritstone routes. Of course, the climbers in Dresden were climbing hard cracks even earlier, so undoubtedly some of them figured out the technique as well. So, the 'inventor' of the technique is almost certainly unknown, but it is fair to say that the publicity (much of it initially 'word of mouth') around Brown's early climbs was what made the technique well-known and frequently used from then on.

I did. I invented hand jamming.

Next question.

Following on from Alan's reference to the climbing in Saxony, this route was done in 1913 - actually by the American, Oliver Perry-Smith:

https://www.teufelsturm.de/fotos/anzeige.php?fotonr=1312&thumb=no

It's the Südriß on the Falkenstein. The original route traverses in from the top of the pillar on the left, just above the climber shown here on the later direct start. Hard to imagine a route like this being done without hand jamming!

Though it has been a very long time since I climbed it, but my recollection is that most of the Sudriss was wider than it looks in the photo--wider than hands. I'll have to look for it, but I believe that there is a photo of OPS climbing that route that might give a hint. Great climb. However, we climbed it without having any idea of how to descend (the Falkenstein is quite a large butte). If we hadn't run into a couple of very friendly locals (in the days when it was still East Germany, so being friendly to 'Westerners' --without official permission--was risky), we might still be wandering around up there today!!!!

Perhaps we might even consider the Anasazi… or other, even earlier, cliff-dwelling folks?

A Native American 10000 years ago in the desert south west, or Australia!

Alan Rubin wrote:

Though it has been a very long time since I climbed it, but my recollection is that most of the Sudriss was wider than it looks in the photo--wider than hands. I'll have to look for it, but I believe that there is a photo of OPS climbing that route that might give a hint. Great climb. However, we climbed it without having any idea of how to descend (the Falkenstein is quite a large butte). If we hadn't run into a couple of very friendly locals (in the days when it was still East Germany, so being friendly to 'Westerners' --without official permission--was risky), we might still be wandering around up there today!!!!

Hah! I can imagine; the normal descent is via the Turnerweg at the far [north] end. I did a route just around the corner to the right - Häntzschelweg - and recall quite a bit of subsequent 'wandering about' on the somewhat complicated summit. That one certainly involved jamming, but dates from much later - 1933! You may well be right, though; although Arnold mentions a 'Handriß' in his selective guidebook Gill describes the Südriß on his historical website as "nearly dead vertical for 450 [sic] feet of fist jamming, off-width and squeeze chimneys" - 450 presumably being a typo. The only image that I can find of OPS on the route is the one taken from the side showing the initial traverse - which of course gives no idea of the crack width.

Ignatius Pi wrote:

Hah! I can imagine; the normal descent is via the Turnerweg at the far [north] end. I did a route just around the corner to the right - Häntzschelweg - and recall quite a bit of subsequent 'wandering about' on the somewhat complicated summit. That one certainly involved jamming, but dates from much later - 1933! You may well be right, though; although Arnold mentions a 'Handriß' in his selective guidebook Gill describes the Südriß on his historical website as "nearly dead vertical for 450 [sic] feet of fist jamming, off-width and squeeze chimneys" - 450 presumably being a typo. The only image that I can find of OPS on the route is the one taken from the side showing the initial traverse - which of course gives no idea of the crack width.

Bernd Arnold has thick powerful hands, so his hands would be my cupped hands or wider. I shudder to think of him and his cohorts jamming or heel-toeing with bare feet. Maybe they used shoes, as did OPS. The Falkenstein is 90m high, although Suedriss doesn’t go to the true summit. 

There is a difference between opportunistic jamming of a hands vs. hand jamming technique (scabs and scars help illustrate this difference). I think Joe Brown refined jamming into a bonafide technique.

The first person to be confronted by a hand size crack, and had two neurons to rub together, no doubt figured it out. 

Only the brits would make a study of such a thing, or attribute its "invention" to one person or another.

Similar discussion here a few years ago:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/2539382/who-used-the-first-hand-jam

Kristian Solem wrote:

The first person to be confronted by a hand size crack, and had two neurons to rub together, no doubt figured it out. 

Only the brits would make a study of such a thing, or attribute its "invention" to one person or another.

 

I think you vastly overestimate how obvious it is. There's a reason it's a meme for new climbers to layback cracks and it's that jamming is incredibly unintuitive.

It is very interesting how similar that thread on The Taco is to this one—even some basically identical comments.

Kristian, climbing in an area where face climbing very much predominates, I can confirm how non-intuitive jamming is for many. I have seen very strong face climbers being totally stumped by some fairly straightforward hand cracks—though they learned fast.

Primate ancestors, next question 

Ezra Ellis wrote:

A Native American 10000 years ago in the desert south west, or Australia!

Cochise ✌

I'm more of the opinion that the hand jam was less invented, and more discovered. 

I just submitted the patent disclosure on hand jamming suckers. I will be collecting all your royalties when it goes through