5-Day AHD Workshop
April 6-10, 2026
Canyon Lake and New Braunfels, Texas
This class will be an intensive dive into AHDs (Artificial High Directionals). In an effort to provide attendees the most value for their time, class hours will extend late into the afternoon (past 5pm). The class will be objective based and not time based. This workshop will provide basic and advanced training with AHD's including:
- Base Units (Mass, Length, Time, Acceleration, Force, Weight) and Physical Quantities (Scalar and Vectors); and how these physics principles relate to rescue and AHD rigging.
- Fundamental System Requirements and Risk Based Decision points (1-person=1kN, Capable, Minimize Fall Distance, Appropriate for Environment, Belay Competency, Load Shift Management, Redundancy, and Force Limiting).
- Resultant Force Forecasting (how Resultants are created, identifying their magnitude, identifying their direction, and manipulating these elements)
- 8 of 5 Technical System Review (8 systems of 5 categories) (ASAP Top Belay, TTRS Lower, Simple Systems 1:1/2:1/3:1, Compound Systems 6:1/9:1, and Complex Systems 5:1)
- Anchor Paradigm (Anchor Points, Anchor Interface, Anchor Competency {Marginal, Single Function, Multi-Function}, Defining Redundancy, Critical Point Test, Critical Point Variance, Family of Focals)
- AHD Principles Overview (Anchored Frame vs Directional Frame, Guy Paths, Guy Path manipulation, Tension Planes, Compression Planes, Tension Opposed Resultants, Compression Opposed Resultants).
- Basic Frames (Tri-pod, Bi-pod, SA-Frame, Mono-pod)
- Rigging Pods (based on the Anchor Paradigm)
- Exotic Frames (as time a locations allow: Ramshead, Lateral Leg Ramshead, wrapped and frapped feet, Luffing Frames, Floating Frames, etc)
- Scaled Vector Analysis (free body diagrams, parallelograms, vector components identification, line of action, law of transmissibility, vector addition, etc)
- Rope Path Options (High/High, Low/Low, High/Low, High/Adjustable) and what risks are managed with each option.
- Frame Selection (how to choose the right frame for a given edge problem)
Cost is $1,200.00
If you have additional questions, contact DJ Walker at 512-751-6010
