Vertical caving terminology and methods > SRT basic terms
An effect that happens during prusiking on a sufficiently long rope. As you prusik, your movements cause the rope to stretch and contract. As the up rope gets longer, the stretch increases and the frequency decreases, until it perfectly matches the speed of the your movements, and often also the amplitude of your movements. This resonance causes the bounce to increase, feeling like it wastes every bit of the energy that you were trying to put into prusiking, or makes you have to work even harder to make progress. This is more noticeable on thinner rope, and vastly more extreme when using dynamic rope. It affects all prusiking systems, but is particularly problematic with sit-stand systems. You need to time your movements or alter the amplitude of your movements, to either counteract the bounce, or to make use of it, in order to decrease the effort needed for each cycle. With longer ropes, this effect can become quite disorienting, but is greatly reduced on shorter hangs, such as those often used with Alpine rigging. Bounce is a major factor in the damage caused by rub points.
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