Im a WIMP!

[MichaelAnthony 0]

Hey guys,

Since my tandem last summer I have been obessed with everything that has to do with sky diving including researching everything - reading books and jumping in the wind tunnel acouple times in which I could hold my own with in two mins and move foward, backwards, up, down and spin around with in 5 mins no prob my first time.
Im 31 and have been riding street bikes since I was 16 and Im a snow board instructor during the winter on the weekends. I drive from Newport beach to Big Bear fri- sun. I love the need for speed and usaully can confront my fears but I just cant seem to go to the damn DZ with out over thinking it and turn into a big whimp.
I know its kinda stupid to even post this on here but maybe just throwing it out there will help because I really want to start my AFF course!
Just need to some how force myself and budget myself for the course and then do it.
Thanks for reading!

[skymama 37]

Welcome to the forums! Transcending Fear to be helpful for you. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help talk you through your concerns.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[MichaelAnthony 0]

Thanks for your reply Skymama!

I heard of that book, I will def pick it up tonight.
My main prob is the height and the initial exit.
For some reason the first couple secs right when I left the door I dont seem to remember anything but I do remember everything else and obviously dont want that to happen during AFF.
2nd watching videos of people spining out of control to the point of being incapasitated because of a bad exit scares the crap out me but in the tunnel it does seem like it would be easy to recover but I heard its defferent in the sky.
Ugh - I do know though I want this more than anything else I have ever done and it just kinda sucks cause there is no one that I know really well that skydives or that lives in Orange County that skydives and could give me advice.

[kenthediver 0]

Hi Michael, I wrote about my AFF - which includes not really remembering much on the first jump or two. My advice, pay attention to the instructors, practice over and over and trust your muscle memory. It does get easier and you will remember the experiences as you progress.
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4342021;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread
Its easy for us to say, but the best you can do is follow the Nike ad and 'Just do it'!

[mrubin 0]

A lot of people have trouble getting themselves started. I would recommend reading through this thread and reading the linked cartoons.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4200157;search_string=skydiving%20duck;#4200157

"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[rouey 0]

Let me tell you about my experience so far:

- Did a Tandem and signed up immediately for AFF;
- Took the FJC the following Friday;
- On Saturday morning the primitive part of my brain took over and made it abundantly clear that this little idea of mine was stupid beyond comprehension. Never mind all this people at the hangar who seem to value and enjoy life more than almost everyone else I know. Some of them girls on their 20s (I'm 39). How embarassing....
- Had trouble practicing the exit in the door mockup. After a few tries my instructor and I settled for a "diving out the door, aiming at the tip of the wing", instead of the initially planed "both feet parallel to the door, left foot out first, body facing the wing" exit. The reason for this - with the first plan my legs shook... Yes, I know..
- Finally got into a load, jumped, went through the AFF1 pratices, landed off as instructed from the ground since the main landing area was quite busy. Back to the hangar, my main instructor yelled at me "Now, WTF was that all about in the ground earlier on!?!?". Turns out the jump was almost perfect apart from one pull practice too many - thought I should do something worthwhile with all the time I had left before pull altitude
- Got into another load for AFF2. Same comment on the ground - "Dude, again, just tell me WTF was wrong with you earlier on". Turns out this time it was nearly perfect - good arch from the exit, stable throughout with little help, no "shadow" moves, etc...
- Had to stop for the day, planning on going back this last Saturday, but the weather prevented AFF jumps.

I still oscillate between wanting to go back in the air immediately and this primitive pesky fear, but I take it all as being a very valuable part of the experience - face your worst fears, adopt strategies to cope, perform when you must and end up doing something so exhilarating its hard to describe.

P.S.: Take a look at Jennifer Bourne's cartoon's: http://tailotherat.blogspot.pt/search?updated-max=2012-06-19T13:32:00-07:00&max-results=20&start=15&by-date=false

She puts it much more eloquently than I ever could.

[skymama 37]

Quote

For some reason the first couple secs right when I left the door I dont seem to remember anything Frown but I do remember everything else and obviously dont want that to happen during AFF.

There's a name for that, it's called "sensory overload". It's normal and you shouldn't be afraid of it because at some point the "I don't want to die" instinct should kick in, and you'll probably come to your senses and save yourself. If, by chance, that doesn't happen, you'll have your AFF instructors to take care of opening your canopy for you.

With your instructors right there for you and an AAD on your rig, I think it'd be really hard for you to not have an open canopy over your head at some point.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[MichaelAnthony 0]

A lot of people have trouble getting themselves started. I would recommend reading through this thread and reading the linked cartoons.

Right, its kinda the hardest thing i have come across to commit to but that is exactly one of the reasons why I am going to.
Thanks for the link. That was great!
Guess its one of those things you gotta suit up and show.

[MichaelAnthony 0]

That was great! Its much better to know other people feel the same way I feel but the deference is you followed threw with it.

rouey

Let me tell you about my experience so far:

- Did a Tandem and signed up immediately for AFF;
- Took the FJC the following Friday;
- On Saturday morning the primitive part of my brain took over and made it abundantly clear that this little idea of mine was stupid beyond comprehension. Never mind all this people at the hangar who seem to value and enjoy life more than almost everyone else I know. Some of them girls on their 20s (I'm 39). How embarassing....
- Had trouble practicing the exit in the door mockup. After a few tries my instructor and I settled for a "diving out the door, aiming at the tip of the wing", instead of the initially planed "both feet parallel to the door, left foot out first, body facing the wing" exit. The reason for this - with the first plan my legs shook... Yes, I know..
- Finally got into a load, jumped, went through the AFF1 pratices, landed off as instructed from the ground since the main landing area was quite busy. Back to the hangar, my main instructor yelled at me "Now, WTF was that all about in the ground earlier on!?!?". Turns out the jump was almost perfect apart from one pull practice too many - thought I should do something worthwhile with all the time I had left before pull altitude
- Got into another load for AFF2. Same comment on the ground - "Dude, again, just tell me WTF was wrong with you earlier on". Turns out this time it was nearly perfect - good arch from the exit, stable throughout with little help, no "shadow" moves, etc...
- Had to stop for the day, planning on going back this last Saturday, but the weather prevented AFF jumps.

I still oscillate between wanting to go back in the air immediately and this primitive pesky fear, but I take it all as being a very valuable part of the experience - face your worst fears, adopt strategies to cope, perform when you must and end up doing something so exhilarating its hard to describe.

P.S.: Take a look at Jennifer Bourne's cartoon's: http://tailotherat.blogspot.pt/search?updated-max=2012-06-19T13:32:00-07:00&max-results=20&start=15&by-date=false

She puts it much more eloquently than I ever could.

[Boomerdog 0]

New guy here...very new guy here (only 72 jumps and licensed since last Jan). OK, here's the good news, you're NOT, I repeat NOT alone. You can read all the books you want. You can read a whole $%%^^# library, it won't matter until you actually do your first AFF. The yips are there, we all have them and as we get more jumps in our log, the magnitude of the yips dissapears into the "noise background." Courage as the say, is having the hell scared out of you and doing it anyway. Good luck!

[MichaelAnthony 0]

Thanks! That is exactly what I gotta do.

Boomerdog

Courage as the say, is having the hell scared out of you and doing it anyway. Good luck!

[dkvkb 2]

I have gone through many of the same doubts as you (and then some) because of my late start in life. But I have been obsessed with skydiving ever since I watched my first wingsuit video in November of 2011. I started the AFF and had to put it off for a year. I had major doubts and kept telling myself I was crazy for even thinking about doing this. However, all of the advice and reference materials recommended here have been invaluable in helping me continue on. The real breakthrough was 2 weeks ago when I went through the First Jump Course at Skydive Dallas. You learn, practice, learn some more, practice, learn.....you get the idea. Go through the course and use your obsession to study and practice what your instructors tell you to do. It helped me tremendously.

[Boomerdog 0]

Now go do it and don't look back!

[ridebmxbikes 0]

Often the hardest thing to do is get into the car and going there. Instead of planning on making a jump just grab your bike and go watch and hangout with no intention of jumping. After going there a couple of times to just chill and watch planning another jump might not be so hard. Good luck to ya

[Karen89 0]

ridebmxbikes

Often the hardest thing to do is get into the car and going there. Instead of planning on making a jump just grab your bike and go watch and hangout with no intention of jumping. After going there a couple of times to just chill and watch planning another jump might not be so hard. Good luck to ya

This what I did before I started to jump again after a long break from jumping due to the weather. I just went to the DZ and hung out. My DZ is a club and pretty small...so of course, everyone wanted to know my story and why I wasn't jumping that day. I was just honest with them. I told them I was just checking it out because I haven't jumped in a few months. They didn't judge me or laugh at me. They just smiled and nodded because they knew I wanted it and a few days later I went back and jumped!

[labrys 0]

Quote

For some reason the first couple secs right when I left the door I dont seem to remember anything Frown but I do remember everything else and obviously dont want that to happen during AFF.

What Skymama said. That's very normal and your instructors are aware that it happens to many people and they're watching you for signs of a problem. One of your first jobs after exiting the airplane is to read your altimeter and then look at each of your instructors and tell them what it said. That isn't because your instructors care about your altitude so soon after exit... it's because they want to see you being responsive and doing what you've been trained to do.

I don't remember the first 10-15 seconds of my first AFF jump, but I did get video which shows me doing everything I was trained to do :-D

Owned by Remi #?

[jimmytavino 16]

No need to OVERthink everything...
simply put, and with NO malice whatsoever...
(as they say, at some places where I skydive.......)
" Shut Up & Jump "

[Kalrigan 6]

The more you think about it, the worse it gets. What you need to do is just go through with it.

I was scared shitless on my way to solo. There were days where I would be driving to the DZ, and all the way there I kept telling myself: What the fuck am I doing? Why the hell am I doing this crazy stuff? This isn't normal, I shouldn't be jumping OUT of planes, that's just not right. Or sit in the parking lot, chain smoke, and hope for someone to come out, drag me out of the car, strap me to a rig, and throw me out of a plane. It's normal, the fact that you feel that makes you human. It is foreign ground for us to be flying, it's not our normal place to be in.

What helped me was hanging out at the DZ, for a bit before every jump. Talk to people, meet people, watch people land, see how happy they are on the way back to the hanger. That got me excited, and I would eventually go up. The fear would come back on the climb, up until the door. The second I leave the door, it all went away. Everything I was scared of went away and I was just freefalling.

I wish I could show you the video of my first 2-3 PFF (AFF equivalent here in Canada), you can see how fucking terrified I was. I was watching my first jump the other day with one of my instructors and we were laughing our asses off. He goes look how things have changed, look at you now.

Here is the thing, that feeling didn't really go away until I decided after getting my solo to simply go on some fun jumps. No stress of having to repeat a jump, nothing. Just me, and the sky just playing around. That calmed me down so much. After that I have had no more fear whatsoever. I realized I was stressing myself way too much, and thankfully my instructors were fucking awesome and kept me clam through every jump during progression, as much as they humanly could at least. You just have to muscle through these early stages, and once it clicks, it just works and you'll start feeling so great that you'll start getting withdrawals when you're not jumping.

Embrace that fear, fight it, and beat it. It's so freaking worth it.

[MichaelAnthony 0]

hahahah Damn you guys are over whelming!!
Im going next weekend and sitting around and watching and we will see what happens. Elsinore, I think its open year around.
No thinking and one foot in front of the other has always worked for me so thats what Im going to do.
Embrace the fear fight it and beat!
Its on!

[mrubin 0]

If you're going to hang out at Elsinore, you should be there this weekend. Chicks Rock is going on and its always a good time.

"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[MichaelAnthony 0]

Ok Im going then. Busy sat but Sunday over the ortega hwy and there early in the morn. Feel kinda weird though just rollin up myself

[skymama 37]

There will be a bunch of cute girls there in costume on Saturday night. You sure you're too busy on Sat.? That's the day to go! On Sunday, they'll all be hungover or leaving the dz.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[MichaelAnthony 0]

Ok you talked me into it!
It wont be till the afternoon though because I have to go up the mountain in the morning for a little.
But what the heck do I do when I get there, haha Other than watching awesome people land of course!

[skymama 37]

I'm going to throw one of our dz.commers under the bus here. LisaH is really nice and I bet she'd introduce you around to other people. Actually, just tell her I told her to. Either send her a PM on here or ask for her at manifest once you get there, they'll probably page her for you.

And beyond that, just be nice and talk to people! Just think of it as a regular party where you have to start up conversations. The best part is that there will probably be shenanigans going on that will give you plenty to talk about!

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[MichaelAnthony 0]

Awesome
I just Pm'd her, thanks again!
Ill jump back on here this weekend and tell yah how it went.
No expectiations for my self im just going to go and spectate