Are coaches Legit?

[jhh166 0]

Can some of the more experienced skydivers critique the Coaches Course? How well is the instruction that the coaches receive? Would you consider it adequate, unsatisfactory or stellar?

My point being – the AFF Instructors teach me material that basically is essential for survival and now the coaches are to fine tune my skills. This is how I see it anyway.

You really can’t say that coaches are not teaching lifesaving skills because I constantly read or hear how injuries/death are a result from the following:
-Improper track
-canopy collision ( I will soon be pulling at a lower altitude, with more traffic)
-Braked approaches (or dicking around on an approach in general)

All these things I will learn under a coaches discretion

There are more things I could list and I don’t want to drag it out forever. But to me these are topics that merit input from experienced jumpers who ‘been there done that’. I personally would rather get instruction from the guy who looks worn, smells like vomit and alcohol but has the experience, rather than an jumper who is certified with 200 hundred jumps.

I could be wrong. The only thing I learn everyday is how little I actually know. I just wanted to hear what others thought. And nothing against coaches because I am sure there are kick ass coaches out there and a few I look forward to learn from. Actually one of my long(er) term goals is to get a coaches rating. I just wanted to here what others though about it.

I thought this would high jacked the other thread as it was more about student fee's with mandatory coaching.

[DSE 5]

Is the rating legit? Of course.
Are all people who hold the rating of Coach legit?
No.

Like anything else, there are good coaches and bad coaches. Good AFFI's and bad AFFI's.
If jump numbers are the only basis that we judge people for, then we've lost the battle.

To be a Coach, one must:
~Current USPA membership
~B-license
~Minimum of 100 jumps
~Have the required topics signed off on the Coach ~Proficiency Card prior to the course
~Have completed the written exam
~Have a copy of the USPA SIM and IRM

There are good Coach Examiners and not-so-good Coach Examiners.

You'll learn a lot more from a good Coach than the items you've listed. Docking skills, fall rate skills, tracking skills, and other important ground and aerial skills.

The fundamental behind the rating is sound. Whether you get a good coach or not... is entirely up to your DZ community.

[jhh166 0]

"The fundamental behind the rating is sound. Whether you get a good coach or not... is entirely up to your DZ community."

I definitely do feel confident in my DZ community, great group of people who I feel are completely competent. Even the camera guys take a few minutes to address stuff with me at times and it is greatly appreciated.
Of course I am biased – Isn’t every student’s DZ the best DZ...

[ufk22 33]

Can some of the more experienced skydivers critique the Coaches Course? How well is the instruction that the coaches receive? Would you consider it adequate, unsatisfactory or stellar?

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Depends upon...
When I run a coach course, I want to be in contact with my candidates for a month or two before the course, make them submit some basic outlines and lesson plans prior to the course, let them know specifically what I expect and teach them the best techniques I know, but ultimately the coach course is about teaching people with adequate flying skills and some experience how to teach you basic skills and some basic problem solving skills. The what-to-teach is all in the ISP and the SIM.
I also have seen a C-E who had never run a coach course (he had the BIC rating and was grandfathered in) do a not-stellar-but-passible job, seen a guy get both a C-E and a S/L I-E rating, in spite on NOT getting the recommendation of myself and 3 other C-E's and I-E's (one even called to protest) because of the recommendation of a former USPA regional director (the rating was finally pulled after he did a lot of really stupid shit, the same kind of stupid shit we had seen him do while trying to get the ratings), and seen candidates come back from rating courses with a new rating, a great recommendation from the course director, and a complete misunderstanding or lack of knowledge in certain areas that I would consider to be very basic.
BUT, these are the exceptions, not the rule. Most C-E's I know are very knowledgeable, very dedicated, and do a great job, just like most coaches I know.


My point being – the AFF Instructors teach me material that basically is essential for survival and now the coaches are to fine tune my skills. This is how I see it anyway.

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No, the coach is there to teach you basic skills, skills that you don't have and so can not be "fine tuned". The fine tuning will happen over the next 100-200 jumps (realistically over the next 1000's of jumps)


You really can’t say that coaches are not teaching lifesaving skills because I constantly read or hear how injuries/death are a result from the following:
-Improper track
-canopy collision ( I will soon be pulling at a lower altitude, with more traffic)
-Braked approaches (or dicking around on an approach in general)
All these things I will learn under a coaches discretion.

At this point in your skydiving, everything you learn can be considered a "life saving skill", but coaches don't teach advanced canopy skills, that is done by an Instructor.


There are more things I could list and I don’t want to drag it out forever. But to me these are topics that merit input from experienced jumpers who ‘been there done that’. I personally would rather get instruction from the guy who looks worn, smells like vomit and alcohol but has the experience, rather than an jumper who is certified with 200 hundred jumps.

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A jumper with 200 jumps know a lot more than you do.
The "looks worn, smells like vomit and alcohol but has the experience" standard may have been true twenty years ago (but probably not even then), but that is not what I'd be looking for in an instructor or coach. I know a guy with 30+ years experience in the sport that still teach the "stick out your arm to make turns" technique that was used when he learned.
There is only one way to judge anyone who is teaching you. How much time do they spend working with you, are they teaching you right, are you learning and progressing, are they treating you with patience and respect, are they interested in your progress?


I could be wrong.

Yep, you could


The only thing I learn everyday is how little I actually know.

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This is the smarted thing you've said. Most coaches have had at least a couple more years in this sport to figure out how little they know. They don't know it all, but no one does. It takes a lot of work and time to get a coach rating, so respect them for it.


I just wanted to hear what others thought. And nothing against coaches because I am sure there are kick ass coaches out there and a few I look forward to learn from. Actually one of my long(er) term goals is to get a coaches rating. I just wanted to here what others though about it.

Good luck with your goal, I just don't know if I'd want someone like you, unless you smell like vomit and alcohol, working with students

This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

[Trafficdiver 8]

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Can some of the more experienced skydivers critique the Coaches Course? How well is the instruction that the coaches receive? Would you consider it adequate, unsatisfactory or stellar?

I'm a noob in no position to give you skydiving advice so this is not advice, this is my view on it taught to me by my AFF instructor during my FJC.

You are the one in charge of getting yourself down safely.

No one else.

That being said all my coaches were awesome and really helped my sharpen my skills.

Blue Skies.

[jhh166 0]

I’m not knocking it by any means (probably a misleading title). I was just thinking in regards to other training and how we structure training in the Marine Corp or Military in general. Almost always is the case as the student progresses so does the level of instructors and training. That’s what brought up the question. To be honest I cannot think of another training program out there that does it how the USPA does? As you advance, your instructors knowledge/experience deceases.

I apologize if I offend some people bringing up the question. I have been making a living the last decade designing, implementing and evaluating training standards for the DOD. I just thought its different USPA does it backwards.

[DSE 5]

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I’m not knocking it by any means (probably a misleading title). I was just thinking in regards to other training and how we structure training in the Marine Corp or Military in general. Almost always is the case as the student progresses so does the level of instructors and training. That’s what brought up the question. To be honest I cannot think of another training program out there that does it how the USPA does? As you advance, your instructors knowledge/experience deceases.

I apologize if I offend some people bringing up the question. I have been making a living the last decade designing, implementing and evaluating training standards for the DOD. I just thought its different USPA does it backwards.

I guess this depends on how you look at it.
By the end of your AFF training (assuming outside the ISP), you need less handholding, but you do need someone trained to teach you the diveflow, backstop your safety checks, and observe your skydive.
However... progresss to where you want discipline-specific training, many discipline-specific coaches are world-class talent that *can* teach other things, that prefer to 'merely' coach in a specific discipline.

Skydivers don't have the financial wherewithall the DOD has. Do you really want to be spending over a hundred bucks for an instructor on a Cat G/H skydive?

[ghost47 18]

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To be honest I cannot think of another training program out there that does it how the USPA does? As you advance, your instructors knowledge/experience deceases.

I think the difference is that in other things, you don't need the most experienced people teaching you first, because not mastering the basics won't kill you as easily.

So, say you were teaching race car driving to someone who doesn't know how to drive. There would be two stages:

First, the student just needs someone to show him the basics of driving: how to accelerate slowly, break smoothly, change lanes, etc. As long as the student starts off slow, and somewhere like a parking lot, mistakes are rarely going to cause injuries or death.

Then, as the student is able to drive around without much issue, and things like looking over his shoulder before he changes lanes becomes second nature, a more experienced and skilled teacher can show him how to take turns faster, how to use different gears, etc.

So you go from reasonably knowledgeable teacher to very knowledgeable teacher.


In skydiving, however, there are three stages: the two stages described above still happen, but first there is the "how not to kill yourself" stage.

For the first phase of your skydiving career, you know nothing. You don't know what will kill you, or what is just an annoyance. You don't know what to do when things go wrong. And neither you nor your instructors know how you'll perform in the air -- will you flail around? Will you remember to pull? Will you go into a head down position all of a sudden?

So you want the most knowledgeable, most experienced people training and jumping with you. When things go wrong, they can help you save your life, or save your life for you. Also, they may notice little things that a coach might not, and correct them before they kill you.


When you get off AFF, the second phase begins, which is similar to the first phase described above for race car driving. You should know how to fall stable (more or less), how to pull, how to land. You don't need those extremely experienced, knowledgeable people anymore to hold your hand, because you can do the basics.

Enter coaches who can teach you other skills besides those necessary to keep you alive. They may not be as skilled as AFF-Is, but they don't need to be. They can teach you stuff like tracking, taking docks, controlling your fall rate.


Then, as you get better and better, you move into the third phase, similar to the second phase of learning to drive a race car -- you can be coached by the more knowledgeable coaches out there, those who have thousands instead of hundreds of jumps, who have competed and won gold medals. They can fine-tune things like your body position, teach you what to think about when you're putting out a 4-way chunk, things like that.

Right now, at 7 jumps, you've only experienced the first two phases. If you continue in skydiving, and continue to get coaching, think about this again about 150 jumps later, and see if you still think the same way.

[jhh166 0]

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I’m not knocking it by any means (probably a misleading title). I was just thinking in regards to other training and how we structure training in the Marine Corp or Military in general. Almost always is the case as the student progresses so does the level of instructors and training. That’s what brought up the question. To be honest I cannot think of another training program out there that does it how the USPA does? As you advance, your instructors knowledge/experience deceases.

I apologize if I offend some people bringing up the question. I have been making a living the last decade designing, implementing and evaluating training standards for the DOD. I just thought its different USPA does it backwards.

Skydivers don't have the financial wherewithall the DOD has. Do you really want to be spending over a hundred bucks for an instructor on a Cat G/H skydive?

Definitely not

[nigel99 568]

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I’m not knocking it by any means (probably a misleading title). I was just thinking in regards to other training and how we structure training in the Marine Corp or Military in general. Almost always is the case as the student progresses so does the level of instructors and training. That’s what brought up the question. To be honest I cannot think of another training program out there that does it how the USPA does? As you advance, your instructors knowledge/experience deceases.

I apologize if I offend some people bringing up the question. I have been making a living the last decade designing, implementing and evaluating training standards for the DOD. I just thought its different USPA does it backwards.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. A coach is someone who is helping to re-enforce skills and techniques that you have already been shown (briefly) during AFF. Prior to your A license you are still under the supervision of an instructor. I do believe that community in general fails students by not ensuring that the student is properly supervised by an instructor post AFF. Obviously there are instructors out there who proactively manage students long after AFF but it is not the norm.

However with regards to further learning after your A license, I think you will find that the "coaches" that you engage are actually experts in the discipline that you are trying to pursue. We are lucky on this front being such a small sport. For example if you look at canopy courses and who they are run by, many are by some of the best canopy pilots in the world.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[skydave114 0]

I'd go with the old school guy, but only if he brushed his teeth and showered first!