Mike Michigan: Margin of Influence

[skr 1]

Here's an email I just sent to a young friend of mine:

OK, next topic.

How do you decide whether to go or not? How do you sort
through winds and weather, how late you stayed up, how much
you want to jump, peer pressure, and so on?

Hang out with good jumpers, make lots of jumps at a variety
of dropzones, pay attention to what happened on each jump,
think about it all the time, ... That's all good advice, but I've never
had a simple phrase that captured a way to think about it.

A phrase like "wings level" for canopy flying, or "skydance"
for freefall.

But a few days ago Mike put up an essay about "margin of
influence" which feels definitive:

http://michigansuits.com/blog/2011/01/an-organic-approach-to-risk-assessment/

It's a good conceptual axis around which to organize the
multitude of factors.

I think it even covers the case of getting in over your head,
trying something too advanced too soon and losing your
margin of influence, although I don't remember him saying
that.

----

Mike has recently been using the phrase "Organic Skydiving".

This may have some of its roots in his reaction to Skydive
University, which was that what we really need is Skydive Highschool.

An unintended consequence of switching from static line
to AFF as the doorway in is that the current social structure
is to plunge into freefall activities and pretty much skip over
learning how to make a parachute jump.

I wrote something about that once:
http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/soc_ev_skydiving.html

So part of your assignment is to stop by Deland some
time on your way to anywhere and hang out with Mike
for a week or so and make a bunch of jumps.

----

The last little bit is that I had to laugh when he described
his sequence for checking his gear. I've seen lots of people
do it that way, there are many correct ways to pack, check
gear, and so on. I'm a symmetry person, checking both
sides in parallel.

The main thing is to find a correct way that suits you and
practice it until you can do it when it's cold and windy and
you've been up all night and you're in charge of a demo
into a ridiculously tight area and you're trying to gear up
and keep track of everybody else and six people are standing
there asking you stupid questions.

(to be cont)

[Niki1 1]

Quote

An unintended consequence of switching from static line
to AFF as the doorway in is that the current social structure
is to plunge into freefall activities and pretty much skip over
learning how to make a parachute jump.

I wrote something about that once:
http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/soc_ev_skydiving.html

In the fall of 1979, I was moving "my stuff" from Jacksonville, Fla. to Kissimmee to go tol work for Strong Ent and Kenny Coleman. I stopped by DeLand on the way by (because it was on the way) and Kenny said he wanted to show me some thing. He and John Robbiins showed me what would become a Level I AFF jump. He explained that all the necessary skills could be taught and accomplished in only 7 jumps. And I said, "But that's only 7 jumps." I didn't think that was enough to get the student comfortable with the idea of "jumping out of an airplane."

I've always felt that was why people come out the DZ in the first place. They want to "jump out of an airplane." They don't know about relative work, or head down stuff or anything else. They just want to "jump out of an airplane." The old static line and progressong took abut 25 jumps under supervision. During that time, there were enough weather days and wind delays that allowed for a good deal of campfire instruction. Listening to the "lies" of more experienced jumpers and checking it all out with a mentor was the equivilent of what Mike Michigan was talking about at the end of his essay.

I watched students "grow up" during that progression. I saw them go from "Gollleee!" to "Wow, that was really fun. Let's do that again!"

Seven jumps is a 16 year old kid that just got a drivers licence.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

[Electronaut 0]

Unless he moved back, Mike is in Oregon now.

[skr 1]

> I've always felt that was why people come out the DZ in the first place. They want to "jump out of an airplane."

Me too, and maybe now with youtube and
skydiving being fairly mainstream they
want to do some of the stuff they see.

I just think that in the course of focusing
on Commercialization, Disneylandification,
AFF, Base jumps, Wingsuits, Swooping, and
all the other stuff, that our consensus
reality has somehow lost sight of the fact
that while jumping out is a wonderful and
far out thing to do, making a parachute jump
is a fairly complex activity.

It's the foundation for all the rest of the
stuff, and if I were Emperor of the Universe
I would have people getting 100 jumps worth
of serious training on rigging, packing,
spotting, tracking, canopy flying, and so on,
as well as a parallel sidebar introducing
them to the other stuff.

Of course if I were Emperor I would also
change the ratio of men to women from 85/15
to 50/50 because that would balance out a
lot of other stuff :-) :-)

Skr

[Niki1 1]

Quote

> I've always felt that was why people come out the DZ in the first place. They want to "jump out of an airplane."

I just think that in the course of focusing
on Commercialization, Disneylandification,
AFF, Base jumps, Wingsuits, Swooping, and
all the other stuff, that our consensus
reality has somehow lost sight of the fact
that while jumping out is a wonderful and
far out thing to do, making a parachute jump
is a fairly complex activity.

Skr

That's right. You don't have to be any kind of skydiver to be a parachutist. But you better be some kind of parachutist to make skydive. Or more than one.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

[robinheid 0]

Quote

Quote

> I've always felt that was why people come out the DZ in the first place. They want to "jump out of an airplane."

I just think that in the course of focusing
on Commercialization, Disneylandification,
AFF, Base jumps, Wingsuits, Swooping, and
all the other stuff, that our consensus
reality has somehow lost sight of the fact
that while jumping out is a wonderful and
far out thing to do, making a parachute jump
is a fairly complex activity.

Skr

That's right. You don't have to be any kind of skydiver to be a parachutist. But you better be some kind of parachutist to make skydive. Or more than one.

LOL

I was just on another thread called "What is killing skydiving?" and there was some consensus that the high cost of training and gear had a lot to do with why the sport is either dying or just not growing as much as it could be.

So here's a post someone made, and which I answered that dovetails pretty nicely with what is being said in this thread:

-----------------------------------------------------------
Poster #1 wrote:
"In my opinion, costs are a major factor.

All too often I see pumped up tandems coming down wanting to take up skydiving...until training and gear costs are mentioned."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poster #2 wrote:
"+1
It's a bit spendy. But what can you do?
For about $3k you can buy a bike and gear and ride for a good 12 months.
I think AFF is what? $1500? And then the rental of equipment to get to 20 is another $500?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wrote:
"What can we do? Go back to the future and re-introduce static line jumping... it's a way for a lot of people to put their knees in the breeze for a low $$$ investment. Instead of popping for $300+ for ONE jump, they could make 5 or 6 or 7 for the same price, plus they get to hang around the DZ more and slowly get into the "scene" which in and of itself can bring some of them back."

Roger Nelson understood this with his "100" and "200" and "300" clubs that created social subsets of people so they could be integrated more quickly into the community.

The problem is, as I've stated many times over many years, most of today's DZOs, instructors and even the IEs and S&TAs have no familiarity with static line jumping so they immediately denounce it as old-fashioned, etc etc ad nauseam instead of looking at the economics of it.

And I'm not talking about going back to the future with static line PROGRESSION, but to offer static line jumping for people who only want to -- or ony have the time and $$$ -- to make a few jumps a year.

A static line concession would allow those enthusiastic post-first-tandem jumpers to be steered to an affordable (in terms of time as well as $$$) path to keep jumping until they:
1) figure out where to get the time and $$ to become an autonomous jumper; or
2) decide it's not for them; or
3) decide that making 4-5 jumps a year is JUST RIGHT.

It would not be hard: Every Saturday and Sunday morning at 0800 hours (or by more expensive appointment at other times), there is a static line retrain class, so that after you've done your initial training, you can go through a review, practice ERs in a hanging harness, etc, then go make a jump or two or three and go home.

No "progression" involved: it's just static line jumping, period, always with a jumpmaster, always with significant supervision for which they pay a premium price over a normal jump slot. No, they don't pay $200 for 2 slcots on the plane (tandem) or more for an AFF jump, but they do pay, say, $75 for each jump they make -- from 3000 feet instead of 12000 feet, and with a jumpmaster who gets a piece of each static line jumper fee and therefore may end up making more $$$ than by doing tandems or AFF. Plus if you have a low ceiling, the planes still turn and the JMs still make money.

If you want to become a licensed jumper, then go to AFF or whatever that DZ ioffers.

Very simple, and most importantly, it widens the potential market from only people with time/money/inclination to be enthusiasts to a much broader segment of people who want to be occasional participants.

This is really a no-brainer, yet fashion, and a stubborn that's-the-way-we've-alwasy-done-it mentality, keeps us from adopting this simple little thing that could make our sport way more healthy from a financial and particpant standpoint.

And please, save the "currency-is-safer" arguments. They do not apply, because this group of static line jumpers would always receive the same level of supervision as first-jump students.

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[Rover 11]

+1

You've hit the nail on the head!!

2 wrongs don't make a right - but 3 lefts do.

[hodges 4]

Why not just offer SL progression like the majority of UK dropzones? People who qualify through RAPS (which requires more grit and determination) seem to be more likely to stay in the sport.

One of my main reasons for turning up to the DZ weekend after rainy weekend was so I could get qualified. Would people bother if there was no chance of progression?

[robinheid 0]

Quote

Why not just offer SL progression like the majority of UK dropzones? People who qualify through RAPS (which requires more grit and determination) seem to be more likely to stay in the sport.

One of my main reasons for turning up to the DZ weekend after rainy weekend was so I could get qualified. Would people bother if there was no chance of progression?

You ask a good question. The problem with actually offering static line progression (again) in the US is the above-mentioned complete lack of experience with it by the majority of DZOs/instructors/IEs and S&TAs here.

Moreover, having gone through SL progression myself back in the day, I think that, while a foundation of SL jumps is an exceptional way to prepare jumpers for their freefall training (through gear familiarity and confidence building through the launch/navigation/landing experience they get by concentrating only on the parachute portion of a jump), long assisted freefalls are much better for learning than the bits and pieces you get with standard SL progression.

Dan and Amy Goriesky in years past used to train the air force academy cadets in freefall training after those guys had done 5 to 20 hop-and-pop jumps, and they reported that the learning curve and proficiency curve was way steeper than with AFF-only students.

They found that having made several to many parachute-focused jumps before freefall training really increased the confidence and familiarity of their freefall students to the point that they could really concentrate and progress in freefall training,mostly because their launch-navigation-landing experience made them more RELAXED which, as SKR has said for decades, is the master skill.

Finally, what I propose above is NOT a progression system; it is SPECIFICALLY proposed as a way to cater to that market segment that, unlike you, is NOT interested or able to "get qualified" or otherwise make the time/$$$ commitment necessary to be an enthusiast-level participant. It is designed to be an add-on offering to what DZs already have in order to expand their businesses without overhauling everything they do, which is not necessary.

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[BlindBrick 0]

Quote

I've always felt that was why people come out the DZ in the first place. They want to "jump out of an airplane." They don't know about relative work, or head down stuff or anything else.

This is changing to a noticable extent because of the high visibility of wingsuiting in mass media. I teach all the fjc's at my dz and I routinely ask students why they are there and "I saw that wingsuit stuff and it looks cool" is making up about 10-12% of my business now. I know for sure that I've been able to lasso a few students from ADD to S/L because I showed them my wingsuit.

-Blind

"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."