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[flyhy 0]

I just started practicing freeflying. After I got sitflying sussed I'm trying to fly head down. But somehow I always end up on my back... I asked the experienced people @ my DZ for advice (bodyposition, arms/legs, etc.) but they all say "jump, try & find it out on your own"...
Can anybody out there tell me something more than this...?

[Levin 0]

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I just started practicing freeflying. After I got sitflying sussed I'm trying to fly head down. But somehow I always end up on my back... I asked the experienced people @ my DZ for advice (bodyposition, arms/legs, etc.) but they all say "jump, try & find it out on your own"...
Can anybody out there tell me something more than this...?

you are probably sticking your chest out.
roll your shoulders forward just a little. just enough to straighten your back. arms out to your side with your forearms and hands angled slightly forward in front of you. you should barely be able to see them in your peripheal (sp?) vision. your hands should be even with or slightly lower than your elbows. i prefer slightly lower. if they are higher than your elbows than this will cause you to balance on your arms instead of your legs. if your arms are to far back it will make you stick your chest out. tuck your butt in so that you have a straight line from your neck to your tail bone. when done right you should not feel the air on your body, just your limbs. if your butt is sticking out it may create a built in drive. for starting out i recommend a daffy position for the legs. this is one leg in front and one behind. knees bent between 45 and 90 degrees. the daffy position allows you to catch air on 4 points so it is more stable.

[sldiveout 0]

If you are ending up on your back you are probably NOT sticking your chest out too much. That you puts you chest to earth (make sense?). The freefliers at your DZ need help -one of them has to be nice enough to give you some free ground instruction. Try flattery -it works on me.
Ever heard of Max Cohn? He recommends (I think rightly) that you learn x-man/froggy style first. That way you won't favor one leg forward. Also, if your leg position needs help you usually can fix problems with both legs at the same time since people fly symmetrically as a tendency. Daffy IS more stable, but there is a lot of stuff for a beginner to get right. Don't be afraid to get some official (paid) coaching from someone who is really good -1000 freefly jumps or better -they should be really good with their camera as well.
just my $.02
-Diveout

[Levin 0]

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If you are ending up on your back you are probably NOT sticking your chest out too much. That you puts you chest to earth (make sense?).

actually...NO...that does not make sense. when you are headdown everything is opposite. if you stick your chest out it causes a forward drive. if your body is slanted with your chest out this points your chest torwards the sky and your back towards the earth.

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Ever heard of Max Cohn?

yah, met him last weekend. great guy.

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He recommends (I think rightly) that you learn x-man/froggy style first. That way you won't favor one leg forward.

i recommend (i think rightly) that you learn daffy first. it is easier to learn thus saving you time and money getting the basics of the position down. who cares if you favor one leg forward. it's all personal flying style. i predominantly fly daffy with my left leg forward. i also fly x-man depending on the situation.

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Also, if your leg position needs help you usually can fix problems with both legs at the same time since people fly symmetrically as a tendency. Daffy IS more stable, but there is a lot of stuff for a beginner to get right.

are you saying that you can only fly symmetrically in an x-men position? both positions are symmetrical. what is more involved in a daffy for a begginer to get right? legs spread apart versus legs spread front and back. i propose that there is more for the begginer to get right learning x-man. since you are only grabbing air on two points it is more susceptable to unwanted forward and backwards movement from bad body position.

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Don't be afraid to get some official (paid) coaching from someone who is really good -1000 freefly jumps or better -they should be really good with their camera as well.

does that mean it's not official if they don't pay for it. i don't charge people for coaching (however paid slots are nice). i guess that doesn't count since it is unofficial. is a 1000 jumps the 'official' measurment for determining ones skills. i don't think so. jump numbers don't mean squat.

[FreeflyGoat 0]

IMHO, I have to agree that learning frog/xman leg position is the best for beginers. Not only is it easier to learn, it increases the speed which helps for more stability.
Xman legs should be used as the neutral position and daffy in order to slow fall rate as needed. A fat daffy is hard to fly as the speed gets slower. Of course this may vary with larger jumpers who have trouble falling slow.
Goat aka Dereck aka SuperFreak
AD A#292

[Levin 0]

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IMHO, I have to agree that learning frog/xman leg position is the best for beginers. Not only is it easier to learn, it increases the speed which helps for more stability.
Xman legs should be used as the neutral position and daffy in order to slow fall rate as needed. A fat daffy is hard to fly as the speed gets slower. Of course this may vary with larger jumpers who have trouble falling slow.

maybe i could be wrong on this one since max and goat both think x-man is better for learning and i consider both to be more experienced than me. but i still think daffy is better for a begginer to learn first. my reason being that the first thing a begginer headdowner should learn is to fall straight down. the trade off for a daffy is increased stability and less manueverability. thus unwanted movement in a daffy caused by poor body position will be less than that in a x-man position. once a begginer has learned to fly straight and is ready to experiment with forward and backwards movement then the x-men position comes into play.
maybe some begginers that have experimented with both positions would care to chime in on what works best for them.

[ramon 0]

some people naturally daffy while learning..like Hookit (trey).
to others it seems the Xman /frog is better because it is symmetrical and it is easier to see on video why someone is having a heading problem. Personally it was easier for me to get stable without moving foward or backward in an x-man then learn how to slow down in a daffy for a good neutral position.
but I could be wrong
ramon

[diveout 0]

Levin,
You don't need to tear apart my post because I disagree with your advice. We haven't seen video of flyhy so we haven't seen hip, leg, or arm position. I know jump numbers don't mean squat as far as skills are concerned but let's face it, they're a good place to start -along with reputation. What do you think of that? As a freeflier with a coach rating I give free coaching as well, but there are people who make their living as freefly coaches (perhaps you're one of them? -I never asked). I just think paying a little extra, for the time of someone who is nationally known, is worth the money if you can afford it.
-Dan

[SkyMissy 0]

Maybe there is confusion about what was meant by "chest out". I think of arching the chest, which puts the head & shoulders back, and causes a belly-to-earth slide. Maybe the original poster meant "upper body forward", like a bend at the waist, which WOULD cause a back-to-earth orientation. Anyway, who knows. Let's all love each other!!!! Wait, dammit Clay, not that way.I'm not the man they think I am at home, no;
I'm a rocket man.
Sky World

[Zennie 0]

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maybe i could be wrong on this one since max and goat both think x-man is better for learning and i consider both to be more experienced than me. but i still think daffy is better for a begginer to learn first

This is an interesting debate. And pertains a lot to what I've been struggling with lately.
In my coach jumps with Eric & Max, the emphasis has really been on X-man... legs out wide (I have lazy legs) and hands forward. Still, when I jump with other people I sort of tend to daffy, or this weird hybrid daffy-X sort of thing.
I've found that when I fly daffy I can free up my arms more and have a lot easier time slowing down with the sitfliers I practice with. When I go X-man I just can't get the legs out wide enough to slow that far down. Plus I crank down hard on the arms and that throws my chest out. The more I put my arms forward in X-man, the more I get flipped backwards.
I understand where Max is coming from on the symmetry. And one other benefit of X-man is that it's easier to correct forward/backsliding because the legs are more or less taken out of the equation. So you can focus strictlyon body position. But when I'm just flying with my friends I'm finding I sort of naturally gravitate to daffy.
Max helped me a lot with my X-man flying, and I'll still work on it. I think both have their place and you should be adept at both. But the jury's sort of out with me as to which one is "better". I think it's a personal thing really.
"Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

[skygeek 0]

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I understand where Max is coming from on the symmetry. And one other benefit of X-man is that it's easier to correct forward/backsliding because the legs are more or less taken out of the equation. So you can focus strictlyon body position. But when I'm just flying with my friends I'm finding I sort of naturally gravitate to daffy.

Im in the same boat with ya Zennie when i consontrate on my body position i try to fly x-men but when I'm not thinking about it I tend to go daffy. strange huh? Im fairly stable in both but have less control in daffy do most people use one or the other or both?
IItywimwybmab?

[FreeflyGoat 0]

Lets keep in mind that neither position is "better" in that both leg positions have their place and time.
I also fly naturaly in a lazy daffy, but my legs adjust when the fallrate changes one way or the other.
Just to lend my experience in how I learned. I first learned the xman position and got somewhat stable in it. The problem was that I weighed 200+ without gear and could not control my speed. I then switched DZs to one with alot more freeflyers and they all used big daffy positions falling real slow. So I had to then learn daffy just to fall with these guys. After doing 3-4 hundred jumps like this I started watching the "big" guys on video and heard that Olav's ball falls in the high 160's and realized we were falling way to slow with these leg positions. I had also lost alot of weight. I had to go back and re-learn the xman to increase my speed. I now mainly fly with a very relaxed daffy position which puts me at the right speed most of the time.
I think that we should probably teach leg position according to jumper weight, what do you think about that?
Goat aka Dereck aka SuperFreak
AD A#292

[FreeflyGoat 0]

Lets take this discussion to the post "Xman & Daffy"
I'll post this in both.
Imagine a shoulder width clock on the ground with your feet on 9 and 3. Now with small hops put them on 8 and 2 and then on to 7 and 1.... Now move them one click at a time back clockwise all the way to 11 and 5. You should learn how to fly your legs in everyone of these positions. This was one of my first lessons from the great Mike Ortiz and it has shaped the way I look at leg flying.
Goat aka Dereck aka SuperFreak
AD A#292

[Levin 0]

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You don't need to tear apart my post because I disagree with your advice. We haven't seen video of flyhy so we haven't seen hip, leg, or arm position. I know jump numbers don't mean squat as far as skills are concerned but let's face it, they're a good place to start -along with reputation. What do you think of that? As a freeflier with a coach rating I give free coaching as well, but there are people who make their living as freefly coaches (perhaps you're one of them? -I never asked). I just think paying a little extra, for the time of someone who is nationally known, is worth the money if you can afford it.

i'm sorry dan. i wasn't trying to be ugly. i was however being sarcastic becasue of the following remarks in your post...
"NOT ", "(make sense?)", "(I think rightly)", and in your last sentence you did not say nationally known. you set a standard for which one skills should be judged. i probably just read your post with the wrong tone. i think you did the same with mine. your post sounded to me like you were talking down to me like i have no clue what i'm talking about. my post probably sounded pretty shitty to you. it was not meant that way.

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I know jump numbers don't mean squat as far as skills are concerned but let's face it, they're a good place to start -along with reputation. What do you think of that?

i almost want to agree with this statement, but i have to say no. i would go on reputation alone. and for any other kind of advice besides air skills i would say first, time in sport then reputation.

[Levin 0]

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Maybe the original poster meant "upper body forward", like a bend at the waist, which WOULD cause a back-to-earth orientation

this almost what i meant. it doesn't necessarily have to be a bend at the waist. if someone has their arms to far back (a very common mistake made by begginers) then this pushes their chest forward. kinda in front of their face. this slants the person back to earth and cause forward drive. an arch that would backslide a jumper into a track would be initiated from a headdown by pushing the stomach and waist forward and bringing the arms back.