jme

You just want to know how many girls you'll get to look at this weekend! The practice jumps went great! About half the women showed up so we had some awesome 6 point 10-ways. All 21 women should be there Saturday. Yeehaw

On Saturday July 12, Start Skydiving in Lebanon, OH is hosting an Ohio state FS women's record attempt. We currently have 20 women registered and want to be sure we're not missing any interested ladies who meet the required minimum of a C license. Jumps for the record attempt are $20 with an additional $2 for video. If you are interested, please contact Joan.Esson@gmail.com or info@startskydiving.com.

Welcome to skydiving! Let me first say that I'm an AFF instructor from Start so I'm biased :) Kip Lohmiller is the manager at Start and he's both an AFF Instructor and Examiner (which means you are the one who trains other instructors), as well as a Tandem Instructor and Examiner. So I don't think you can go wrong with someone as experienced as that who's in charge of the operation. And I think all of the instructors are very professional, encouraging, and well trained from Start. Hope to see you there, but blue skies wherever you end up!

I highly recommend Kip Lohmiller as well. He's challenging, but encouraging. He'll work with you both on the ground to talk about how to teach and assess students while they are still on the ground, as well as in the air to make you a better flyer and challenge your skills. He's also a great mentor even after the course. I know the people that went through the course with him with me still seek his advice about student stuff from time to time. And he's also accomodating based on when and where you're available for the course.

Good luck with teaching him some self-defense. As others have already said, the usefulness of training will depend on the school. I trained in Tae Kwon Do at a dojang that was great for kids. It not only built confidence and skills (I had a six year old girl almost choke me out, but grant it I wasn't fighting back), but it also stressed teamwork and honesty and other things you probably would like your kid to learn. At my dojang, they even got monthly updates from teachers at the students' schools and copies of report cards. If they got into trouble, they weren't allowed to come to class until they made amends. So it could also be a good motivator for kids to behave and do well, too, but only if you're at the right school. Good schools will let you try out a class or two before you join and you can usually get a good sense of the place after your kid goes through the class and you have time to talk to the other parents about how they like the school.