stylin

Yea, I know, hooked, and that quick! I only have just 5 jumps so far. The anxiety is comming from, I dont like flying (commercial aircraft too), and there is a phobia. I get over phobias pretty quick though, ie mountain climbing at high altitude used to be one of them. This one is on its way out.

The Instructor probably meant that if the student couldn't find the handle (it is a little harder to find on tandems), but makes the Instructor aware that they are aware of the alititude and attempting to pull, good to go. If you "had my hand on it this time", why didn't you pull it? That would be my question if I was the Instructor. It is a red flag that puts doubt into the Instructor's mind that you weren't going to pull. There was no reason not to pull, and you didn't. Did you have the handle in your hand or "was just fixing to grab it"? The Instructor is thinking about AFF. What if on your AFF jump you grab the handle and don't pull? The idea is to show the Instructor you can handle it. "I went through the motions correctly", except for he important part, actually pulling. You didn't pass not because "didnt pass because I didnt pull quck enough.", but because you didn't pull. In summary, take responsibilty for your action/inactions throughout your training, do not blame you Instructors. "the way I want to be, because this shit is dangerous" Glad you recognize that now. Keep at it, sounds like you are doing fine. Hook Nooo, wasnt blaming the instructors for anything. Actually, I fully agree with him and didnt want to go with AFF-1 for now. The rip cord was the reason, and the other reason was the still present anxiety....it needs to go away. Maybe next time itll be gone, but it needs to go away before AFF-1. What I was getting at here, was that one instructor said you dont have to actually pull it on tandem-2 to pass, but it seems they are being stricter with me, so Im bringing that up because I think thats kind of weird, they are expecting more from me it seems like. But I fully agree with you, and them, exactly the way I feel. Beleive me, Im in no hurry. Nor do I think Im any good at it. Its too radical to be something that should be rushed. By the way, when we were at 5000, I waved off then had my palm flat on it, was fixing to get a grip, but I guess was taking too long. I was afraid of losing the grip on it when throwing or not having a grip on it when trying to throw. That could be kind of "messy" couldnt it? He said hand flat, grab, throw all one motion. Well what if my hand slips off, then have to grab it again...youre losing altitude. Ill get it down, but there are these minor details. But like they said in the other posts, I think Im already hooked, cant walk away from it. If they think Im "kicking ass" and they are giving me a price break, then I want to keep kicking ass cause this shit's expensive! Im looking for any pointers you and the boys have to offer to keep things in that direction. Thanks for replying.

They want me to do everything starting in the morning from now on, so I slept over last night and went up this morning, tandem-2 again. Still anxiety, I guess Im starting to get used to it. Anthing takes a few times to get used to. So I exited, arched, counted, rip cord simulations three times, forward 5 secs then recover, then reached for the ripcord at 5000, had my hand on it this time, was just fixing to grab it and throw, then his hand was on mine and he pulled. Said I was taking too long. Now here's whats funny. During the drills (on the ground), Im with another instructor and the person he was going up with going through the excersise, and he said, it doesnt matter if you pull the ripcord or not on tandem-2, as long as you go through the motions you pass. I went through the motions correctly and didnt pass because I didnt pull quck enough. Thats odd. It gets more interesting. So we slide in (fun!), he said I did great and give me five, ect. This one I was not happy about. So then I saw him talking to the last instructor I went up with, then he catches up with another two instructors talking saying something like "it was fantastic, I couldnt believe it, he was kicking ass, you should have seen the exit and arch, ect." So just to be funny, I went "you must be talking about me again, just kidding!" and started laughing. I did that because I pretty much knew I fucked up completely and still had anxiety. Then he says, "yep, we are talking about you". I just stood there in shock while my jaw dropped, I said youre kidding, seriously? He says "yea, that was a perfect skydive, that was really something, way to go". So I tell him, dude, dont boost my ego like that, as far as Im concerned I know nothing and if I knew I knew nothing that would be something. Thats the way I want to be, because this shit is dangerous and thats all there is to it. If it doesnt feel safe, then it cant be safe. Then the manager says he's lowering my rates and dont hesitate on the ripcord next time, plan on staying over next weekend. I could not believe this day. Even more interesting, Im sleeping at the dropzone last night and dreaming about skydiving all night. Sleeping at a dropzone and dreaming about skydiving, what a trip. They had a cool hot air balloon go up at 6:30 this morning, first time I ever seen one of those up close. I was there watching them fill it up, wondering how freaky it would be to "climb inside" while it was half full. No thanks, another thing Im phobic about.

How high??? Ha Ha.

I started out in one of "those". Funny thing, an instructor at Eloy was criticizing them today saying they treat their students like shit. Theyre not kidding.

Hi. I had two S/Ls before starting AFF. I began thinking about this and want to modify what i said previously. I was advising against static lines because on the second I had flipped while on the static line because I had my waist too far in. Thats what they were calling a "rough ride". They were not kidding! In the plane, an instructor was talking about what happens in AFF if youre not arching right, either you can start rolling, not that serious, or in the worst case you can go flipping around wildly, arms and legs all over the place. I thought that was kind of funny the way he described that, but if it happened to me I dont think Id be laughing so hard. After the "rough ride", I can tell you that after that I was arching so hard during a tandem-2 the instructor was complaining. Either way you decide to go, just remember to exit into the wind and arch, with your waist forward. The waist forward part is the one that makes or breaks you, they tell me that a lot of men flip for that reason.

They that is what we do after the beer light is on or on winded out days. Oh and don't forget creeper slingshot, slappies fav.....then there are beacon rides.....the list goes on and on.....Skydiving is a very social sport....usually much more socializing than skydiving goes on. Well, I hope that isnt going to be a problem for me being that Im a big time girl chaser. Seems to be a problem I have, all I have to do is take one look at a cute blonde and I just lose it completely. Thats really going to help out alot when I need to keep my attention span on whats going on during a freefall, ie altitude awareness for one. I had a cute blonde in a jumpsuit brush past me last weekend, and Im like "hey, hows it going, ....ect". Then I thought, what the hell am I doing, Im fixing to go up and Im screwing around again. That blonde was really cute. Some things you just cant help.

Not quite. Posts in the Intro Forum are for newbies posting to say hi, as you recently learned, it is moderated fairly well. The same goes for all the other forums, when they start to stray off topic (if its a topical forum) its nipped in the bud fairly quickly. I noticed that.

I dont even want to think about that. Have you ever forgotten something, like your wallet before you left the house? Or your rig before you jumped? May sound stupid, but the point is, its always easy to forget something, especially if youre me.

I agree with you, but I think Im starting to go crazy with it. But, that topic really cleared up a lot of things for me, if it happened tomorrow I think I would be a lot more in tune to whats going on which would prevent pushing the panic button. You can keep talking yourself to death on a subject like that. Right now its just being crapped out with a lot of usless posts saying stupid things that have no relevance to the subject. Too bad. No matter where you put it, the retards will catch up with it sooner or later.

Actually, there's more truth buried in that movie than fiction. Of course, you wouldn't know that because you haven't been around long enough. Sure, some of it has a pretty large dose of artistic license, but the people & personalities portrayed in the film exist at dropzones all over the planet. This has been talked about before in depth here on dz.com -- give it a search. What truth? They spent more time on silly shit like chasing girls around the DZ and hanging off of trucks with a parachute than skydiving. This absolutely was not a serious movie about skydiving. Watch "Blue Crush" sometime and tell me if you think thats a serious movie about surfing. If they did make a serioius movie about skydiving, and they did it right, make it about that and that only, I think it would end up being a pretty big hit. Im talking about something realistic. That movie to me was about as realistic as "Blue Crush"

Good man!!!!! The movie sucks, why talk about it. Its a copycat of "Point Break" with a little bit of "Blue Crush" thrown in. Not very original. There are a few good scenes, but Ive seen better looking blondes at the DZ. Too bad they dont come on like that one did! Ha ha. "Bonus freefall time"? I like that....parachute went into a spin and I got some bonus freefall time. Cool. Be sure to check out those "that word" videos on the subject "that word"

Thats because Im a raving lunatic. Dont encourage me any furthur. And dont say "that word".

New forum rule.

Nooooooooo!!! Im gonna be doing cutaways in my sleep! Lets cutaway from talking about cutaways before I cutaway from my sanity and end up being some deranged sort of cutaway freak in some cutaway asylum who cant stop talking about cutaways!

I think we should just cutaway from the UN. That should solve all our problems.

If I can get to the point where I can stop talking about cutaways, then I think I can manage that. I think Im finally nearing the end.... You might want to change the name from "stylin" to "cutaway" if I cant manage to shut up about it. So with that Ill cutaway from the forum and cutaway from continued postings about cutaways. Right now Im cutting away from this machine and going home so I can cutaway from this day and get some sleep.

as i said in another thread, its pretty adversarial and comes off as if you already "have all the answers you need" which is never very conducive to learning, and how well you learn has a direct bearing on surviving a skydive nothing in surfing (with the possible exception of tow in to some of those monsters in HI) can have as direct and immediate consequences to your life span as every single jump does. please listen to your instructors with a more open attitude than the one youve displayed here.. good luck, i hope you dont need it.. Your point taken into consideration, but I dont think I have that type of attitude, so if you are reading that then Im afraid you are reading that incorrectly. I listen to the instructors pretty well, thats why when they suggested I dont go up with a cold, I didnt argue the point. On luck, if I ever do need it I hope I get it. As I said, the subject is jam packed with posts, so lets go to another subject if we need to branch off, we dont want this one getting more flooded than it already is. Its starting to branch off alot and that gets confusing for anyone who wants to read through. Here's a suggestion: "Attitude towards skydiving", Il let you start that one.

Threre are a lot of postings on this subject, and on this day I can say that Ive made a lot of progress and mentally accomplished something. And thats only because of all the positive participation of several people here and the time they put into it. This got into some pretty serious issues, the life threatening one especially, and came up with some pretty good videos on a spin and cutaway. I feel a hell of a lot more confident for one, and I can tell you that is going to have a real impact, a positive one, on the near and distant future. Lot of info has been going around. If this needs to branch out any furthur, then lets create another subject and wrap this one up because this already has a pretty massive amount of postings, any more and its going to be too hard for anyone to keep up with. This is a pretty massive subject, and with all the info going back and forth, I think we''ve only touched the tip of the iceberg on cutaways. I need to cutaway from this computer and go home, today Ive been doing too many cutaways from work so have a lot to catch up on tomorrow. Then Ill cutaway from Phoenix this weekend and go out to the DZ, next week Ill be doing a cutaway so I can go on vacation. Im going crazy with this cutaway shit.

There you go again. Read my other post about bickering. Why dont you stop thinking about getting killed skydiving and start thinking about not getting killed skydiving. You sounded to me like you were worried about something and I was trying to talk you ouit of it until you decided to start getting rude again. If you cant be polite, then dont reply to my postings, its that simple. I dont need to point these out to you, you know what you were saying. You seem to think I have this "bad attitude" towards skydiving, so if thats the way it is, then maybe youd like to explain why I keep thinking about it until Im back at the DZ once again. Dont ask me to explain it, I still dont know. There are two basic outcomes of going surfing, you live, you drown. There are two ouitcomes of driving a car, you get to where youre going, or you crash. Think Im trying to be funny? The day after the "static line incident", which I guess you might know about from previoius postiings, I had a car accident, where I almost rammed into the front end of another going 40 mph. Did I panic? Nope, in a split second, I thought, run over the curb and miss his car, over the curb I went, through a cactus, and back down, adrenaline pumping furiously. The outcome, small dent in my car, fender bender in his, noone hurt. Then he gets out and complements me on my driving ability. What do you think my attitude is going to do on a skydiving accident? On the static line, I didnt have time to think, just time to realize I was in serious trouble. Thats pretty much the way it was, not enough time to figure it out. It went way too quick. That was why I paniced. It was because I wasnt arching properly, bad exit, so that happened. The outcome. The next jump, tandem-2 at another DZ, the instructor complained that I arched so hard I was breaking his back, but said I had a really great exit. That was my attitude. So what do you think about my attitude now?

And just what kind of an attitude do you call "I think you should take up bowling...". You better take a look at some of your own posts buddy, before you decide to start pointing fingers. Let me make a point here, and then Ill leave it at that. There are several people who want to keep making rude comments, ect, that might wonder why I dont "fight back". Im sure thats gone through everyones mind. So let me awnser it here. I could keep bickering back on this bulletin board, but that would be a waste of time, and I have a better way of doing things. Its called "discussing it" in person, and thats what I do. Think of it as an adrenaline rush that you dont have to pay for. You never know who youre going to run into someday. If youre going to run into me, I can either be real friendly, always willing to help out, or I can be your worst nightmare, somebody you hope to hell you never end up meeting. Its always up to the other person how Im going to be. Just a word of freindly advice, okay? Have a nice day.

Ok, sorry about the "kid" thing, from the way some people were talking I had assumed you were much younger. As it is though, you're still younger than I am (most people are). Anyway, as to being scared on your first jump, that's certainly not unique to you. Hell, some of the most fearless skydiver's I know today were more scared than you on your first jump. Take Jan Meyer for instance. Her STORY sounds a lot like yours, but she got over it and today, years later, she's a member of the Board of Directors for the USPA. Believe me, being scared is also a part of the sport. Fear is good. It keeps you on your toes. Just don't let it take over your life and you're fine. Yea well you dont want to panic either, thats that one thing that always gets you killed no matter what youre doing. When you panic, you cant think, and when you cant think, you cant do anything right. That guy in the video acted like he was liking it the whole time (turn on the sound), he must be used to going into spins. It doesnt look that bad from what I see from that, at first, but my question is after you cut away, dont you have to worry about a stable position before you want to pull the reserve? Looks to me like he just went one right after the other and wasnt concerned with where he would end up after cutting away.

Youre talking about panicing. Thats right, you dont know whether or not youre going to panic until youre confronted, its how people die in a lot of sports. Panicing is a sure way to get killed. I paniced in that static line flip, it just went like "wham wham" Im seeing the ground flipping through wildly less than 3000 ft, so the first thing that triggers is "your about to get killed", I couldnt find the cutaway, the main immediately blows open and everything perfect. And Ill always be the first to say dont panic. They said at the DZ, "you were lucky", oh yea. I just think the best thing to do is just always be overly suspicious about what is going to happen, in other words, be a complete pessimist. Nothing is going to go right, but if it does, thats great. When I see the chute blow open, the first thing I think of is "okay, now whats wrong with it", it always kind of leaves you a little more mentally prepared. Next time I jump Ill probably go into a spin so I guess I better get prepared to do a cutaway. Just keep thinking that way until you get used to it, thats all you can do.

You'd be surprised what you would do in that situation. I've always said that, but almost died a bit over a week ago fucking with a similar malfunction. Thats one reason I wouldnt mess with it. The other reason is Id already be pretty freaked out and ready for the reserve.

Best to save them to disk, click right then Save Target, then play at 200 % resolution, dont forget the soiund!!! Sounds really wicked, but he sounds like hes having fun. On both, if you keep your eye on it, you can clearly see him first pull the cutaway, then the reserve, then his light brown reserve opens. Looked like the spin wasnt too bad but was about to pick up speed, so I can see where G-force can knock you out pretty quick. I wouldnt have messed with it. Also looks like he faced the ground immediately after the cutaway and opens reserve right away.