Becca

Just saw this thread, I'm 5'10 barefooted. So in shoes I'm 6 feet tall. I weigh 140 pounds. Translated: I can fall 85 MPH in my regular RW suit. I take all the tiny girls on AFF jumps. We have no need to add weights to em' When I did tandems I think I averaged around 95 mph. Only a few camera guys could stay with me. But I also took mostly small people around 170 and less so that helped compound the slow fall rate. I have attached a picture where you can tell I'm tall. Becca

Mark, if you need a place to stay Friday night let me know. I live 20 minutes from the DZ. I'll be out late afternoon on Friday. See you there Becca

Uh Oh, now I'm scared, no change that not me, my roof, that is what is scared and my neighbors, if they get wind that your coming to town, they will start picketing!!! Oh well I've been thinking of selling that house anyway. So bring it on, the roof is all yours and we'll save you a spot in the hot tub. Becca

Like they said, the perfect weekend to be in town. Try and plan to hang out with us in the evening too. Boogie parties are always a blast and Monroe has it going on in the party department. Becca

I am an AFF instructor and to me there is nothing meaningless about the "Backloop" skydive. We have students do back loops for 2 reasons (At least I do) 1st is to see them recover from an unstable body position, so I don't care how well they backloop, I care how quickly the regain stability. But for me the biggest reason is CONFIDENCE. We teach Aff students from day one to ARCH, ARCH, ARCH. We drill it into them from exit to pull you must ARCH, they wind up thinking anything other than a stable arch and OMG they will die. So by the time we get them to the Backloop level they have learned the basics of stable flight, fwd mvmt, turns. We can't leave them with just that knowledge and say you go figure out the rest, we have to show them that they can have a f-uped body position whether it comes from a bad exit, a funnell, or even just for fun, and they have the skills to get stable. Being unstable doesn't mean OMG, I'm gonna die. When I release that student to Self Jumpmaster, I want them to know how to handle different body positions in freefall. Just took a student yesterday on a backloop dive (Level 6) when we got down his confidence was through the roof (in a good way) We went back up and did level 7. the graduation dive which has more unstable drills, sure enough on his diving exit he went flat on his back and just like the textbooks say he rolled over perfectly with a big smile on face, no freakin out for him cause we taught him already it is ok to be unstable just recover from it. So that is why we teach Back loops, oh also because they are fun, guess what most AFF students do on there 1st solo? At least when they bring me their newly filled out log book for a signature it says, diving exit and then x number of Back loops, normally finished off with a WA HOO! Becca Garrison AFF I

The advice you are getting from all these experienced TM's is great. I am a female TM built probably similar to you 5'10 150. The best advice I can give is fly your body. Then it does not (normally) matter what the student is doing under you. With as much span as I've got, freefall has mostly been a breeze. I do wear a tight suit w/booties when I get video because I have a very slow fall rate, I also get all the little tiny spinner girls on AFF, go figure. Video men do say I fall slow so I try to to help a bit by flying with my legs and keeping my arms in. But all that stuff you will learn pretty quick on your own without much trouble. The absolute best thing I can tell you is start pumping iron. The hardest thing for me to do was flare that damn canopy when I had a 200 lb dude pass out on me. After a few times of being hosed by your student on landing but still needing their help for the flare will make you re-think the whole TM thing, it least it did me. Now I was by no stretch a weakling but the fact is women do not have upper body strength like men do and flaring a 350+ sq ft canopy with 200 lbs plus your own weight is a plain out bitch. Even after working out and a few hundred tandems I could still only do about 5 or 6 a day and then I could no longer flare without help from the student. So I can not express that part enough...Work out... Good Luck and Have fun. Becca

[Hey Becca, I think I should log my hospital landing as a class I demo; what do you think? Chuckie I think maybe, if people at the VFW next store clapped then you can. If not, no one saw it therefore, no Demo. Oh wait I sorta saw it from above, I was clapping so yeah a demo. Log it! Becca

Yep that would be me This is shaping up to be a great party we are expecting around 100 people. Can't wait to meet you and your wife. See you Saturday Becca

This was originally sent out via email and we are posting it here so we don't miss anyone I hope this season finds everyone well. A few of us have talked about the need for a get together that involved skydivers from every DZ in Georgia. A party of all parties where it didn't matter where you jump cause no one gives a rat's butt. A party where new jumpers got to meet other GA jumpers and old jumpers got to meet new ones and renew acquaintances. A party that would strengthen our skydiving community. So after years of "We should" now we are!!!! Here is low down. Everyone is invited so please invite your friends. December 13th Saturday night party @ Dark The Famous Chris Spence is cooking a rib and chicken dinner. Wonderful Harvey who jumps out in cedartown has hired a band. We should have some kegs of beer, but of course I recommend bringing your own too. We have been offered a newly completed Hanger by Greg Dowdy near the town of Cedartown. Detailed directions are below. This party will be on private property. You can camp, Hotels near Cedartown are available as well, Please don't drink and drive. To help us cover the cost of the food and the band we are asking each party goer contribute 10 bucks. Excess money collected will be offered as a door prize. Please RSVP so we know how much food to make. We have also been offered jumps during the day from a porter (he has an airstrip on his land) Please RSVP if possible to becca_garrison@msn.com Some more info on the Georgia Skydivers Party. The RSVP's have been coming in fast and furious it seems this was a great idea afterall. I have people coming from every DZ in GA plus some from Tennessee and Alabama. On top of the Band we have playing, the great DJ's of Georgia have agreed to spin some fantastic music. We have Tom Balzer, Eric Deren and Mark Shimmell. Chris is getting his grills packed up and his wife Julie is smiling though it all. I have over 60 people RSVP'd so if your planning on coming please let me know ASAP. I have to tell Chris how much food to get, and we have to order the beer. The plane will be flying all day. So you can come early and get some jumps in. There is power for RV's to hookup If you have any questions let me know. Here are the directions. 1195 Grady Road Cedartown, GA Take I-20 to Thorton Road turn right stay on 278 into cedartown (about 40 minutes) go 1.6 miles past cowboy's gas station and turn left on Grady Road. Go 2.3 miles and turn left onto the property (there will be signs. Blues Skies Becca

For anyone interested, the Georgia Skydiving League is having their end of year party this Friday Night December 5th at 7:00 pm at Frankie's on the Prado. It is located on Roswell Road just inside 285. This is an event for all GA skydivers or anyone else who want's to come. Blue Skies Becca

We will have Crosskeys super Otter at Skydive Monroe this weekend June 21st. The Georgia Skydiving League 4 way meet is on Saturday and we will have a cookout at sunset. So come on out and play with us. Becca

Just Browsing though stuff when I saw this. I was not surprised to read about your plight. Eugene Matos royally screwed us over in 2000. We tried to get Parachusist and Skydiving to not accept ads from him with no luck. We posted our experiences on Rec.skydiving back in 2000. Here is a copy of what happened to us. Rec.Skydiving Feb 2000 I am looking for the Skydivers who went to the Christmas/New Years Boogie in the Dominican Republic. I heard the were 20 Skydivers From Chicago that attended. 8 of us attended the Hercules Boogie Last Week and were throughly ripped off by the organizer and fellow Skydiver Eugene Matos. We are posting this to this newsgroup becuase we do not want other skydivers to fall in this Con Artist's trap he advertises in Skydiving and Parachusits for Boogies that Barely if at all happen. We are looking for the Chicago group becuase we heard they Traveled to a boogie featuring a Super Otter for Two weeks and a got a Cessna 182. Just to list the facts of our trip. We started a quest for a skydiving vacation months a go and saw the ad in both Parachusit and Skydiving we then requested info from this newsgroup and heard neither good nor bad so we contacted the Organizer Eugene Matos. He spun a wonderful picture of a boogie in paradise with Free Helicopter jumps to Celebrate the Dominican Republic's Air Force Anniversary. He confirmed 2 days as much jumps as you could pack for with one rig. Also included in the deal was round trip airfare from the resort we were staying at to the Air Force Base and Back each day. After our 2 days of Helicopter Jumps we could jump a porter at the resort for 25 usd a jump. In order to register for this Boogie we were required to stay at a particular resort and book though a particular travel agent (Should have been our 1st clue) We received several grand emails detailing the great things happening at this boogie so with a great adventure in our minds a shit load of money out of our pockets and a trust in this Fellow Skydiver Eugene Matos we booked our trip. Well this is what really happened. We arrrive at the resort El Portillo on the North Coast of the Dominican Republic and it has beautiful scenery. We knew the DR is Third World but figured the World Class Resort That our Travel Agent and Eugene Matos told us about would be immune to that, you know imported meat, clean drinking water, good drinks a wide selection of beer. We could not have been more wrong. The food was awful the meat smelled like horse's ass, drinks in a dixie cup and one kind of nasty beer on tap. Oh well we came here to Skydive food is not neccessary a little pineapple we'll be fine. Our next step find the Organizer. It took a while but we finally found Eugene Matos. He told us we would be going to the Air Force base on Monday (this was on Sun Afternoon) for two days but we would have to spend the night there (not what he promised but ok fine lets Skydive plus maybe we could find some real food and beer) He collected our 75 Dollars Boogie Registration fee and then disappeared we met him at 6:45am on Monday with our gear no travel bag (we were only allowed to take our gear) He informs us the hotel wants us to put our stuff together in case the need to rent our rooms (already paid one week in advance) That of course goes over like a lead ballon. Half the group is no longer trusting this Idiot and ready to feed him to the fishes. We refuse finally he lets it drop. We go over to the hotel airstrip. He tries to get all of us on one plane that is not rated for that much weight telling us its ok. Hello we are not total Idiots. The problem is there is only one plane. We all say enough B.S just give us our money back we will stay here. No can do he tells us he already spent it on this plane. So some of our group stayed behind and the rest of us went (another bad move on our part) We get to Air Force Base only to find out that this Guy is advertising and collecting money for a boogie using aircraft he has no control over or any prior agreement with the Military to use. The Dominicans allow us only one Jump from 6000 ft out of a Huey. Now we are stuck on a miltary base in a country that is pretty much ruled by the Miltary not a place we wanted to be and we sure as hell couldn't Bitch becuase we were afraid to open our mouths. Eugene had contracted use of his cessna 182 to the Dominican's for the day so were sat on the ground and watched the miltary jump all day. Eugene tells us he will get a plane to take us back to the resort. It should be here at 2:30 or 3:00. Surprise, Surprise it never shows. We finally get a ride back in a cessna at 6:00 that costs us an additional 150 dollars. At that point we would have paid anything to get us the hell out of there. Once back at the resort we find there is no plane to skydive with but one should come tommorrow (Yeah right) of course it never showed. So here we are stuck on a skydiving vaction that we had saved the money for for 6 months. Taken our 1 week a year vaction time only to find ourselves with no skydiving no edible food, shitty beer (the worst you can do to a Skydiver) and Mr. Eugene Matos has disappered another surprise. Come to find out, His wife owns the travel agency and they also have something to do with this resort. We just wanted all skydivers to know about this and are planning to write USPA and Skydiving in hopes that they will accept no more Ads from this Con Artist (the reason we are looking for the Chicago group to add their story) Blue Skies and Shame on Eugene Becca Garrison AFF/I Joe Bennett AFF/I, TM/I Mike Moore AFF/I, TM/I Lawrence Coverdale C-28524 James Leatherwood C-something Pam Stacey A-something Angie Leatherwood Great Skydiving Wife