Instructional

There are legions of retired and semi-retired skydivers who haven’t been upstairs in weeks, months or even years but suddenly get the urge to strap on their gear and head out to the DZ. Sometimes the returnees are students or novices who simply ran out of money during their initial training, but increasingly frequently they're licensed skydivers with considerable experience who were sidetracked for years by a demanding job or too many kids’ soccer games. For them, it may take only a whiff of jet A on a sunny summer day to get their skydiving juices flowing again. more »

Learning to back-fly is often the first step a jumper takes when learning to freefly, whether in the air or wind tunnel. The back-flying position offers incredible versatility in flying speeds and gives a jumper the ability to fly with anyone from belly to head-down flyers. This versatility also makes it an excellent recovery position when learning to fly in positions such as the sit, stand or head down, since the flyer is able to “fall off” the position without rapid deceleration (called “corking”), which is hazardous to others nearby and must be avoided. more »

Part 6 of 6—Putting It All Together

Committing to a 4-way team requires a great deal of dedication and sacrifice. Unfortunately, many teams begin their training thinking that if they jump a lot they will advance quickly. This is not the case. Making a lot of jumps without a clear training plan will frequently result in a team feeling like it is just spinning its wheels. The members are putting in the effort but not seeing results. The team may advance in bits and pieces, but the pieces don’t fit together, and the points don’t add up. more »

Part 5 of 6—Jump Preparation (Dirt Diving) and Debriefing

During jump preparation, a team should repeatedly practice team communication skills and personal flying skills, habits and discipline. It is during this process that a team has the best opportunity to develop and train the correct behavior so that it becomes almost instinctual. For this reason, it is crucial for the team to perform each skill correctly every time. If the members are complacent about this, the team will inevitably perform the skills incorrectly as many times as it does correctly and will have ingrained the wrong behaviors. The team will be repeating the exercises either way, so be sure to do them right. more »