How often do experienced jumpers practice PLFs?

I can say with out a doubt that doing a good PLF saved my body from serious injury on more than one occasion after I had 1,000 jumps.

They will save you, you must practice them if you're not able to do one in your sleep.

There's a reason why the airborne school is so long, it's all the PLF training.

I practice them every time I do a FJC. .....

I can say with out a doubt that doing a good PLF saved my body from serious injury on more than one occasion after I had 1,000 jumps.

They will save you, you must practice them if you're not able to do one in your sleep....

I kind of doubt that most experienced jumpers ever practice them. Certainly people do try to roll out landings if they get going a little fast on landing or trip. Better to get the rig dirty than going feet-knees-face. I personally wouldn't practice them on actual landings; I'd rather play around jumping off a picnic table.

You do need to be mentally prepared though, think about it enough, for it to accessible in your mental toolbox when you're a split second away from a hard landing. You want your brain to think "Crap... PLF!" not just "Crap!", or "Crap...Stick limbs out!"....

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AH yes!

You brought back some fond memories from the winter of 1981, at the Canadian Army's Airborne Center, in Edmonton.
For the first two weeks we alternated between push-ups and PLFs.
Then we jumped for two days.

Of course doing a PLF well is good.

But, there is no reason that a "pop up" should cause a bad landing. Think about managing the pop up, A pop up can be kinda fun. Don't let it pop up too much, don't let up on the toggles too much, keep flying it all the way to landing. You can often "sink" the canopy down the rest of the way from the pop up like an accuracy landing, or let if fly just a little bit so you still have a flare left. It all depends. Perhaps you can witness some others with good landings after a pop up and talk to some more experienced jumpers. You want to avoid stalling it, and at the opposite extreme, avoid letting it surge forward.

Don't trust anything I've said.

I practiced my PLFs off the 16 foot bouldering wall at the climbing gym for about 3 months, it ended up saving my ass a couple months later because when I needed it I was able to instinctively react instead of having to think about how to do it.

The traditional PLF works well when you are hanging straight in a harness, as you do naturally with a round parachute. When flaring a ram air, you typically are moved forward and leaned back as in a swing. Unless you know how to lean forward in your harness during plane out, the pitch change of the flare will put your feet way in front of your cg and you can't run well in this orientation, or PLF for that matter. Just watch students land, this is why they land on their butts and hurt their backs, or sit on the feet and damage their ankles. This also makes it hard to roll, which is what you should do when falling at high speed. Next time you are under canopy up high, clear traffic and flare, leaning forward against your chest strap. Notice how your feet are under you instead of instead front of you. Watch you tube videos of free running rolls and you will see techniques that serve you better when wiping out with a faster parachute than the traditional PLF. Practice rolls, from standing, then from a slow walk, then a run. The highlights are, don't let your head or neck touch the ground, roll on broad flat planes like your back and thighs. Don't roll on your spine. I eat shit spectacularly at least once a year and always get right up because I roll.

Your mileage may vary.

Be careful, this stuff is dangerous.

The traditional PLF works well when you are hanging straight in a harness, as you do naturally with a round parachute. When flaring a ram air, you typically are moved forward and leaned back as in a swing. Unless you know how to lean forward in your harness during plane out, the pitch change of the flare will put your feet way in front of your cg and you can't run well in this orientation, or PLF for that matter. Just watch students land, this is why they land on their butts and hurt their backs, or sit on the feet and damage their ankles. This also makes it hard to roll, which is what you should do when falling at high speed. Next time you are under canopy up high, clear traffic and flare, leaning forward against your chest strap. Notice how your feet are under you instead of instead front of you. Watch you tube videos of free running rolls and you will see techniques that serve you better when wiping out with a faster parachute than the traditional PLF. Practice rolls, from standing, then from a slow walk, then a run. The highlights are, don't let your head or neck touch the ground, roll on broad flat planes like your back and thighs. Don't roll on your spine. I eat shit spectacularly at least once a year and always get right up because I roll.

Your mileage may vary.

Be careful, this stuff is dangerous.

i also feel the training is outdated because unless your coming mostly down they arent the best solution. a good slide or roll is better. my 2cents

Yeah, I fall down more often than a lot of people. But I'm 57, and I get back up all the time, too

Personally, I think standup landings are great. I also think that as a measure of one's skydiving ability, they're overrated. Accuracy matters -- to be able to land where you want to, and avoid obstacles, is really important. But if you fall down when you land where you wanted to, whose business is it?

Wendy P.