4-way Training Camps

Posted Saturday, June 22, 2002

By Alan Metni

The TunnelCamp.com 4-Way Camp is made up of four Advanced Camp slots but employs a highly specialized curriculum developed by the current 4-way World Champions - Arizona Airspeed. It works great for brand new or well established 4-way teams who want to train together in the tunnel. We can offer it in any camp in which there are 4 advanced or 6 basic slots still open.
4 Way Tunnel Camp
The two of you from the back piece in the 4-way will be with a coach that has spent years in the back piece (usually a current or former World Champion in that slot). Similarly, front piece people will be paired with a front piece coach. Here is our process:

We begin by moving each of you through the Basic and Advanced Camp curricula as quickly as possible. In the first day and a half of your camp, we will cover the entire three-day Advanced Camp curriculum focusing on body position, flight dynamics and individual technique. We find it helps to sort all of these issues out early before we get caught up in the details of piece flying.

Once you are flying great as individuals, we will turn our attention to the blocks. We will work each of you through each block in the dive pool. You will do the block over and over with your TunnelCamp.com coach in the piece with you. You will train both slots in your piece so you know what it is the entire piece is trying to achieve.

Your piece partner will also do the same block with the coach.

Once we are sure each of you understand how the block works, we will put the two of you together and fly the block. When you are flying together, we will be in the tunnel with you providing coaching and instant feedback. We have found this system to work exceptionally well. It almost always clears up any problems teams are having with any block.

After we get through all the blocks, we will work on grips and flashing, synchronicity, and non-verbal communication. We will put it all together towards the end of the camp with a series of fun but increasingly difficult 3 ways and 4-ways with your TunnelCamp.com coaches and then finally with your entire team.

As a group, you will fly a total of 6 hours in the tunnel. If you want more, we can add hours in the evening. About 70% of this time is spent flying one-on-one with your coach and 30% with each other but we adjust that ratio as necessary. Consequently, each team member can expect to fly a minimum of about 2.5 hours (more if you add evening time, see rates).

You are welcome to attend all of the regular camp lectures but we will also offer specific mini-lectures on 4-way topics just for your team. We tell you what subjects are available - team communication, getting along, performing your best in competition, exit dynamics, continuity plan, training plan, etc - and you pick what you want to hear about. Of course the lunch, snacks, drinks, digital video, t-shirts, SkyCoaster trip, knee pads, etc. that come with the Basic and Advanced Camps are included in your 4 Way Camp.

You need not have attended a Tunnel Camp in the past. The parameters are as follows: