Spaceland Anomaly - Insomnia Tunnel Camp

Posted Saturday, November 29, 2003

By Trent Alkek

Spaceland Anomaly, this year's silver medallist freefly team, is hosting its second annual "Insomnia Tunnel Camp" this coming January. Together with tunnel champions Juliana and Fabian Raidel and Joao Tambor, Anomaly hopes to again bring freeflyers of all experience levels to the SkyVenture tunnel in Orlando for an intensive 3 night camp. The camps are designed to be a low cost alternative to more traditional camps, while maintaining a very individualized progression for each student.
Anomaly Tunnel
As in last year's camp, the tunnel time is booked in the midnight to 6AM timeslots, which gives each student a total flying time of 2 hours over the 3 night camp. Not only does booking nights provide cooler temperatures for better air in the tunnel, but it also saves students the price of the daytime tunnel rates. After the first night's session (and many Red Bull cases), everyone adjusted to the graveyard shift schedule. Students slept their days away at the nearby Best Western while waiting for their 10PM warm up sessions at the tunnel.

The coaching is the camp's strongest point, and primary focus. Each of the 3 coaches work with the same 3-4 students each night. This gives them the opportunity to tailor individual progressions based on the skill level and preferences of each student. By remaining with their students through all their tunnel time, coaches can see improvement over the 3 nights and pace the learning appropriately. Many of last year's participants started out with an introductory lesson in RW skills, both for safety reasons and to remind them of how much we all have to learn on our bellies. From there, the progression moved to backflying to sitflying, and, for some, an introduction to head down flying in the tunnel.
Anomaly Tunnel
At the end of the camp's 3rd night, students made their way to their respective hometowns with bags under their eys, smiles on their faces, and a lot more freefly skill than they came with. "It's kind of like being in another world, being in the tunnel at such odd hours, but the coaches are energetic and extremely experienced... I know I've improved 100%!" said returning student Jen Dembinski.

The next Anomaly Tunnel Camp is scheduled for January 15th - 17th, with available slots going fast. Contact trent@spacelandanomaly.com for more information.