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MAD1210

AFF student sudden fear of skydiving

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ryoder

It has been around for as long as I've been jumping, and back when I started it was known as "The Sixth Jump Jitters".



fascinating... I did my first 6 and then stopped (the jump 7 was my original tandem).

And now I sit around thinking "why the hell didn't I just go do it".

for the life of me I can't really see why you do 6 and they all go great and then suddenly you're more afraid than jump 1. Psychology says it should be creating extinction over time. Though there was nearly a week or 2 lag between each of those jumps EXCEPT 5-6 which were same day. Maybe had I not done it I would have held true.

Any thoughts on why fear goes away then seems to creep back up in most folks around this time?
You are not the contents of your wallet.

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Actually, the psychology of it is more than just extinction. You have an overload of information to process in the first jumps, which occupies your executive functions to the degree that the fear doesn't have timeshare. Then after you get used to the tasks, you now have time to process other things (fear). Furthermore, you are aware that there are but so many good jumps in a row you can have, and eventually you have to have a malfunction. Prospect Theory shows us that humans tend to over-estimate the rare event, especially after a number of successes that drive the Gambler's Fallacy (a bad one must be coming).

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DrDom

***It has been around for as long as I've been jumping, and back when I started it was known as "The Sixth Jump Jitters".



fascinating... I did my first 6 and then stopped (the jump 7 was my original tandem).

And now I sit around thinking "why the hell didn't I just go do it".

for the life of me I can't really see why you do 6 and they all go great and then suddenly you're more afraid than jump 1. Psychology says it should be creating extinction over time. Though there was nearly a week or 2 lag between each of those jumps EXCEPT 5-6 which were same day. Maybe had I not done it I would have held true.

Any thoughts on why fear goes away then seems to creep back up in most folks around this time?

My guess is because your 7th jump is completely unassisted. The instructor is just there to watch you perform. They dont help you exit or with any of your dive, you are indeed completely on your own. This is what scared me the most about my 7th jump and the fear ended up taking over and sending me on the death tumble ride of my life.
That dive shook me up pretty good, but it also gave me the confidence once I saw the video that I COULD get out of a nasty situation like that before blowing my bottom end.

In retrospect I'm glad I failed that jump, it helped me cope and get past my fear of being totally out of control.

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Thank you for your reply... I am not afraid anymore but now my problem is that I can't get past category E1 due to the spins!! OMG it is actually hillarius until I remember how much each jump costs.... I am thinking about going to the tunnel to get my legs fixed before the end of the season. I love Skydiving (with spins and all) and I can't wait to give it a try again tomorrow!! :D

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MAD1210

Thank you for your reply... I am not afraid anymore but now my problem is that I can't get past category E1 due to the spins!! OMG it is actually hillarius until I remember how much each jump costs.... I am thinking about going to the tunnel to get my legs fixed before the end of the season. I love Skydiving (with spins and all) and I can't wait to give it a try again tomorrow!! :D

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I guess you have been told to look at a point on the horizon?.
Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

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MAD1210

Thank you for your reply... I am not afraid anymore but now my problem is that I can't get past category E1 due to the spins!! OMG it is actually hillarius until I remember how much each jump costs.... I am thinking about going to the tunnel to get my legs fixed before the end of the season. I love Skydiving (with spins and all) and I can't wait to give it a try again tomorrow!!



Eeh, tunnel will probably fix what ails you. Most people I've taken more than once start to actually look like they know what their doing on their belly in about half an hour. It also requires you to fly a lot more accurately than in the sky, so it's a lot easier to tell when your body position is off.
I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

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I wouldn't worry too much about being nervous or scared, EVERYBODY has been/still is nervous to some degree when learning. I bet theres even people on here with thousands of jumps that still get the jitters, its all about learning to over come your feelings.

Its been said before that if your not scared when jumping, then you should probably give it up.

I had massive gear anxieties when i was a student, so i learned as much as i could about the equipment i was using and it helped calm the feelings.

The tunnel will help your spins for sure, the tunnel has helped advance our sport for the better. I had trouble on AFF level 5 (UK) doing my 360's, i could not stop the spin. I did 5 repeats before i cracked it, there was no tunnels back then so it was all in air coaching.
Relax and have fun and look forward to the day you can jump with other people, thats when the real fun starts!
At long last the light at the end of the tunell isnt an on coming train!!!

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DrDom


Psychology says it should be creating extinction over time. Though there was nearly a week or 2 lag between each of those jumps EXCEPT 5-6 which were same day. Maybe had I not done it I would have held true.

Any thoughts on why fear goes away then seems to creep back up in most folks around this time?



Actually, it's probably more about self-preservation and the subconscious than about creating 'extinction over time'. I do a lot of indoor climbing and fall practice is a frequent part of the training that I and my climbing buddy do, along with most of the climbers we know. There is no logic to the fear of falling, instinct will have any of us gripping onto the holds by our fingernails rather than just let go and trust the rope and our belay buddy, and we actively have to train to overcome that fear. And if we don't train for it for a while, and don't fall, then we have to start back at the beginning, because the subconscious is so strong, the fear will be just as bad as the first time we ever tried fall practice.

And I suspect in skydiving, if it's around the 6th jump, it's probably a new stage of training. For me, jump 6 was my first exit without an instructor holding onto me (solo dive exit, go unstable and recover, with turns at the end). I'm guessing it would apply differently to static line students, maybe their first non-dummy pull or longer delay before throwing the pilot chute. And maybe performance anxiety plays a part which isn't a fear of jumping but of being watched and tested.
A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

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MAD1210

Thank you for your reply... I am not afraid anymore but now my problem is that I can't get past category E1 due to the spins!! OMG it is actually hillarius until I remember how much each jump costs.... I am thinking about going to the tunnel to get my legs fixed before the end of the season. I love Skydiving (with spins and all) and I can't wait to give it a try again tomorrow!! :D



Are you trying to do your turns too fast? You don't have to spin on the spot like a whirling dervish, a slow controlled turn will do :-) Also, try to keep as much eye contact with your instructor as possible so looking at them as you turn, then move your head round to look over the other shoulder as you keep the turn going past 180 degrees to finish back facing them. The slower you do your turn, the more control you have and the less opposing input you will need to stop the turn. If you whizz round like a spinning top, you will need to slam on some opposite turn to put the brakes on and stop the rotation. Much easier to take your time at this stage whilst you are still learning :)
A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

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Somewhere in this forum, someone wrote (I read it but forget where the post is) that Category E is where most students leave training never to return.

I had a bad E1 jump that put me on the ground for three weeks. The next jump three weeks later was a bit anxious to say the least so I understand. In fact, everyone else posting to you understands as well. That we've all been through it may not minimize the yips but might provide some perspective that you're not alone or to put it another way...welcome to being normal. Hey, this is not a sport for everyone and the fact that you've made it this far is testament you've got a little more fire in the belly than the average person on the street.

How did I get through it? One jump at a time. An application from the game of golf (which I play a lot when not at the DZ) is that the most important golf shot IS THE NEXT ONE. Accordingly, the most important skydive, is THE NEXT ONE. The ones in the log are done and nice to reflect on and the jumps a year from now? Well...they ain't happened yet.

So, for me to get from Cat E to A License, one jump at a time...I did not think beyond the next jump. I took the perspective that there were many reasons to walk away from skydiving but being normal was not one of them.

One last point using another golf analogy. Both skydiving and golf share another principle in that both will not define character but will certainly reveal it.

Like I said, you've made it this far!

Good luck!

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jclalor

If you have the opportunity, a few minutes in the tunnel never hurts.

(That I know of)



I know someone that is currently recovering from their third tunnel injury. Maybe it can hurt. :)
Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

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