i Failed level one

[md202089 0]

so you might remeber me from a couple weeks ago posting about being completely terrified of jumping after doing 2 tandems well i went ahead and went for level one yesterday... and failed pretty bad my arch was shit my back legs were flopping around (not kicking) my upper body was alright, they were giving me hand signals but my brain froze. my three practice pulls went good my altitude awareness was excellent and pulled on time. my flight down with canopy was horrible thought i was exactly right on target slowly passed my target then realized i was going to miss the runway completely saw a gravel road to try to do a emergency landing and was still way to high had to avoid a powerline legs up then dodge a large patch of timber about 50 feet after that but in the end was able to pull it together and land softly in the ditch. feeling a pretty bad after failing miserably at just level one has this happened to anyone else?

[normiss 620]

Funks?
Dood that's an awesome story.
Did you miss the roof?

[akarunway 1]

GOLF

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[airtwardo 6]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFf0ysgNiM

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[Shredex 0]

All there is to do now is go back and try again!

Maybe hit up a tunnel for a bit ;p

[potatoman 0]

mmm, you are not born a skygod

Congratulations.

Everybody fails, but the ones that try again succeed!!!!

Get on the next load!

You have the right to your opinion, and I have the right to tell you how Fu***** stupid it is.
Davelepka - "This isn't an x-box, or a Chevy truck forum"
Whatever you do, don't listen to ChrisD.

[nigel99 143]

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All there is to do now is go back and try again!

Maybe hit up a tunnel for a bit ;p

How the heck is tunnel going to help his canopy control? To the op the most scared I have ever been was looking for my wife following her level 1. The compassionate Dzo who was in the car complaining about not needing another fatality, really didn't set my mind at ease

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[yarpos 4]

all but a small % have been various flavours of crap on the first/intial jumps....everything is new, senses overloaded. If you want it keep at it, but try to stop, breath , relax. Pretty much nothing in skydiving works if you are tense and trying to hard.

easiest thing in the world to say relax, really hard to do at the time. Try to take a second before exit and after opening, breath, smile, try not to rev up too much

regards, Steve
the older I get...the better I was

[Abedy 0]

probablyskydivingimpairedyourorthographybutitellyoueithergobackandtryagainorgobowling

The sky is not the limit. The ground is.

The Society of Skydiving Ducks

[dthames 0]

Trouble under canopy and didn't get hurt, wonderful.

A.A. good and pulled on time, great!

Someone already posted that almost everyone has/had problems on the first few jumps, so you are fitting right in.

My wife told me something like, "I think this might be the first thing you have ever done that was not easy for you". (but I don't get out much either) Learning to deal with the struggle was one thing I never considered up front that I would have to learn.

Hang in there if you want to jump.

Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

[Divalent 89]

dang, sounds like you did pretty well. If you remained altitude aware, and actually pulled yourself, that means your head got back in the game after your initial moment of panic. In FF, it seems like the main problems was the one that is hard to simulate on the ground: arching in the face of a 120 mph wind.

Even more experienced jumpers have the canopy issue you described. It is definitly a learned skill to judge height and distance and speed over a 3/4 box pattern to predict a landing point. (That's one reason some DZs give students radios for guiding them in the final pattern.)

Ask yourself: knowing what you know now, would you do better on a redo? Remember, you now have 3 jumps, so the next time the environment is going to a bit more familiar.

[Amyr 0]

Sounds like a success to me. So you failed level 1
Sounds like a cool story that you remember all of. My first landing was upside down in a briar patch so you had a soft landing in a ditch YOU GOT THIS KEEP IT UP!

[wmw999 2,116]

Level 1 (and all the other levels) aren't tests. They're a series of objectives, and you didn't complete all of the objectives on a single jump. That's all.

Note that they're grouped into single jumps because that's considered to be a good, somewhat aggressive target -- it's not at all uncommon for someone to take more than one jump to complete a set of objectives.

Take pride in the important stuff you did do right (including excellent awareness -- that's actually usually the last thing to come), and work on the stuff that needs more work.

And yeah, if this is Funks, good job

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[chutem 0]

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so you might remeber me from a couple weeks ago posting about being completely terrified of jumping after doing 2 tandems well i went ahead and went for level one yesterday... and failed pretty bad my arch was shit my back legs were flopping around (not kicking) my upper body was alright, they were giving me hand signals but my brain froze. my three practice pulls went good my altitude awareness was excellent and pulled on time. my flight down with canopy was horrible thought i was exactly right on target slowly passed my target then realized i was going to miss the runway completely saw a gravel road to try to do a emergency landing and was still way to high had to avoid a powerline legs up then dodge a large patch of timber about 50 feet after that but in the end was able to pull it together and land softly in the ditch. feeling a pretty bad after failing miserably at just level one has this happened to anyone else?

You have front legs?

Seriously, you did fine. Ask your instructors about the "accuracy trick", it's a way to look at an object/spot and tell if you will land before or behind it on your current course.

James

[PiLFy 0]

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probablyskydivingimpairedyourorthographybutitellyoueithergobackandtryagainorgobowling

I didn't know you're an English teacher, Carsten.

[ghostlybadge 0]

you are doing better than me.
I froze lost alti awareness missed 2 of my practice pulls and when it was time to pull my instructor had to pull for me oh and i landed off.

Repeated passed had no problems with the rest of my aff passed without failing another level.

Dont give up you know what to expect now get back in the air and have fun

[Abedy 0]

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probablyskydivingimpairedyourorthographybutitellyoueithergobackandtryagainorgobowling

I didn't know you're an English teacher, Carsten.

Heh heh

But for a more serious reply:
I only object to writing without a minimal standard. Full stops (periods), capital letters and apostrophes are necessary for easy reading. It also helps "them furreiners" reading and writing here to understand (or at least to read and comprehend articles faster.)

Some folks say they can't be bothered to use the Shift-key, indent paragraphs etc as this "only consumes time." Well, writing in a way that requires more time on the "consumer's" side (reading) may look c00l but after all it's selfish and some old farts who still believe in something called netiquette even consider it asocial...

So it got less to do with teaching a certain subject than with adhering to basic standards of text production that are already taught in grade 6 or 7.

The sky is not the limit. The ground is.

The Society of Skydiving Ducks

[mjosparky 3]

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probablyskydivingimpairedyourorthographybutitellyoueithergobackandtryagainorgobowling

I didn't know you're an English teacher, Carsten.

Heh heh

But for a more serious reply:
I only object to writing without a minimal standard. Full stops (periods), capital letters and apostrophes are necessary for easy reading. It also helps "them furreiners" reading and writing here to understand (or at least to read and comprehend articles faster.)

Some folks say they can't be bothered to use the Shift-key, indent paragraphs etc as this "only consumes time." Well, writing in a way that requires more time on the "consumer's" side (reading) may look c00l but after all it's selfish and some old farts who still believe in something called netiquette even consider it asocial...

So it got less to do with teaching a certain subject than with adhering to basic standards of text production that are already taught in grade 6 or 7.

+1 It is lazy and selfish.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[ufk22 32]

1. You didn't fail. You said practice pulls went well and you deployed only our own. You accomplished the most important objective on a cat A dive.
A cat A dive is also about getting through the brain lock that everyone goes through.
I do have to ask, where did you jump? Most DZs use radio to assist first jump students under canopy.

This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

[md202089 0]

I jumped in Iowa, the radio i was using happen to fuck up and was not working just beeping and static when he tried to guide me in, so i was kinda on my own up there (the radios got replaced after that).

[PiLFy 0]

I think you should point out to the OP that English isn't your first language. It's more like your fourth ...

[devildog 0]

what were your front legs doing?

You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

[md202089 0]

I can't really recall.

[AviationTD 0]

Hey! Don't take it too hard. You did not fail at anything! Skydiving is a high-risk sport and I am sure that your instructors wanted to make sure that you understand the objectives before you move on to next level. Learn from your mistakes and focus on improvement you can do on next jump. Nobody is perfect but, we all can strive for greatness.

Relax, learn, and have fun!

[excaza 1]

So your arch was bad on your first jump ever? Well, duh. How many people are great at something the first time they try it? Not many.

Failed miserably? You maintained altitude awareness, pulled for yourself, recognized that you weren't going to make the DZ, found an out, avoided power lines and a pile of logs. All without a radio. On your first jump ever. That sounds pretty damn good to me.

Relax, learn from what happened and improve. Chances are you'll be fine.