frustrated at myself

[guineapiggie101 0]

Not really asking for advice, just venting my frustrations.

My instructors have been very helpful with advice and help, and the people at the DZ have been very supportive and cheer me on. I really enjoy where I jump at.

This is all my fault and I own it. I can't seem to pass AFF 3. This will be the 3rd time I do it again (bombed the dive today). I know what I did wrong from the last time (leg position and heading issues), yet the minute I jump outta that plane, it seems everything overwhelms me and I remember to do some things (COA, touch handle, arm position), then I forget to do something else (getting leg position right, compensating for turns), etc. and everything goes to shit, and the instructors can't fully let me go. My chute deployment and landing is great.

I love jumping. I really do. Controlling a parachute is fun. I wonder if I am pressuring myself to do too much too soon. I originally was planning to do like 1-2 jumps a month. Since I started, I've been doing like 2 jumps a week. I've hit somewhat of a "brick wall" and it irks me.

Gonna try again next week.

[The_Don 0]

Took me 5 times to get past level 4.

Relax, keep at it. You will get there.

I am NOT being loud.
I'm being enthusiastic!

[TampaPete 35]

How many times do you dirt dive the jump?

I bet I did dozens of dirt dives before each AFF jump.

Practice on the ground so it’s more instinctual in the air.

Dirt diving rules.

[thrillstalker 0]

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4044813;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread

read that, it might make you feel better.

"Never grow a wishbone, where your backbone ought to be."

[HoldtheIce 0]

My progression was a little different. I didn’t do an AFF I did a static line progression. It took me 10 times to finally get my Step-off exit.

It will all come together for you! Relax. This shit is 99% mental game.

~Mikey C

Cause they know, and so do I, The high road is hard to find
A detour to your new life, Tell all of your friends goodbye

[Skydivesg 6]

Keep going over the dive flow in your head and do all the physical stuff along with it until you can do it while someone (a friend) is screaming in your face. Practice it until you know it in your sleep.

Then forget about it. And when the time comes to jump tell your instructors that the first thing you'd like to do in free fall is breathe 3 deep breaths before you work the dive. Get their permsission so they're on on the same page.

Then relax and smile.

If you mess up don't quit. I did static line progression which you should be able to do in 5 or 6 jumps to get on free fall. It took me 11 and 17 before I could make a jump and remember everything that happened.

Take a look at my profile. Perseverance pays off.

Hang in there. It's worth it.

Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.

[NWFlyer 2]

This is perfect timing, because I just sat down this afternoon with an old friend at PIA. When I had 8 jumps, I'd made so many mistakes that the DZO didn't quite know what to do with me. I was frustrated, my instructors were frustrated, we were at a loss. I couldn't exit an aircraft stable to save my life, which is not a good thing when you're a static line student trying to do your first 5 second delays.

This gentleman, who is now beginning his 47th year in jumping, took me aside and just talked to me. Shared some stories of people he knew (including his own kids) who'd had frustrating starts. He let me know that it wasn't the end of the world and that if I was willing to keep working, there was probably a way through it.

Flash forward to today and we were catching up (I hadn't seen him in a while since I no longer live up there). I was filling him in on how much fun I had doing 8-way at Nationals last year, and how much I was enjoying the beautiful weather in California where I can jump more often. He told me how happy it made him to hear that because he could still remember the scared, frustrated, crying me of 6 1/2 years and nearly 800 jumps ago.

You're at a great DZ with great, supportive instructors and staff. Keep at it, keep thinking, keep working. It'll happen if you want it and want to keep working on it.

And thanks, Charlie. That talk means as much to me today as it did in 2004.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[guineapiggie101 0]

Thrillstalker, thanks for providing that link. It seems that poster had similar problems to me.

I am not posting to get advice, really. I know the best way to learn is to ask my instructors and they have been great at giving me advice and teaching me.

I think part of why I am struggling so much is that i am an extreme anxiety-prone person. I worry A LOT about everything and trying to make everything right (aka, doing the dive correctly, making sure that I remember everything, etc). All that worry causes me to be overwhelmed and then I forget key things.

I have a hard time relaxing and I think it shows in my dives.

I will get myself up on the plane again either this weekend (depending on weather), or on Monday. I HAVE to pass level 3. I will do it.

[guineapiggie101 0]

Skydivesg, I go through the dive flow at least 4-5 times (with my instructors), before I jump. We even go through it on the plane ride up. I know the dive flow by heart.

It is my anxiety. This time it crept in after I jumped and did the COA and the handle touch. I was checking my altimeter, trying to keep on heading, paying attention to hand signals, etc., then, as they let go of me, I panicked a bit since I started to wobble (and I forgot to compensate), then I forgot about my legs, and thus my mainside jumpmaster couldn't fully let me go.

NWFlyer, thanks for your story. Glad to see that it worked out for you. I know it will work out for me. I am not giving up. I am going on with this. I just wonder if me constantly fowling up, is messing with my confidence and leading to a vicious cycle of unsuccessful jumps, and thus I should just maybe do 1-2 jumps a month.

I agree, Elsinore is a great place to jump with great people and great instructors. I enjoy jumping there a lot.

I pulled great and landed the canopy great. I also jumped out of the plane with a good arch and in a calm fashion.

[Skydivesg 6]

I think the worst thing you can do for yourself is to jump less.

Instead, plan on jumping more often.

Breath.

I challenge you, while your on the ground (right now)to tense all your muscles and keep them tense while you take a deep breath (in through your nose) and then purse your lips and blow out gently until you've exhaled all your air. Do that three times.

Relaxation is about controlled breathing.

Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.

[SansSuit 1]

I, like many others, was a remedial student. I hold the dropzone record for 15 second-delays (static line progression) at 13, instead of the normal 2. I was getting VERY frustrated. Then I did a self-evaluation. I wasn't doing anything unsafe, I was altitude aware, and I was skydiving. That was the key! Even if I did 15 second delays for the rest of my jumping career, I was still skydiving! The pressure was off and eventually I found the ability to be stable and moved on to the 30 second delays.

Peace,
-Dawson.
http://www.SansSuit.com
The Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving

[guineapiggie101 0]

thanks!

I know I am altitude aware and NOT doing anything unsafe. I am having a great (albeit expensive) time.

Just have to keep my anxiety under control. Sometime, I guess my need to "pass or succeed" causes me to become overwhelmed. I am like that with work too. I worry a lot and become very self-critical and anxious when my work gets criticized or corrections have to be made.

I'll do ok. I know I will.

[robinheid 0]

Back in the early 1970s there was a lady named Nancy Wren. About 30, husband a hotshot skydiver...

...took her 20+ static line jumps before she was allowed to make her first freefall (most people did... 5).

a couple of years later, she became a two-time national parachuting champion.

You might also give the wind tunnel a try. It's a great way to work out the kinks, generally at lower cost and in less time.

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[guineapiggie101 0]

I've already done about 15 min of tunnel time. It helped me tighten up my arch a lot (which is great). And it got me used to feeling what it is like when you jump out.

Tunnel time isn't cheap (IIRC, it cost me more than a jump). Not sure.

Will try again on Monday and hopefully keep my anxiety down.

[skybytch 259]

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Will try again on Monday and hopefully keep my anxiety down.

Some rephrasing is in order. "Will jump again on Monday and have an awesome time doing it. My arousal level will be lower than it has been, too."

It doesn't matter if you "pass" or not. Nobody thinks any less of you because you didn't "get it" right away. So you don't need to "try" on Monday. What you get to do on Monday is have a fun skydive and land safely. Everything else is a bonus.

Ever done yoga? Meditation? If you have, use those breathing techniques to help control your arousal level in the airplane. If you haven't, do some internet research on breathing techniques.

Use your mind to prepare for the skydive long before you get to the dropzone. See yourself in your head doing a perfect skydive, where you are relaxed and smiling from climbout to landing. Watch that perfect skydive over and over. It sounds silly, but it's been known to help (and it certainly can't hurt).

[theonlyski 3]

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Tunnel time isn't cheap (IIRC, it cost me more than a jump). Not sure.

Without coaching, tunnels usually run about 10-12 bucks a minute, so roughly half a normal lift ticket for about the same amount of air time.

And its sure as heck cheaper than AFF jumps!

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[DSE 3]

Betty,
Come out early. We'll work on the dive flow and you can take some self-time to work on it.
I'm glad you recognize that your own sense of "success or not" is a stressor for you.
You remember the three rules of a "fail"....right?
If you kill me or you on this jump....

BTW, bring your sword! I'd like to see it!

[guineapiggie101 0]

Sure, I'll come out early on Monday. Not sure if "dive flow" is what I have a problem with (I know it by heart), but working on that might help.

And I'll bring my "rapier" along

[popsjumper 2]

Thrillstalker provided you with a link to another thread. Did you read down to post # 8 from Wendy Faulkner?
She posted her logbook...great read!

Sounds like you are suffering what I suffered during AFF.
I didn't have to re-try skill levels but I did suffer severely from performance anxiety...gotta get it right...gotta do it perfectly...that wasn't good enough...what?...released for self-supervision?

Sooooo focused on getting it right that I wasn't paying attention to my I's. Maybe you could have your instructors do to you what mine did to me...slap me in the head to wake me up to respond to signals.

I was doing it to myself too when I started bigways...oh, hell don't screw up...don't screw up...everybody's watching...don't screw up...
God my nerves were rattling and I was tense like a board.

What got me over all of it was the sudden realization that NOBODY is perfect. Even the big boys screwed up. So what if I do? It's not that big of a deal. Hell, I'm playin' in the sky with big boys that can, and do, screw up just like I do sometimes so why the nervousness?

Bah...I let it go and was able to just go out have have fun. Amazing how the learning curve shot up and up.

Do it...get with DSE...he can be a big help.


Side note:
During my static line training back in the day, I had a severe right hand turn that just wouldn't stop. I got to be an expert at line twists. .

15 or so jumps in and it went away...don't ask me why or how. I think it was because I got used to being in the sky and was able to let the body tension go and just relax and let the air blow by me instead of fighting it with body tension.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[Para5-0 0]

+1 DSE will help you out, I agree.

This is a completly different view which might confuse you a bit but it cant hurt. Sometimes instructors keep pounding the concept of relax in freefall over and over. The student gets a bit frustrated because he/she does completely relax and almost lets their body go limp.
I have seen on a few occasions a student like this. The result is the wind tends to fly the student. Meaning they are so relaxed their body just goes the way the wind takes them.
With these few students I try to explain to remember you fly the wind, not the opposite. so if you want to stay on a heading or turn in a direction put in the effort to make it happen, a little confusing if someone is giving you the relax signal.

It is your skydive mental preperation and giving proper input will go a long way. If you can see yourself doing it in your head, then you can do it in the air.
Note: This may or may not even apply hard to tell without being in the air with you. Good luck.

[guineapiggie101 0]

Hey, thanks for all the input. I will put it to good use. That thread that one poster linked was a good read. I am glad to see that others struggle with some of the stuff I struggle with. And that logbook was a good read.

I was relaxed when I first jumped out of the plane. My instructor told me that I had a great arch and leg/arm positions, in the beginning. I then kind of panicked a bit and lost my leg position (when they gave me some hand signals TO correct my leg position). That was frustrating, because I know the hand signals by heart but when I am up there, I forget or get it confused (and precious freefall time ticks by).

I do have one question, I know the rig (since it is so big on me) messes a bit with my arch (aka I arch hard but since the rig sits low on me, my arch doesn't show). I have been told that I need to compensate for that by having good leg and arm position. As I continue progressing, will I be jumping smaller chutes so this doesn't become a major problem for me?

I look forward to working with DSE on this. I think that will help me out.

I will also practice the dive flow and my arch position (hands and legs), at home.

I will beat this on Monday. Positive thoughts.

[Divalent 89]

I’ve hesitated to weigh in on this because I am only an AFF-1 (although I did a tandem the day before that jump, and many (many!) years ago had 10 jumps in a static line/hop-n-pop progression), and if your instructors or the other experts here say to ignore this, then ignore this.

But this is how I approached my AFF-1 jump, and how I intend to approach my subsequent ones, and maybe it will give you another student’s perspective.

Going into my AFF-1, I absolutely did memorize the routine, and tried to remember all the little details / weaknesses/ errors I made in practices for the whole routine (and then all the EPs, and images of scary mals!). And my goal was to do the whole “performance” as flawlessly as I could. But I also had a plan B, which was that if things didn’t go well, then at the very least I would execute a good, hard, heads-up arch. And if that was all I did, I would be happy. Obviously, if I got the arch down early and I felt comfortable and had time, I would try to add one thing at a time (COA, practice touches, self-deploy). I figured (after watching a gagillion “AFF-1 goes wrong” videos on YouTube) that if I could at least do a decent arch and be reasonably stable, at least it would be a safe ride, and I’d get a 1 minute free fall before my instructor pulled me at 5500. Then if I had to do an AFF-1 again, I would at least have the confidence that I can arch well, and so the next plan B would be to build onto that. As it turned out, I did okay on everything.

You indicate that stability is a problem (and that you might have particular circumstances that make stability a challenge for you). Perhaps it might help to view the jump not as an attempt to “do an AFF-3 routine”, but as an opportunity for you to practice and demonstrate up to 3 (4?) things, with stability being the first and the most important. So if you have to spend the whole ride working on stability and body position, do that. Don’t even think of the next item on the list if you aren’t comfortable with item 1, instead, keep working on that. IOW, the goal for the jump is not to “do an AFF-3 routine”, it is to do item 1, and if you do that and there is time, then add item 2, and if you do that and there is time, then add item 3. If in the end you actually did an “AFF-3 routine”, then great. But otherwise hopefully at least you have progressed, getting more experience and more confidence. (I hope this makes sense.) Good luck!

[edited to add that I just looked at the AFF-3 routine, and stability without the instructors holding on seems to be the only new thing. Which means none of what I said above is really helpful. :( Oh well. (shouldn't listen to noobs anyway) ]

[thrillstalker 0]

Quote

I’ve hesitated to weigh in on this because I am only an AFF-1 (although I did a tandem the day before that jump, and many (many!) years ago had 10 jumps in a static line/hop-n-pop progression), and if your instructors or the other experts here say to ignore this, then ignore this.

But this is how I approached my AFF-1 jump, and how I intend to approach my subsequent ones, and maybe it will give you another student’s perspective.

Going into my AFF-1, I absolutely did memorize the routine, and tried to remember all the little details / weaknesses/ errors I made in practices for the whole routine (and then all the EPs, and images of scary mals!). And my goal was to do the whole “performance” as flawlessly as I could. But I also had a plan B, which was that if things didn’t go well, then at the very least I would execute a good, hard, heads-up arch. And if that was all I did, I would be happy. Obviously, if I got the arch down early and I felt comfortable and had time, I would try to add one thing at a time (COA, practice touches, self-deploy). I figured (after watching a gagillion “AFF-1 goes wrong” videos on YouTube) that if I could at least do a decent arch and be reasonably stable, at least it would be a safe ride, and I’d get a 1 minute free fall before my instructor pulled me at 5500. Then if I had to do an AFF-1 again, I would at least have the confidence that I can arch well, and so the next plan B would be to build onto that. As it turned out, I did okay on everything.

You indicate that stability is a problem (and that you might have particular circumstances that make stability a challenge for you). Perhaps it might help to view the jump not as an attempt to “do an AFF-3 routine”, but as an opportunity for you to practice and demonstrate up to 3 (4?) things, with stability being the first and the most important. So if you have to spend the whole ride working on stability and body position, do that. Don’t even think of the next item on the list if you aren’t comfortable with item 1, instead, keep working on that. IOW, the goal for the jump is not to “do an AFF-3 routine”, it is to do item 1, and if you do that and there is time, then add item 2, and if you do that and there is time, then add item 3. If in the end you actually did an “AFF-3 routine”, then great. But otherwise hopefully at least you have progressed, getting more experience and more confidence. (I hope this makes sense.) Good luck!

that is all good and well, but

YOUR NUMBER 1 PRIORITY IS TO PULL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

do not ever rely on anyone else to do that for you. it is of the highest importance and 100% your job to do.

pull priority

1.PULL
2.PULL on time
3.PULL stable

i am in no way an experienced skydiver, but from jump one this is your priority.

i didnt deploy my chute on my first aff jump, but i tried. my log book says, and i quote, "locked onto altimeter at 6k, panicked. tried pulling everything but handle."

"Never grow a wishbone, where your backbone ought to be."

[pchapman 261]

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I do have one question, I know the rig (since it is so big on me) messes a bit with my arch [....] I have been told that I need to compensate for that by having good leg and arm position. As I continue progressing, will I be jumping smaller chutes so this doesn't become a major problem for me?

A big rig sticking out at the sides or pushed off your back will be a bit destabilizing but it isn't a big factor, even if it makes you work harder trying to arch nicely. How you position your body is what will determine your freefall. Having a smaller, better fitting rig later on will make maneuvering easier, but the rig is secondary in effect. Although you may be shorter than many, plenty of people have had to deal with big, heavy, uncomfortable student rigs over the years.

The more common problem for a smaller student and big rig is it being too loose on opening, with the chest strap riding up to one's neck. So one has to do the best one can in getting the rig snugly fitted.

I haven't worked with a ton of students so this isn't an expert opinion.

[davelepka 4]

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I know the rig (since it is so big on me) messes a bit with my arch

Does it now? How do you explain passing levels 1 and 2, and then this -

Quote

I was relaxed when I first jumped out of the plane. My instructor told me that I had a great arch and leg/arm positions

If the rig was really the problem, then none of the above would have been possible. Luckily for you, the rig is not your problem. I say luckily because the rig will always be there, and if that was your problem, there would be no way to solve it.

Remember two things - first that AFF is designed to train jumpers in the least possible number of jumps. What that means is that the best students out there should be able to pass every level on the first try, not that every student should be able to pass on the first try.

Second, it's common for a student to repeat a level or two, maybe a couple of times. On top of that, level 3 is probably the most repeated level there is because the first time you're 'set free' in freefall. Everything else you do is just building on one experience or another, but level 3 is the first release, and there's no way to slowly be released, you've either got grips on you or not. It's a big step.

Keep your goals simple, those being to be safe and have fun. As long as you do those two things, every jump is a success. You can work on the details at your own pace because in the end this is your training with the goal being to make you a skydiver. If it takes you few more jumps then the next guy, then so be it, that's what it takes to make you a skydiver. There will always be people who did worse then you, sometimes far worse, but that's their business.

You might not realize this, but the majority of jumpers 'fail' in some respect on every jump. We're all trying to learn, to improve our skills, to be faster or smoother or more precise, and it's a rare jump that you land and feel like you nailed it 100% and couldn't have done any better. As long as you were safe and had fun, the jump was a success, and a learning opportunity, so you pack up and try it all over again. Now you do the same.