Giving Our Sport a "Black Eye"

[crashtested 0]

Sucking out of a straw does suck, on the bright size they'll drop a dress size....

[yarak 0]

HAHA

I think you are on to something. A skinny girl, that doesnt feel like talking and is exercising her sucking muscles. Blackeye my ass! That jumper just made some dude really lucky.

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll burn your fucking packing tent down.

[aresye 0]

Skydiving IS dangerous. I'm sure even you have experienced some close calls in the 180 something jumps you have. Fatalities happen, regardless of the fact that they are rare. You can do everything right and still get killed. There's a much higher chance of getting injured, whether it's something small like a twisted ankle, or big like a broken pelvis or femur. I've seen some hairy close calls, and have been in a few myself. Regardless of how safe I try to be, sometimes things just happen, either by someone else's mistake, or just bad luck.

I hope you weren't serious about skydiving not being dangerous. You're at an experience level that is way above mine, but you are still inexperienced. I can only hope you won't have to learn the hard way, about the risks associated with jumping from a plane, and falling towards the Earth.

Skydiving: You either learn from other's mistakes, or they'll learn from yours.

[livendive 8]

Quote

HAHA

I think you are on to something. A skinny girl, that doesnt feel like talking and is exercising her sucking muscles. Blackeye my ass! That jumper just made some dude really lucky.

The problem is when she gets the wires taken out so she can actually use those sucking muscles, she's also going to have months worth of talking to catch up on.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[crashtested 0]

The Same could be said about most sports..... snowboarding, skiing, surfing, skating, motorbikes, climbing, cycling the list continues all of which can be dangerous, but performed correctly are not in themselves the problem or reason for deaths / injuries, 99.9% of the time it comes down to human eroor, be it yours or somone elses.

I fell over on jump number 126 due to "turbulance" , but plf'd and commando rolled my way to glory.
And on jump 92 I misjudjed the wind and was heading for a ditch, i had to flare slightly slower then normal to make it over.

I have also been lucky in not seing anyone injured whilst jumping on just hanging around, my attitude may change on that day.

However you buy your ticket and take your chance.

BTW I would never take a picture for my avatar with my camera, which could fall out my hand and go through someones head, now that i would say is a danger, and could give a dz let alone the sport a black eye..

[yarak 0]

touche livendive.....touche

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll burn your fucking packing tent down.

[basehoundsam 0]

Print out this thread..... and IF your still jumping in five years pull it out and reread your posts. I doubt you will feel the same. In all of the other sports I've been into(cave diving, heli skiing, climbing/mountaineering/iceclimbing, DH mountain-biking, ect).....you could take the number of people I've personally even met in my entire life that have died, and count them on one hand. In a bad year skydiving..... I can count 5 + in one season. Wait till you get around. Wait till you have some extended friends that you've shared some special times with. Wait until you are the one holding their canopy over them to keep the sun off as EMS sirens drone off in the distance. Cause I got news for you.............. you won't be waiting long !!!! Not if you actually jump 2-300 times a year.

Don't forget to print out your thread.......you'll appreciate it a bit more once you've got a little more time in . Believe me..... I thought some pretty silly shit until I was the one calling 911.

Jay Epstein Ramirez
www.adrenalineexploits.com

[NickDG 23]

Get ready, you guys. That attitude that skydiving isn't dangerous is going to become more prevalent over time.

I know that because I'm already seeing the very same thing happening in B.A.S.E. jumping.

At first I thought it was idiots talking out their asses, or newbies just trying to make us old-timers look foolish but I've heard it enough now that I began trying to come up with a reason for it. It's a complicated subject so bear with me as I'm still trying to figure it out for myself.

First off, and for the record I don't believe skydiving or B.A.S.E. is any safer now than ever. (And I was around in those days of hand deploying your reserve, and those days before we had dedicated B.A.S.E. gear). No matter our technological leaps in progress, no matter our improvement in technique, and no matter how knowledgeable we become, there is always going to be a bow wave of death. In that wave will be both the extremely capable pushing the envelope, and the extremely inept for who it was only a matter of time. In skydiving this is called "Booth's Law" and in B.A.S.E. it's just called, "Duh!"

There's no way to figure this out without going into the numbers. But I'll only say this about that. The fatality rate from when I started jumping in 1975 to now, if you throw out the highs and lows, is still fairly constant. But what has changed is there are a lot fewer up-jumpers nowadays. I don't have hard science to support that, but I do know this. If you, as a jumper of today, could time travel back to a typical weekend at Lake Elsinore in the late 70s or early 80s you'd think their was a big boogie going on. I've stopped by Lake Elsinore on a beautiful weekend just lately and have seen more people at some birthday parties. Perris which always looks busy, isn't what it used to be either, but maybe they're all hiding in the tunnel where it's safer.

But one constant at both places is there are always gobs of students, both AFF and tandems and way more than there was in the old days. But I think we are blowing it by chopping them up and spitting them out for profit. This sport used to live and die on its up jumpers (as they were the ones who originally brought in the students) but now we discovered mass marketing and because of that we now live and die on One Jump Charlies.

Sometimes I think today's DZO tolerates up-jumpers only to assure that day's students that regular people actually do skydive . . .

We also, and even after living through it myself and hating it, I can see we are screwing up in the way we treat our students socially. We celebrate their first jumps, we drink and party with them, we make them feel way too important because unknown to them they are the reason we have turbines. But back in the day, as a student, or even before you had a hundred jumps, you were automatically a fucking nobody and barley tolerated. But for those that wanted it bad enough it gave them something to shoot for. Who doesn't realize you can't just hand something to somebody and expect them to appreciate and cherish it?

I doubt if I started jumping today I would have stuck with it. Even if I had unlimited funds at the time I couldn't have bought my way into the club. I saw a rich guy once with 75 jumps buy up all the slots on a DC-3 load that was too short to launch by half and when he came around later for beers everyone just ignored him. Imagine that happening today. We'd be carrying the guy around on our shoulders and six months later he'd be gone from the sport.

Some of our younger participants bag on us old-timers by saying we don't understand change and progress. But ironically we understand change and progress much better then they because we've lived through more change and progress than they have. But they do have us on one point. They look forward to a limitless future and we tend to look back with too much fondness. And as the Bard said, "therein lies the rub."

So back to the danger question. I now think how you present either skydiving or B.A.S.E. simply depends on how you came to it. If it was easy and effortless for you than how could you possibly understand anyone else having problems with it?

In just a few days I'm going to a memorial for the guy who took a chance and gave me my first job as a skydiving instructor back in 1981. On a cold and rainy Sunday he sat me down and said, "Nick, I don't think you've really got the makings to be a skydiving instructor, but I'm going to give you a chance against my better judgment. Just keep in mind you've got one hand on the students and the other on a banana peel that's gonna slide your ass outta here."

Of course, as he told me years later, he didn't really mean that but thank God he put it to me that way. I've carried that fear all through my Instructing career. Even when I worked for DZOs who didn't care what I did as long as I pumped out students. Maybe we should all start acting like we are on banana peels . . . because when it comes to death, we are . . .

NickD

[aresye 0]

Quote

BTW I would never take a picture for my avatar with my camera, which could fall out my hand and go through someones head, now that i would say is a danger, and could give a dz let alone the sport a black eye..

Well if you're going to go there I may as well let you know that:

A. The camera was secure in a pocket during freefall, with a zipper and a velcro flap.

B. I opened higher on the jump to have more canopy time, and was flying perpendicular to jump run.

C. I did several complete scans for other canopies in the air.

D. The camera was secure to the pocket and itself utilizing a boline knot, secured with a half hitch, on either end of the line.

Just wanted to point that out.

Also, very good info. Nick! Thanks for the input.

Skydiving: You either learn from other's mistakes, or they'll learn from yours.

[ghost47 18]

Quote

We also, and even after living through it myself and hating it, I can see we are screwing up in the way we treat our students socially. We celebrate their first jumps, we drink and party with them, we make them feel way too important because unknown to them they are the reason we have turbines. But back in the day, as a student, or even before you had a hundred jumps, you were automatically a fucking nobody and barley tolerated.

But isn't there a middle ground here? Are the only options to treat students like me either as VIPs or like dirt? Couldn't the attitude instead be like big brother / little brother? After all, I do want to get better in this sport, and I want to make sure that not only do I come down safely, but that if I screw up, I'm not taking others with me. If people treat me like I know everything because I'm off AFF status (which hasn't happened), then I'll never learn anything. But conversely if everyone ignores me and gives me the cold shoulder (which also hasn't happened), I'd likely ask fewer questions, and also enjoy the sport less.

I would think that the best way to impart knowledge to newbies is to include them in conversations, tell them nicely when they've screwed up and how to correct it, and in general act like an older, wiser big brother.

As an example, I used to (and probably still do) have a problem of having my legs be asymmetrical during freefall. One instructor heard about this before my AFF 7 dive, came up to me, introduced himself, and taught me how to do a quick toe-tap in the air to make sure my legs were symmetrical. He was nice and helpful and I learned something that made my jumps more stable.

I would think that interactions like that would make skydiving better for everyone, by both imparting important knowledge to people who need to learn, helping newbies realize they don't know everything, and fostering an environment where newer skydivers are encouraged to ask questions and get tips from older skydivers. (And also encourage older skydivers to look out for newer ones, since sometimes we don't know that we're ignorant.)

Additionally, when the tips you teach us make us better skydivers, we're also more likely to listen when you tell us about safety, because we already have learned the value of your advice.

[NickDG 23]

Don't worry Ghost, if you ever get on a load with me I'll treat you like an equal. My post was illustrative of looking for answers to questions you may not have yet considered and to do that sometimes you must look ahead and also back . . .

NickD

[yarak 0]

hey hey guys. You people have crossed the line. This thing is getting waaaayy off topic. Lets get back to the important issue of girls exercising thier sucking muscles.

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll burn your fucking packing tent down.

[airtwardo 6]

But isn't there a middle ground here?

There was...but I think we passed it 10 years or so back.

IMHO~ Nick like Sparky see a continuing spiral with an uncertain future, I like to think it will inevitably come 'full circle' again...I only hope I'm still active when it does.


Nick & I started jumping about the same time in different parts of the country, we didn't meet up until the early 80's when I moved to So.Cal.

That being said, I find it interesting that for the most part we had almost exactly the same Skydiving experiences both jumping and socially...believe it when, as he alludes you had to be pretty hardcore motivated to stick with the sport as a n00b.

I think one of the things that was an attraction for me was the close knit brotherhood that was obviously going on...once you had 'made it' and were accepted.

Where else could you go be a part of something WAY off the mainstream, get to play with airplanes and fascinating gear, try to survive and excel in an environment in which many of what rules there were. . .were unspoken.

Both humbling and enabling as far as character was concerned...if your bricks were weak 'cause your mortar had cracks, you were pretty much directed to take yer pile of rocks someplace else...now we offer bowling.


Took a long time and you had to, 'no bullshit' prove your sand, but once in...it was akin to what I can only imagine the bond Combat creates.

*Nick having been to Vietnam was maybe looking for that again, I always figured Skydiving gave him a taste...B.A.S.E. gave him the whole meal, on good china, ...with cloth napkins.


Anyway...there are a lotta 'theories' as to why the sport changed into what's it is today...personally I blame McDonalds.

Once that friggin' clown frisbeein' burgers through open car windows became the norm in every city...everyone came to expect quick results with no work, as status quo.

I can't pin down the exact point in time that it became more about the spreadsheet than the sunset load...but I do remember it happening.

By the time we realized just what we were spittin' out of the profitable student factories, the ball was already rolling to fast to stop.

New meat was coming in to fast and the intermediate jumpers didn't have the old school background to 'properly' mentor those coming behind 'em.

USPA realized it and changed the training scheme to try to insure safe skills were being uniformly downloaded into the ever increasing numbers...but the appreciation gained from learning to crawl before learning to fly was unfortunately lost.

Tandems only served to drastically increase the size & scope of the situation...now in many places it's ALL about the numbers.

I dunno, maybe on one level you still have to be somewhat specially 'motivated' to advance in the sport these days, but it's different...in a 'happy happy joy joy, powder yer butt, tie yer shoes and don't hook turn' kinda way.


You're right when you say~ "the best way to impart knowledge to newbies is to include them in conversations" ~but it's often difficult when they have to run off to play 18 holes after knocking out a few at the dz...and i say that only partially tongue in cheek.

They gotta wanna seek that knowledge and grow in more ways than higher logbook numbers and lower canopy weight.

Last Sunday, at the biggest DZ in the state, spittin' distance from the nations 4th largest city...the super otters were chocked & the hangar doors locked with 4 1/2 hours 'till sunset...The 150 tandems were gone, DVD 's in hand and the up jumpers were off & runnin' en-mass with a cloud of parking lot dust.

I had the entire place to myself as I laid out, inspected, did maintenance on and packed / folded / rigged, dozens of various items I'll be jumping at a demo next week...This after I told several jumpers I'd gladly hold it as a 'class' to impart some skills they 'said' they wanted to learn.

Clearly I'm not trying to imply that everyone these days is too preoccupied to teach or learn...but convenience does play a significant role.

Me...I'll help anyone that asks & will listen, I'll jump with anyone that will jump with me...if I have a question, the circle of people I trust to ask keeps getting smaller and smaller.

Few weeks ago I broke a line, I grabbed my fid, finger-trapped and tacked it back together as I was packing...I was told by no fewer than 4 people, 2 of them instructors...it was illegal for me to do that and I'd better 'red-tag' my main.

How do I try to explain to someone that probably makes more jumps in a week than I do in a month, but hasn't packed a parchute since the license requiremnt test....

~that it's really not black majic smoke & mirrors, that it scares me, they not knowing or wanting to know, how and why gear works,' as much as it scares them that I know every stich on mine.

I hate that fuckin' Golden Arches Clown...1/2 the people in this country have NO C L U E what kind of seasoning skills and cooking talent it really takes to make that 'instant gartification, comfort food' burger in the 'drive thru bag'...nor do they want one.



Some time down the road it'll flip again, we'll have to burned up the manuals on how things are done because 'something' drastic will effect the sport, making it too 'inconvienent' for the masses to bother with.

Some place down the road, somebodys gonna crank up a 182 on a grass strip and a couple of our 'brothers' will yahoo it all the way down...

Beer will be opened, knowledge passed around...stories told about how crazy it use to be when D license holders couldn't pack, spot, land without killing each other, or hand prop the Cessna.








...HATE that fuckin clown!

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

[mjosparky 3]

Amen Jim. You are taking about a time when you had to want to be a skydiver. The gear was heavy and fit like shit. The instructors where mean, yelled at you and made you do PLF’s until you couldn’t focus your eyes. The planes were tiny, smelled and climbed slow as shit. But you could put up with it because you wanted to be a “skydiver”.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[ghost47 18]

Quote

Don't worry Ghost, if you ever get on a load with me I'll treat you like an equal.

I don't even mind being treated as an inferior, in the sense of knowledge, because I really know very little. I mean, if all goes well, I know how to fall stable, how to pull, how to land, but I read all these posts on the forum and I learn something new every day. Sometimes I think, huh, how come no one told me that before I jumped?

Nor do I mean that we should all be sensitive to newbies' feelings and all that. I think a certain amount of teasing makes the atmosphere fun, and if you can't stand a little heat, well, grow a thicker skin. I think it's really just the mentality -- your big brother will make fun of you, maybe beat you up once in a while, but you know that when push comes to shove, he's got your back (so I imagine -- I'm an only child). In the same way I don't mind at all if some experienced jumper wants to make fun of something I did or didn't do, as long as a) it's done in the spirit of fun; and b) the jumper will also tell me how to fix whatever I'm doing or not doing.

So if we're ever on a load together, feel free to make fun of my flares. Just tell me how to do 'em better, too ;)

[ghost47 18]

Quote

Anyway...there are a lotta 'theories' as to why the sport changed into what's it is today...personally I blame McDonalds.

Once that friggin' clown frisbeein' burgers through open car windows became the norm in every city...everyone came to expect quick results with no work, as status quo.

It's funny, I was talking to my FJC instructor on Sunday about this. I was telling her that I found it funny that an instructor had apologized to me for failing me on a level of AFF. If I can't do a task, I SHOULD fail, I said. Otherwise, you pass me, you put me in the sky doing something more advanced, I mess up, and then I DIE. That's MUCH worse than failing a level.

She said, ya, but a lot of people come in with the mentality of, well, I paid the money, so I should get to pass.

That mentality just seems weird to me. What I'm buying with my money is some of your time for you to teach me something. In a sense, I'm paying you to do your best to keep me alive, and that includes failing me and making me do things again if you think that'll increase my chances of living. I mean, I've got an ego too, but if someone said "hey you, make a choice: look stupid or up your chance of dying," guess what I'm going to pick?

[stratostar 5]

That post should be hanging on the walls of every dz in the country!

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[CSpenceFLY 1]

One of the best posts I have ever seen here.

[crashtested 0]

Two of the best and most ilustrative posts i have read on Dz.com, thanks for your time guys, They kind of remind me of the how i used to remember surfing when i started 23 years or so ago...

As grommits you were treated like shit, regardless of your skill level, Age was a factor, but attitude was key, you had to be the embodyment of the community to get a look in, out on the break you were dropped in on and kicked around, yet you knew, (maybe in the back of your mind), if you kept on going out regarless of the conditions, both surf or through weather, and wetting your hair you would get into the fold, it took me 5 years maybe more, before i was looked on as a surfer, Don't get me wrong the guys out there would watch you if you got out of your depth, and drag you back to the beach if you were in the shit, but made you feel an inch high whilst doing so.

Saying that, if you went out when the big boys stayed on the shore in bigger stuff, you would get a begruding respect from them, the younger you are the less fear you have, and the more faith in your abbilitys you have. If you don't have doubts in your abbility the pressure stays off and you perform better, some might say that experiance tells in the end, but i think fear also creeps into the mind of the more experianced guys, making them more cautious when participatiaing or when seeing others participate in these "dangerous sports"

If i'm ever in your area Nick or airtwado, it would be great and a privalidge to jump with you, i'll even get your zimmer frames for you when we land

[chutejump 0]

"THANK YOU"! No truer words have been spoken in some time.
The powers that be, want the unknowing, untrained mass to believe that "all is well" in OZ.
I personally think of it as the "Microwave generation" mentality They put in what they want push the button and 30 seconds later "Ping"
They seem to approach life in that manner, everything quick and easy. Hard to find anyone whom wants to put in the time, effort, and cost, to really "Master" an activity, it seems they find it much easier to, "Dress and Talk" the part, But when it comes to the nut cuttin, they can't walk the walk.
I see a lot of people whom come to the DZ these days that are "Jumpers", but I don't see many "Skydivers" anymore!

[JohnMitchell 14]

Quote

Still waiting on real examples of the harm all these black eyes have caused.......

I've had demos denied by people pointing to these incidents. Killiing and injuring bystanders is never a good thing, either. Or is that okay in your world?

[stratostar 5]

Kind of funny is it, you and I were just talking about this not all that long ago. As we see there is those who get it and those who never will, never know maybe it will come full circle? Till then we'll just have to keep puttin up with these jumper types and maybe make a skydiver or two along the way, if were lucky.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[grimmie 173]

Hmmm, now I understand why there is a "Golf Course Finder" at the top of this page!

[stratostar 5]

FOUR!

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[freeflymickey 0]

Quote

Quote

Still waiting on real examples of the harm all these black eyes have caused.......

I've had demos denied by people pointing to these incidents. Killiing and injuring bystanders is never a good thing, either. Or is that okay in your world?

Nope, not okay in my world. Never said it was.

Shit happens. Shit will always happen in this sport, until people stop jumping from airplanes then people will continue to die when jumping from airplanes.

As far as the whole demo thing goes, shit happens there also. If someone doesnt take out a spectator, then perhaps someone will hook it in in front of the crowd. There is always a chance something will go wrong, and sooner or later something will go wrong.

As much as much of you would like to think there is a solution to this so called black eye problem, there is not. Risk can be minimized but not fully removed from the equation.

I asked a question earlier in the thread that nobody responded to. When was the last time the skydiving community took the media head on and issued a response to a certain incident???

The fucked up thing about the skydiving community is that it is very reactive. For those that are concerned about this shit how about being proactive for a change and getting the word out to the public and explaining to them the reason sometimes things go wrong and reassuring them that some of the incidents are very isolated??? Oh yeah, thats right, its easier to just complain about it instead of doing something about it.