Learning how to freefly

[kungen 0]

Hey all of you free fliers.. I've done some of my jumps after my aff (FS), and i think FS gets a bit booring so i would like some beginners hint, for a "gonna be freeflier"?

Just keep fallin'

[skydave238 0]

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and i think FS gets a bit booring

NOOOO!!!!!!!!
TAKE IT BACK!

Dave

Ready...Set...Go..!

SkydiveSwakop

[yeyo 1]

First, you have to get goooood at the boring stuff to understand many things...

HISPA #93
DS #419.5

[rehmwa 2]

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I've done some of my jumps after my aff (FS), and i think FS gets a bit booring so i would like some beginners hint, for a "gonna be freeflier"?

ahhhh, the mating call of the future inept freefly poser - don't be that guy if you can

There are skydivers that just doink around and stink a lot, but are happy with that. Doesn't matter which discipline. FF used to be the place they could go to in order to not feel bad about it because there was little pressure as it hadn't developed much - no one knew they were just flouncing about. But FF is also becoming a place for high skill and learning. The key is that it's ok to do a bunch of air baths if that's fun.

There are skydivers that a really pretty good in the discipline of their choice. They'd likely be good no matter which discipline they are in. The key is that it's ok to be good at something if that's what's fun.

The good ones don't down play the other disciplines. Only those insecure in their skills do that.

Just off graduation there is NO way one can decide what's fun for them or not. I suggest you explore all the disciplines you can and keep your expectations in line with your skills and let them all advance.

There is a progression. Every discipline has some extremely fun things to learn and do. Freefly includes all orientations - including back and belly. There's a lot of people out there that call it freefly when all they know is headdown.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[agent_lead 0]

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First, you have to get goooood at the boring stuff to understand many things...

i dunno to me its not all that boring..you are learning..no matter what your doing..always be learning...


that said..i have a friend i skydive with often who i went thru aff with...he kinda went right for sit flying as he either thought a) belly stuff is boring and its no fun or b)he just wasnt that good on his belly

needless to say yesterday we did a fairly easy basic jump...it was a 5 way belly jump...start off in a star...then the middle man flies into the middle and each of the four remaining grab one appendage...arms..legs..its called a spider..well we did that 2 times back and forth on the jump(star/spider/star/spider) and when we landed he proclaimed.."holy shit i just did a belly jump..and i had FUN!"

that my friend..is what its all about..dont write something off so soon...the better you get at it..the better it becomes for you and everyone you jump with..

--------------------------------------------
www.facebook.com/agentlead

[RBM 1]

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Hey all of you free fliers.. I've done some of my jumps after my aff (FS), and i think FS gets a bit booring so i would like some beginners hint, for a "gonna be freeflier"?

belly flying boring? NAH!! its awesome pulling off 4-ways and 8-ways, and you name it ways!!! haha, im just starting to learn sit flying and while i think its a cool position to fly in, I really do like RW, it just seems more challenging to me, nothing like a big way with friends at sunset to finish off a good day of jumping,. whatever you choose, have fun at it!!

EDIT TO ADD: get good on your belly first, be able to do all movements with ease, should be second nature, then go FF, someone else may say otherwise, but from what i've seen with most ppl at the DZ, it turns out better for most jumpers getting their belly flying down good then moving on to other body positions.

[billvon 2,397]

Try em both, do whatever catches your fancy. It will be a long time before you're really good at either one, and sometimes you have to be good to really know what a discipline is like.

But after flying with Kirkby in the tunnel last week, and closing 10's so hard it took all my arm strength to NOT bounce my head off the point's helmet - I'd be hard pressed to describe 4-way as boring. And breaking off with 357 people over an airport in Thailand you've never seen before that afternoon, just as a storm is rolling in, is up there on the excitement meter.

[champu 1]

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Try em both, do whatever catches your fancy. It will be a long time before you're really good at either one, and sometimes you have to be good to really know what a discipline is like.

If I'm watching video [that I'm not in*] I'd say...

- Bad belly-flying is funny.
- Bad free-flying is scary.
- Mediocre belly-flying is incredibly boring.
- Mediocre free-flying is funny.
- Good belly-flying and good free-flying are both sights to behold

*Note: All videos that I'm in are awesome.

[karenmeal 0]

My advice (and I'm a freeflyer) is stay mostly on your belly for at least another 100 jumps!

I find it hard to believe that FS is really boring for you. It's not boring for me by any means, especially jumping with people who challenge me. Personally, I just prefer the general fluidity of freeflying.

Learning some basic skills on your belly will only serve to make you a better over all flyer and I doubt it is a choice that you will ever regret. Learning basic skydiving skills while going slower, in a safer environment (no danger of corking) is vital to applying those basic skills to something like freeflying later on. Not to mention if you ever want to be an instructor of any sort or a videographer, you need belly skills.

That is my advice. Stay on your belly for now and work hard. Set goals for each jump and work to accomplish those goals. Once you can do 15 points or so on a four-way.. then you are probably ready to learn some freeflying.

"Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

[yeyo 1]

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i dunno to me its not all that boring..you are learning..no matter what your doing..always be learning...

Not boring to me either. What I meant is that even if its boring to him, he should do it and get good at it anyway. Then it will be easier and safer to learn FF...

HISPA #93
DS #419.5

[mnskydiver688 0]

I told myself that I was going to get good on my belly before moving on. A part of that was the gear that I got isn't freefly friendly and I just saw RW as a more rewarding first discipline because you have a head start when you are done with training. I have really learned about how to make RW fun and exciting, (different exits, turning pieces, jumping with a big guy and hitting 150 mph at times (according to protrack)).

Also tracking dives are fun and hybrids are interesting. I have decided that when I get enough jumps I am going to transition to wingsuiting as a second discipline. What I am trying to get at is don't rule out something because it might seem boring at times. And another way to look at it is your getting more for your money considering your in the air longer on a belly jump. Haha.

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters

[bigdad510 1]

Your profile says 15 jumps...can you honestly judge anything yet? Not bashing you just making a statement.

At times you may think rw s boring, that's the time you try different jumps. You ever jump on a 4-way when two of the people ar ona 4-way team? That can really get your blood bumping, and it foces you to learn and raise your skills.

I have tried sit-flying, I still don't have it down, it's onl been about 4 jumps. I can honeslty tell you, like stated above, if you cannot fly on your belly, you're going to get yourself in big trouble trying anything else. Because not matter what venture you pick, you usua;y end up on your belly at pull-time.

Good luck and jump with some really experieced jumpers before you judge, oh, and do night jumps!

Brad

[azureriders 0]

>Your profile says 15 jumps

and yours says 1 jump. who are you to be giving this guy advice, and in 11 years, boy thats current let me tell you.

hahaha, looking forward to seeing you this weekend, and to answer you IM, yes we are going to be open Monday.

Mods, sorry about the BS, but Brad has been deployed for the last few months and coming home this weekend, he needs someone to give him a hard time.

[Marios 0]

Make sure you are using freefly friendly equipmnets. Get a ditter.
Ask the freefliers in your dz to show you the sit-fly position on the ground.
Do a bunch of solos trying to sit-fly. Make sure that you face in a direction perpendicular to the jump run. That is because you will be probably backsliding at the beginning, and you do not want to hit somebody who left the plane before or after you. Keep asking questions.
When you feel more comfortable ask somebody to jump with you. Be honest about what you can do and can't do and keep in mind, safety first. Get somebody with a camera to jump with you so you can see your mistakes.
Get some coaching. It helps a lot.
Always stay on the safe side of things, ask questions and have fun.
Oh and buy beer for those who help you...

[Feeblemind 1]

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Hey all of you free fliers.. I've done some of my jumps after my aff (FS), and i think FS gets a bit booring so i would like some beginners hint, for a "gonna be freeflier"?

Yo Kungen,

You have had lots of posts here so I will add to the list:

When I entered sport I felt the same way, three years later I have a slightly different view. Yes RW is not my thing, but I also need to be safe in the sky with the other jumpers that are there with me. Decent belly skills are important in freeflying as well. How do you expect to be able to track away from a group without good tracking skills? How will you develop decent tracking skills without decent belly skills? Will the freeflyers jump with you with a lack of belly skills? these are all questions you need to answer and talk to the freeflyers at your DZ or better yet talk to your instructors. Freefly jumps sometimes don't go as planned and if you lack belly skills what will your fallback plan be?

So you asked for a hint:
1) talk to your instructor
2) talk to the local freefly coaches
3) I agree with the prior post "Do around 100 jumps on your belly"
4) make a SAFE progression to freeflyinfg

Fire Safety Tip: Don't fry bacon while naked

[Kynan1 0]

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EDIT TO ADD: get good on your belly first, be able to do all movements with ease, should be second nature, then go FF, someone else may say otherwise, but from what i've seen with most ppl at the DZ, it turns out better for most jumpers getting their belly flying down good then moving on to other body positions.

Within reason, I would agree. Be competent on your stomach first, then move on. Able to do turns and control forward motion, tracking, etc. I made a jump with a freeflier who had 2000 jumps...all freefly. We went to our stomachs to form a round, he went straight into a tracking position and almost took me out. I couldn't believe someone could be so horrid on their stomach with so many jumps.
I wouldn't wait hundreds of jumps to start though because you'll only hault your progress, not help it. Being great at RW doesn't necessarily carry over to a good head down. I know people with 800+ jumps who can't fly in the head down position, but they are great at RW. If you love freeflying, work on that, as long as you can control yourself on your belly.
If I waited until now to start freeflying, I'd be that much worse at it.

[justinhawxhurst 0]

"My advice (and I'm a freeflyer) is stay mostly on your belly for at least another 100 jumps! "

Why? Ok but the fact of learning to fly and be in controle why hold back when you can also do FF jumps and lear this as well. I have 75 jumps and 25 are sit jumps. I can hold a good sit as well as cartwheel left and right and hold heading. I found that it was hard at first but because I was told to not quite and keep trying that I got it. I am glad I was not told "Your not ready go do another 100 jumps." I know lots of jumpers that have 200+ jumps and they cant sit because they never try and just say "Oh i cant sit fly"

Just my thoughts.

[Feeblemind 1]

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"My advice (and I'm a freeflyer) is stay mostly on your belly for at least another 100 jumps! "

Why? Ok but the fact of learning to fly and be in controle why hold back when you can also do FF jumps and lear this as well. I have 75 jumps and 25 are sit jumps. I can hold a good sit as well as cartwheel left and right and hold heading. I found that it was hard at first but because I was told to not quite and keep trying that I got it. I am glad I was not told "Your not ready go do another 100 jumps." I know lots of jumpers that have 200+ jumps and they cant sit because they never try and just say "Oh i cant sit fly"

Just my thoughts.

I am intrested in your post, so are you saying I made a mistake don't do what I did (but I started freeflying at 50 jumps and I am currently continuing) or are you saying I started freeflying at 50 jumps (made an error in judgement) and I am back on my belly until I develop decent belly skills?

Fire Safety Tip: Don't fry bacon while naked

[justinhawxhurst 0]

What ia am saying is why tell someone not to do something when they want to learn. in sted of helping the learning process and incuraging. The original post was not "I only have 15 jumps do you think I am ready to freefly" He was asked

"i would like some beginners hint, for a "gonna be freeflier"

[beowulf 1]

Belly flying is part of the learning process. Even for freeflying. People who get in a hurry in skydiving tend to get hurt more often.

[karenmeal 0]

Well.. so short-term, obviously, giving him specific pointers about how to begin to freefly is what will make him a better freeflyer---- in the short-term. However, when I give people advice on how to proceed in the sport, I give them advice for the long-term.

Just like I would tell someone with 50 jumps who wanted to learn to swoop to work on some other canopy skills first, I think that having a solid foundation of belly skills is invaluable to being a well-rounded (and much better) freeflyer later on.

Belly flying and freeflying are not that different. In both disciplines, you must learn to be aware of your body and how to move your body through the air by manipulating your body position. This is unarguably much easier to learn at slower speeds. If you are going 180 miles per hour (not at all uncommon when learning head-down), a slight problem with your body position will be magnified and will translate into tons of unwanted movement through the air. However, a slight problem with body position while belly flying and going 120 mph, will not produce as much movement in the horizontal plane. It takes a certain amount of practice to begin to develop good self-awareness in freefall. You need to learn to relax and critically evaluate what is going on with your body position before you can fix it. Much easier to learn this self-awareness when belly flying.

Corking. You can't really cork out of a skydive while on your belly. You can do this in freeflying and it can hurt or kill you or your jump buddies. If you learn to freefly before having a basic command of belly skills, then there are some very basic freefall (not discipline specific) skills that you will need to learn while in a more high-stress environment where you must deal with higher speeds and the potential of corking out.

General awareness. It takes a lot more than 20 jumps to develop good awareness of your freefall environment. When learning to freefly, you are falling faster (as I mentioned before) and problems with body position often translate into movement in the horizontal plane. Are you aware throughout the skydive of your movement in relation to jump run? This is a challenging thing to maintain awareness of, yet it is important for people in all disciplines to be aware of this. Why not learn to develop this sort of awareness when belly-flying when you are less likely to have lots of movement on the horizontal plane that has the potential to have your skydive invade the air space of another group on your same load?

Break-off and swooping a formation. The basic concepts here are the same for either discipline, yet sooo much easier (and safer) to learn when belly-flying.

You will need to belly-fly at some point in your skydiving career, and at pull-time on every jump. This is the foundation of skydiving. Not knowing how to do this could prevent you from becoming a good instructor later, not being able to do good tandem videos, not being able to get on important belly jumps (like ash dives).

Learning to belly fly before you freefly is to me, the best plan in the long-run. You will be a much better skydiver over all, you'll have greater flexibility in the types of jumps that you get on (which believe me, you will appreciate) and you'll just have more confidence and awareness in freefall when (or if) you decide to eventually transition to freeflying.

I am honestly not giving this advice because I don't want the original poster to not have fun or something. I just strongly believe that having a good foundation of belly skills is invaluable to becoming a good freeflyer. Without that knowledge, I feel as though people are missing a fundamental chunk of skydiving know-how. Do I know good freeflyers who don't really know how to belly fly? Yes I do. But, I will never think of a freeflyer who can barely belly fly as a great skydiver. To me, they have skipped over the fundamentals and it definitely shows.

When I tell someone that they are not ready to learn to freefly, it is not because they won't be able to acquire some basic freefly skills.. it is because I believe that it is in their best interest (in the long-run) to develop some other skills first.

So to sum this very long post up.. I feel that I have addressed the original posters sentiment:

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so i would like some beginners hint, for a "gonna be freeflier"?

My hint is: be well-rounded by developing more belly-flying skills now, and enjoy the multitude of benefits that will stem from making that choice for the duration of your (hopefully long) skydiving career.

"Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

[justinhawxhurst 0]

I was not saying its not. I was just making a point about negative coments that have nothing to do with a question by a new skydiver who wants to learn. Why cant you start to ask questions and study up on things, watch videos and get ready for things to come. To just say go do another 100 jumps dose nothing for the person who wants to learn.

This coment is not spacificly to you just repled from your post

[rehmwa 2]

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Belly flying and freeflying are not that different.

I agree, I'll even go farther and say they are not different at all. The only thing different is how the individual approaches it in their head. They are about finding a relaxed and flexible position, deflecting air with their body surfaces and learning control. My belly/back/bootie flying makes me a better sit/head flyer, my sit head flying makes me a better belly/back/bootie flyer. And this is at the weekend/rec level of jumping.

Dispensing with any of them completely shortchanges the ability to become a good body pilot.

How many 'just barely' headdowners do we all know that can't belly nor upright fly to save their lives?

There are hacks in all disciplines; the top in each discipline are all highly skilled/talented and I wouldn't say any is more or less challenging to hit the top levels.

For beginners, exploring it all is a great idea. The 'bored' belly flyer sitting in his big old boxman and fat shoulder turns has no more explored RW, than the beginner headdowner {{holding pizzas clear over his shoulder with big baggy pants (crutches), zooming around out of control}} has explored freefly.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[beowulf 1]

The problem here is what you consider negative comments are really helpful comments. Doing 100 more belly jumps is helpful and will benefit the OP more then freefly tips.

[sparkie 0]

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Hey all of you free fliers.. I've done some of my jumps after my aff (FS), and i think FS gets a bit booring so i would like some beginners hint, for a "gonna be freeflier"?

How many formation dives have you done? Over here (holland) usually your 8 th jump is the solo jump......

I'm trying to become a freeflyer too, but i've done a bunch of FS jumps also and found out that there was MUCH to learn there...That in itself was fun enough for me to at least become proficient at RW.

I think your mouth had a bit of a premature opening when the words boring came out.