freestyle, anyone?

[Royd 0]

Hey people.
I am very interested in the disipline of freestyle.
It looks like hard work, but alot of fun.
From what I see around the dz it seems to be non-existant. If so, what are the reasons?
If there are any dinosaurs still in the disipline, how do I get started seriously, other than just jumping out, and going for it?

[Peej 0]

Mabye get hold of Bbarnhouse, she's a guru on that stuff. Let me warn you though, she's far from a dinosaur! Raaaauw!

edited to add profile link: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?username=bbarnhouse;

Advertisio Rodriguez / Sky

[bbarnhouse 0]

Royd,
Freestyle is currently more popular in Europe, but with the addition of vertical 4 way, there seems to be an insurgence of interest in freestyle.My best advice to you is to learn to freefly first as you will need these skills in freestyle as well.
Its always a good idea to get as much professional coaching as you can early on in freeflying as not to pick up bad habits that will need to be corrected later.
There are several good freefly/freestyle coaches that will be able to help you get a good start.
Mariah Eakins, Omar Alhegelan, Yoko Okazaki, Melissa Nelson and Amy Chmelecki to name just a few.
Hope that helps to answer a few questions for you, and do feel free to drop me a PM if you have additional questions.
B

[ockers 0]

I have 2 answers for you, they are both the same, one is just the long version. Firstly my $0.02 worth from our experience, (the long version! Scroll down if you want the short one).

My partner & I only jump at best every other weekend and could never commit to training schedules for 4 way, so we kinda missed out when people at our skill level went into teams. We weren't that interested in freefly and as a result ended up jumping as a 2 way a lot of the time.

Once I stuck a camera on my head, things started to change, Jackie started 'playing' in the sky, rolls, flips, etc. We were still in rel suits and didn't even know that freestyle existed. Eventually after talking with instructors and Naomi, (Oz Freestyle champ), she borrowed a freestyle suit and I borrowed a freefly suit.

Now we are playing cat and mouse, welcome to the world of backsliding!!! Jackie flipping around and posing in the sky, me chasing her around on my belly. This was fun for about 50 jumps. Jackie started learning new moves and I did my best to keep up! After doing some research and looking at some of the compulsories it quickly became obvious that we needed to learn to freefly. Charging around the sky is unsafe and not really what freestyle is about!

How difficult can it be to freefly? Talk to a few freefly people and off we go for a few solos. Tumble, belly, tumble, hey this is cool, tumble etc. A few solos later, we both have stable a sit, so off we go together... Out, in, GO..... bye, bye Jackie! Me falling like a fridge and both of us backsliding. We tried a fair few of these and eventually admitted to ourselves that we needed help.

We did a coaching weekend with one of our top freefly guys and started to unlearn some of the stuff we were doing. A fair few weekends later we are head up flying together in the same column of air, a few feet apart. Heading, fallrate and backsliding issues are largely a thing of the past. If the weather is kind this weekend, we're going back to school to look at head down. We have also taken up gymnastics to work on flexibility and posture. When we are 'happy' with freefly we'll look at coaching for freestyle.

OK, now the short answer. Get a coach and ideally someone else who is happy to go down the track with you. Camera flying in freestyle is an integral part of the 'performance'.

I don't know why its so unpopular, maybe because there is no intermediate class. When I first looked at some of the compulsories my thoughts were, "You want me to do WHAT!!!?". Maybe new jumpers just want to freefly? Maybe its also because you need a sh!t hot camera flier and they are expensive. I'm no way in that class and am on the same, if not a steeper learning curve than Jackie. In addition to learning to freefly, I'm getting camera coaching.

Some of our recent footage looks AWESOME, Jackie doing layouts or stags off the tail of the skyvan then into sit fly, all in centre frame. We have a LONG way to go but its a great journey.

Shout if you want anything from us, but I can only give you advice from our experience.

[Dolph 0]

Bit of a tangent, but how common is is for freestylers to go into freefly?

I'm thinking Nils Predstrup for instance. Had the pleasure of doing a few jumps with him. He has pretty much won everything in freestyle since 2001.

Now, his skills clearly carry over to freefly as he is *very* good at this as well. Add to that that there's a certain grace and natural flow to his moves that many good freeflyers lack.

After seeing him freefly I thought to myself "shit, I shoudda started freestylin' first, that stuff looks smooth".

[karenmeal 0]

I've been thinking about experimenting with some freestyle.. I think I would like to integrate more freestyle moves into a 2-way freefly artistic routine.

But I've got to keep working on the flexibility thing.

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

[Royd 0]

The flow and beauty of the dicipline is what really catches my eye. It is about as close to physical art as you can get.
It is obvious that this is going to be a long term goal because, financially, every other weekend will probably be the best I can do. I'm still working on getting my own rig.
Obviously, finding a camera person to be part of a team would be a real benefit, as opposed to paying someone from the dz to jump with you.
One more question. Do the camera person and the acrobat trade places, so that both people can understand what the other person needs during flight?

[bbarnhouse 0]

It is essential to have good freefly skills as comps contain head down moves. It is also imperative to be able to fly on all axis.
Head down moves carry a higher degree of difficulty than upright moves for scoring.

As to the camera flyer I have to be honest here and say that it requires a highly skilled camera flyer. Not every camera flyer (even a good freeflyer) can film freestyle.
Freestyle is more interactive than it has been in the past, therefor it requires one to "dance" with the camera flyer so to speak.
At a competitive level the camera flyer and performer may switch places during competition. It really doesn't happen and there is a slight problem with that.
On an international level there are separate categories for mens and womens. Which means that the designation of the team is based on performer. This would mean that you could not have a mixed gender team if switching places.
In the US however, there is only an open category that is not gender based. This changes come time to decide which teams to send to the World Meet as they are then separated by gender.
Simply put , in the US if the field contains 1 male team and that team finishes last, the team would still be invited to the World Meet as the top male team for the US.
It will continue to stay this way until there are enough competitiors to separate the field.
The other thing to keep in mind is this. Freestyle must have enough competitors to medal at US Nationals or it will be removed as a competitive event.
This is in truth why both myself and Tanya O'brien chose to compete at the Nationals in 2005. In hopes of keeping both Skysurf and Freestyle in US Nationals.
So....if you're entertaining freestyle as a competitor....get into the game and compete at US Nationals in October!!

[masterblaster72 0]

I too am interested in eventually learning freestyle. Right now I'm learning how to freefly.

Only thing is that I'm pretty stiff in general, not very flexble at all. I see the stuff that freestylists do and like Royd, I think it has a lot of aesthetic appeal that other skydiving disciplines do not. But doesn't it require time in the gymnasium and something like yoga as well if you want to be half-decent at it? I think I remember reading in Parachutist magazine that Yoko Okazaki used to be a gymnast or ballerina or something like that...

As an aside, know where I can find some good freestyle video on the net? Skydivingmovies has only a few freestyle videos. I know of this one from Dragonfly Freefly (fantastic), but not many others. If you know of any, please share, it's great stuff to watch. Thanks.

[bbarnhouse 0]

First off, realize that there is a difference between merely stretching and being flexible.
Pilates is a wonderful thing

Yoko was a gymnast, and most freestylists have some dance background. It isn't essential though. Simply put, freestyle is about taking something that is difficult to execute and make it look effortless.As to film I would suggest purchasing the World Cup DVDs, Dale Stewart's video, Tamara Koyn's video. Freestyle has changed a lot since Dale and Tamara, but there is beautiful stuff there.B2

[Brains 2]

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But doesn't it require time in the gymnasium and something like yoga as well if you want to be half-decent at it?

I know of at least one VERY top freefly coach in Arizona who does Yoga daily.

As to the guy learning to film a freestylist, man can i feel what you are going through. I agreed to film my girlfriend in freestyle. I thought that after a year of filming a skysurfer it would be no problem. Ha!

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[ScottMcC 0]

you should also buy Dale's book. It helps to have some pictures of the basic moves so that you can actually dirt dive.

many of the basic moves start from a belly to earth or back to earth orientation. be confident flying in either position and then start trying some of these moves.

and yes, flying camera for a freestylist is harder than it looks!

and like everyone else said, coaching is invaluable. we did some with yoko and axel over new year's, and it's really helped us out.

[bloody_trauma 2]

i think i'd make a good freestyler, right now i'm an avid break dancer so i'm pretty damn flexible and can execute a lot of aerial moves, barrel rolls, flares, flare windmills, and popcorn and pop 190's, all of this is prolly dragon speak to you all but those are some pretty difficulty moves, even when bound by the ground, i'm sure they would be much easier in the sky, that and i used to be on gymnastic team in high school. chicks dig gymnasts and flexible guys

Fly it like you stole it

[masterblaster72 0]

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i think i'd make a good freestyler, right now i'm an avid break dancer so i'm pretty damn flexible and can execute a lot of aerial moves, barrel rolls, flares, flare windmills, and popcorn and pop 190's, all of this is prolly dragon speak to you all but those are some pretty difficulty moves, even when bound by the ground, i'm sure they would be much easier in the sky,

Right on dude

Exactly why I find freestyle so appealing -- I used to break dance back in the day and was great at it, one of the best in my school. I've long had the ambition of taking it up again, but I just don't have the flexibility I had as a teenager. Freestyle skydiving is how I could meet that ambition halfway.

You can see someone busting a windmill in (only a tiny portion of) this video on skydivingmovies.com. Would have been nice to see that jumper's whole freefall -- she really knows what she's doing.

I know all of those moves you can bust out -- if you can do a windmill with no problem then you must be a pretty skilled break dancer.

You'd probably make a damn good freestyler considering you used to be a gymnast as well -- go for it. Be sure to post your vids on skydivingmovies.com when you have some ready

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[bloody_trauma 2]

man right now i can only think about skydiving, gotta lot of ambitions for skydiving and havent even been through AFF, but eventually ill get there just gotta get shipped back breathing first and then i'll be kosher, freestyle looks appealing and hopefully i have something to offer the world of skydiving, but can someone enlighten me as to why executing diferent positions while falling is so difficult? im most afriad of something happening to the canopy while moving around vigorously, to me with no experienc eit seems like ot would be easy to put myself in different positions, but again i dont even know how to track or spin or the dynamics of any of it yet... sorry its the noob in me

Fly it like you stole it

[masterblaster72 0]

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can someone enlighten me as to why executing diferent positions while falling is so difficult? im most afriad of something happening to the canopy while moving around vigorously

I'm no expert myself, but I can say for starters that it's difficult because you have winds up to 160mph (or maybe more) working against your body while you're busting out those moves. It takes work to get to the point where you can tame that force and execute those maneuvres with precision. But I think you're way ahead of most folks if you already have experience as a gymnast. I defer to Ms. Barnhouse on the finer details of what's involved.

As far as deploying your canopy, you revert to the standard belly-to-earth position to deploy your canopy, so you would not be executing any moves while you deploy (see the video I linked to earlier in this thread from Dragonfly Freefly -- you'll see at the end that the jumper goes belly-to-earth after she's done with her routine).

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[Brains 2]

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You can see someone busting a windmill in (only a tiny portion of) this video on skydivingmovies.com. Would have been nice to see that jumper's whole freefall -- she really knows what she's doing.

That girl is Fireflytx on here. The guy who shot all that footage is Napaguy99 on here as well.

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[fireflytx 0]

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***


You can see someone busting a windmill in (only a tiny portion of) this video on skydivingmovies.com. Would have been nice to see that jumper's whole freefall -- she really knows what she's doing.

That's me in that video. Actually that is really old footage and I am not quite sure what the hell was going on there. I glad it looked good to someone there. If you wan to see some more of my recent freestyle go to My Space and my screen name is Mercy Killings www.myspace.com/mercykillingsartist

I have one in my video section. Not completely freestyle but most of it is.

I am just a beginner freestylist at best with only 500 jumps. I am going to nationals trying to keep freestyle alive even though I can barely do most of the compulsaries. Freestyle is tough and takes a lot of hard work and you need a kick ass cameraman especially if you are learning cause besides the normal difficultly in filming freestyle when you are learning you will be sliding all over the sky.

"Well behaved women rarely make history"

[kmfreefly 0]

I'm soooo excited to see all the people interested in discussing and trying freestyle! Just want to put it out there - I'm willing to help anyone out...with choreographing routines, breaking down compulsories, etc. Don't be discouraged by the compulsories, there's a couple of those buggers I still can't do consistently...
I'm also glad to see all the props given to the camera flyers. I've always encouraged freestylists to treat their camera flyers well, since it doesn't matter how cool your tricks are if there's no one there to capture it. Splurge on a jump ticket for an outside camera flyer so that you can both see your interaction... it helps a lot!
I also strongly recommend the Dale Stuart tape and book... I pretty much learned everything I know from her.
Feel free to email me for help!
Blue skies and pointed toes, M

Team Flew-id
Making freefall pretty since 1998

[brierebecca 0]

I, too, am a beginning freestylist. I have close to 1000 jumps (mostly freefly), and maybe 50-75 of those are freestyle. I mostly just goof around, but I've gotten to the point where I can fly up and dock on my knees.

I have found that getting competent at freestyle has really helped some parts of my freeflying. I'm more relaxed on my head - I don't feel like I need my arms and legs in any one place to get there. It had also REALLY helped with sit coaching jumps. When you've got a floater or a corker, there's nothing better than going to your knees to get up there and keep them in frame. It keeps you upright and moveable, so getting out of the way is easier if they suddenly come toward you.

I have also found that my freestyle speed is best for playing with belly fliers! If you're a small freeflier and want to have some fun with your belly friends, get out there and bust some freestyle moves right next to them. I have a great friend at Skydive Alanta, and we've gotten to the point where I can hit a heel stretch and hand her my foot. Or I'll be in Indian style and she'll come grab my knees and whirl me around. It's such a fun, relaxed skydive, because we're both usually docking on formations (me in a sit or on my head and her in her belly), and it's great to go out and screw around and laugh together.

I'll try to post some screen grabs I have of my friend Angela (I think she normally jumps at Palatka), who is an amazing freestylist, especially considering her jump numbers. Mel Jerusalem is also a great person to grab if you see her at a boogie.

Feel free to PM me if you want some advice, but I'm really just an amateur at it. I've seen Merriah Eakins (sp?) on video at nationals - pick that one up if you want to see something spectacular.


Brie

"Ive seen you hump air, hump the floor of the plane, and hump legs. You now have a new nickname: "Black Humper of Death"--yardhippie

[Remster 24]

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I've always encouraged freestylists to treat their camera flyers well,

You hear that Kim?





Glad to hear you and that cameraman of yours will be coming to Eloy for Nationals!

Remster

[fireflytx 0]

OH he gets treated well!

"Well behaved women rarely make history"