turning in place

[moth 0]

ive just started to do a few RW jumps and my biggest problem is, when i do a 360o turn i am about 5-6 ft away from my jump partner.
i am turning by lifting a shoulder and dropping a knee, my turns are quick and controlled and i start and stop them on heading but they are a little wide
any tips?

[airgord 1]

You might be lifting your shoulder too much. Get video and hire a coach to look at or better yet have the coach go with you on the dive. It cost money but if you want to be good it is worth every penny. Have fun.

[Ender 0]

Coming from another relatively new guy to the sport:
The way I learned (and am still learning) to stay in place on a turn is by doing 2-way drills with lots of 360s and 540s, and instead of focusing on turning quickly, I turn fairly slowly (maybe 4 seconds for the whole turn) and keep an eye on my separation from my dive buddy the whole time. That way, instead of thinking of it as just dropping a shoulder or something, I have time to judge each small movement and the effect it has on my position. Once I practiced it a lot slowly, the speed started to come more naturally.

[nate_1979 9]

Keep your eye on the other person throughout the whole turn, this will requre you to turn your head quite a bit

FGF #???
I miss the sky...
There are 10 types of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.

[Reginald 0]

Lifting a shoulder? I’m an SDU coach and that sounds like some very old school thought. Currently the best thought in the sport on how to do center point turns is dropping an arm and the other leg, assuming your flying a boxman. I would presume part of your problem is the shoulder issue. Very strange anyone taught that to you? I’ve got to run to a meeting but I’d be happy to talk to you about it more later if you like.

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[tdog 0]

"Cross reference" - keep eye contact - eye to eye, with your friend.

[Ender 0]

I know my head rotates 360 degrees, doesn't yours? Seriously though, I had no idea how flexible my neck was until I started practicing taking cat grips. What took me forever to learn was how to not turn in the direction I'm looking when I'm looking back over my shoulder...

[gemini 0]

Instead of thinking of the turn as a 360, think of it as 4 90 degree turns. This will help you learn to keep your eyes on your partner and will get faster the more you practice it.

At first, try to put a definitive pause after each 90 degrees, make sure you see your partner adjust if necessary, then make the next 90.

Blue skies,

Jim

[rehmwa 2]

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Keep your eye on the other person throughout the whole turn, this will requre you to turn your head quite a bit

A good turn means trusting your turn and keeping the spine straight. Turning the head can cause more trouble than it helps unless you have a great rubbery neck (then I suggest flying point slot). Centerpoint turns are a great skill and learning mantis early and getting a bit of coaching is a big help.

...
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

[rendezvous 0]

Time to head out to the tunnel

[NeedToJump 0]

As others asid, try breaking the 360 down into smaller turns. Try to do four 90 degree turns.

Something to keep in mind about "center point" turns is that only your center stays in place. When you are doing a turn in place, your head moves away from your partner so your visual references will tell you that you are moving away. It is very common to see someone do a 90 degree turn and backslide because they are focusing so much on keeping eye contact and keeping the visual reference. Practice doing slow turns in place on the ground on a creeper and get used to how the visuals change.

As rehma said, too much turning of your head *can* be a bad thing. When turning slow it's great to keep eye contact since you can move your head very slowly. Doing a fast head turn can actually throw your turn *off* center. The head has a lot of mass and if you turn it very quickly and then stop it, the momentum of the head turn will move your entire body! When doing a 360, I usually keep eye contact for a little more than 90 degrees, then do a gradual head turn and pick the eye contact back about 90 degrees before finishing the turn. You need to just trust the turn through the blind spot.

Your best bet is to get together with a coach and get video of the jumps. You could also look into doing an RW camp or getting some tunnel time, but the bottom line is to have someone who knows what to look for watch you.

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i am turning by lifting a shoulder and dropping a knee

I'm not sure where you learned to "lift a shoulder" to turn, but there are much better ways. Ask a coach to show you on the ground.

Good luck with it all. Center point turns take a long time to master so don't get discouraged.

Wind Tunnel and Skydiving Coach http://www.ariperelman.com

[Ron 7]

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ive just started to do a few RW jumps and my biggest problem is, when i do a 360o turn i am about 5-6 ft away from my jump partner.

1st off..HAHAHAHAH

Ok now thats done guess what? I have 3600 jumps and I still work on my center point turns.

Thats life. So:

Relax. This stuff is not hard, but its not easy either. It takes practice. You have 54 jumps in 2 years...Thats about an hour of practice total, and only 30 min a year...Guess what? How many other activities are you good at with an hours worth of practice? I'd bet not many.

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i am turning by lifting a shoulder and dropping a knee

HOW are you lifting a shoulder? If you are lifting a shoulder and paddeling the fore arm down maybe its ok. If you are just lifting a shoulder...Maybe not so much. Its not easy to coach via the internet, but I'll throw this out and see if it sticks:

The key to a center point turn is to defect the same amount of air with both the upper and lower body...Sounds simple right? WRONG. The first problem is as humans we are not used to moving around on our bellies. So to do a center point turn out head actually arcs in a circle with a diameter of about 3 feet. It takes practice to get used to this, its a weird sight and contrary to what you are used to as a biped. Work on a creeper to get used to the target moving away and back to you as it "looks".

While on the subject of "seeing". Yes, look at the target...But not so much that you bend your spine. It is a very advanced technique to bend your spine. Imagine a rod down the center of your spine...It will allow you to arch, but NOT bend left or right. Only look until you are about to bend, then stop and trust the move. If you bend your spine you will not have a base to learn what input does what...With time you can start to bend it to speed it up...but think how hard it would be to fly a plane if you could also bend the plane's fusealage.

The best way to start turning is by using your arms. Hold both up so they are BOTH at 45 degrees with your hands almost touching and your elbows down. It should look like this (/\) When you want to turn you move one 180 degrees to look like this (//). Imagine yet another rod in the middle of your forearm so that it rotates on that rod...The hand goes down and the elbow goes up.

Don't deflect past 45 degrees...You will spill more air than you deflect and actually REDUCE your power.

Now, which way are you drifting? Its pretty normal to drift out if you bend your spine. As you bend you defect air and it pushes you out...Happens a lot more on the send half...Or you could turn and see the target so far away and the second half could be rotating around your head for the second half...I can't tell which or maybe both without video, or me seeing it.

Left right drift is caused by inputs not being equal...Or at the same time.

So the basics:
1. Relax
2. Get used to the sight picture.
3. Don't bend your spine.
4. Start with arms they are easier.
5. Don't deflect more than 45 degrees.

Just so ya don't think I am full of crap (Which I STILL might be) here is a video of our round two last meet. I'm in blue.

http://4way.us/NSL/FSL05M4Rd2ZHills.wmv

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334