PLF alternatives

[flynhigh 0]

A PLF can be done from either position - hands up to protect your face (for hazardous landings - like in trees, etc.) or in a full flare. You should practice both and learn when to use them. Hope that helps.

Dare to dream and then make it happen!

[skybytch 259]

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I was just wondering if the experienced jumpers can tell me if I'm missing something or if you really do have to either flare, or be ready for a PLF??

I learned and taught PLF's with the hands at the crotch (ie where they would be after fully flaring), elbows in, feet and knees together. The biggest problem I saw people having when learning PLF's was keeping their hands and arms "inboard" throughout the roll - I'd usually make those people roll around in the pea pit a few more times and they'd get it figured out.

That was for landing in a clear area though. Tree landings are a totally different animal - yes you definitely want to be protecting your handles and face if you're going into a tree.

[AndyMan 7]

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In my not so humble opinion, the PLF is obsolete

I think there's a very valid point here, which is that the PLF as taught in the first jump course will be of very little benefit to someone with a lot of forward speed.

Practicing by jumping off a picnic table has absolutely nothing to do with what you'll end up doing when you've got 20MPH forward speed.

The idea that we're going to plant our feet, fall to our knees, butt, shoulder when surfing at 20mph is ludicrous. I can't think of a better way to femur.

When I cartwheel accross the landing area, I do something I learned in jujitsu, which is similar in principle to a PLF, but more suitable for the forward speed.

In jujitsu, from a running start, we'd jump jump out, and link hands. We'd take the first hit on one shoulder, then one elbow, then the other elbow as we literally cartwheel over. The next hit is our shoulder, then butt. Keep rolling if necesary.

That move is obviously complicated by the harness holding you up, but the technique I use under canopy is similar. I hit first with my shoulder, roll over the top to the other shoulder. It goes something like shoulder, shoulder, butt, roll.

The standard PLF was designed for round parachutes, designed to take a nearly verticle hit. It does very little to help when the jumper has tons of forward movement, especially if the legs are dragging behind it becomes virtually impossible (and undesirable!) to hit with the balls of your feet first.

Jumpers do need to be aware that a good breakfall with a lot of forward movement is very different then the PLF's as taught in a first jump course.

Breakfalls are very cool things, but there is not one that is correct for every possible scenario. Jumpers should become aware of different types of breakfalls.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[catfishhunter 1]

Judo.... My Judo Training many many years ago has served me well through my life <----- Klutz!

Whether it was skateboarding,BMX or just general stupid human tricks, Judo talk me how to fall and truly kept me from not only killing myself but never broke anything and this is from someone that was on a first name basis with the nurses in the ER. Lots of sprains and stitches but nothing broken... I know that it was because I learned how fall from Judo..

MAKE EVERY DAY COUNT
Life is Short and we never know how long we are going to have. We must live life to the fullest EVERY DAY. Everything we do should have a greater purpose.

[skr 1]

Lots of good replies here.

On hands and toggles and hands in front of face:

When I'm coming in I do my best with toggles and
steering and then just a fraction before touching
down do feet and knees together, elbows in to ribs,
chin tucked and shoulders rounded, and my hands
come together in front of my face.

I think of this as rounding off the corners and keeping
flailing arms out of harm's way.

And then I actively make the roll happen the right
way. It doesn't happen of itself.

When I have to do this on a muddy day the mud is
always in the same place: feet, right knee, right butt,
diagonally up across my container to my left shoulder.


I don't let go of the toggles but once I touch the ground
it's all body motion. The toggles are just along for the
ride.

Skr

[GreenLight 5]

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The slide landing is, I think, a better and more safe alternative.

A very good skydiver at our DZ caught her foot in a gofer hole while landing. Her foot stopped. Her body didnt. She spent a year or better in casts, a wheel chair and crutches.

A good PLF is your only out if someone cuts you off on final and sends you downwind to avoid a collision. When it happened to me I did such a good PLF that I rolled up in my lines. When I came to a stop, I unrolled in the opposite direction, picked up my canopy and decided to have a talk with the person who cut me off. He asked me what kind of landing that was... I told him it was a P.L.F. He asked, "What's a PULF?". Needless to say, after I remarked about how he cut me off I proceeded to explain about PLFs and then asked him where in the world he learned to skydive if he didn't know what a PLF was...

I wonder how many swooping over hard ground injuries could have been avoided with good PLFs?

Green Light
"Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there."
"Your statement answered your question."

[Salamander 0]

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On hands and toggles and hands in front of face:

When I'm coming in I do my best with toggles and
steering and then just a fraction before touching
down do feet and knees together, elbows in to ribs,
chin tucked and shoulders rounded, and my hands
come together in front of my face.

Why are people trying to complicate this issue? If you do a proper PLF (assuming under a square and not into an obstacle) you shouldn't need to protect your head / face. The points of contact do not include your head!!!

Your hands and arms shouldn't leave the full flare position. I completely agree with skybytch... keep your hands at your crotch, leaving your arms inboard for the roll - ie. you aren't sticking them out to stop yourself from hitting the ground.

Students have a difficult enough time perfectly timing the flare for landing. Keep it simple, leave your toggles down at your crotch. My first jump students don't need the extra stress on landing of trying to figure out when to bring their toggles up to protect their faces.

[petetheladd 0]

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In my not so humble opinion, the PLF is obsolete. The slide landing is, I think, a better and more safe alternative.

A fall has basically two directional components - vertical and horizontal.

The general idea of falls / rolls in any discipline is

A) To shift impact/kinetic energy away from vital/fragile areas to extremities/stronger areas.
E.G. From spine/head to legs/arms
B) To spread the kinetic energy over a large area
E.G. Instead of point impact, smear it out over a distance

The PLF does this by

A) Shifting impact from just a single dangling leg for example to a staged fall with whole body.

B) spread Impact from a point to along the whole body plus a half turn at the end if needed.

The PLF is geared towards a predominantly vertical landing.

The butt slide
A) concentrates all vertical energy onto heels
B) spreads the horizontal energy along the slide.

The butt slide is geared towards a predominanly horizontal landing. Your vertical component better be low and it better only be your heels and not your head that uses up the energy.

Of course, the happy jumper uses a PLF incorporating a roll component to dissipate the horizontal energy.

The Cast-In-Training guy uses the butt slide until he gets his cast or modifies the butt slide into a PLF Roll.

Anyone that was in the sport long enough to get extensive PLF training will swear by it and can cite personal examples of people who could have saved some limbs using it. I hear less/no people saying he broke his leg but a good butt slide woulda saved him

Of course if you can get both your vertical and horizontal components down to zero at zero ft AGL, the stand up can be used.

PTL

No, Not without incident

[twnsnd 1]

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Its not a matter of if, but of when you will bust your ass sliding when you should have done a PLF. This is skydiving not baseball.

I think there is a line to be drawn here. There are times when a PLF is appropriate and times when sliding is a better option. I personally think it has to do with speed. If have very little forward speed a PLF is a good idea. If you are "hauling the mail", however, I see sliding as a much safer alternative. I cannot see throwing myself onto my side when I am carrying a good bit of forward speed. You have the choice of keeping the damage confined to your lower body, or sharing the weath with it's entirety. JMO

-We are the Swoophaters. We have travelled back in time to hate on your swoops.-

[prost 0]

If you have a good bit of forward speed, why don't you just keep flying your canopy? If you are going down wind and have reached a point where the canopy is about to stall and you close to the ground moving parallel to it, then shore, slide. For any other type of non stand up landing, a good PLF is on order. Most people do not know how to do a PLF properly and that is why they do not think it is of much use. Before and just after I had my knee surgery, I would do a PLF every time I felt like I was not going to land just right. I never had a problem and I was loading my canopy at 2.4 at that time.

[Zenister 0]

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try some judo

or aikido...

I think i'd have alot more broken things if i hadnt learned to roll at a young age, although i probably wouldnt have jumped from so many moving objects/high places (and my mother would have less grey hair) either if i didnt trust my ability to do it without injury.......in fact i had to de-learn my falls to 'properly' PLF in jump school....good training, but IME a good roll dissipates energy much better than a standard PLF...the only problem is you do end up rolling thru your lines if you’ve got a lot of energy......

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[jessd 0]

I was horrible at PLF's during the initial weekend of AFF. I actually went up there and spent a good part of a cloudy Saturday afternoon doing nothing but practicing PLF's with an instructor. Ask for some one-on-one training for this. I found that I was much more relaxed practicing solo than in front of the whole group. I think that I was so focused on watching how everyone else was doing them and not enough time visualizing how I was going to do them. Once I got the "hang" of it I was much more comfortable when the time came for the only 3 AFF jumps that I made.

Best of luck to you! I'm sure you'll do great!

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away..."

[firstime 0]

have to agree with mrhoop, it's a matter of math, such as to ditribute the energy. It's a proven theory
that one can't argue. As for the traditional PLF, it works for me because that is what I was taught. If anyone can use a different method then do it. One still has to keep in mind that it (the fall) has to be distributed on as many points of the body as possible. Look at the Indy racers.... why do they survive... because their cars are designed to absorb
the impact prior to the driver. My .02

[mustard 0]

Hi mailin,

I know it might be construed as being sexist, but I think women have a much harder time landing canopies and feeling comfortable under a parachute. I started jumping 13 years ago, and everybody would come out to watch me land -- for entertainment -- because I could not figure out landing patterns, or any way to land except in a cloud of dust.

I never got the hang of PLFs because I never had my "landing gear" under me: they were always out in front of me. What helped me get more comfortable under canopy was (1) once I was on final, I would say it out loud: "get my landing gear under me" and feel my legs relax downward. (2) Put my ankles together. (3) Start the flare and *trust* that it would stop my forward speed. (4) Be ready to tuck and roll. (5) Flare all the way down!

And you know what? I eventually (and I am talking a thousand jumps here) got comfortable under canopy. I remember so vividly a day when I had a wonderful skydive, and I opened up and there over my head was my friend, my beautiful canopy. I looked around and saw snow-capped mountains and gorgeous clouds, and I could not have been happier. I watched the canopies below me land, studied the wind sock, set up and landed like a feather in the middle of the peas.

This only came about because I kept at it. I never stopped jumping because I couldn't land like the cool ones. If you keep at it, this will happen to you, too. And you won't have to wait for thousands of jumps, because you are getting help right now when you need it. Nobody helped me because I wasn't help-able back then.

***
DJan

[GreenLight 5]

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There are times when a PLF is appropriate and times when sliding is a better option.

Actually this is the best answer. Each situation requires a different approach. This is why experience and available knowlege is so important. Again it's good to have a forum like this to readily discuss issues like this...

Green Light
"Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there."
"Your statement answered your question."

[Shawndiver 0]

My .02 here,
Learn as many techniques as you can! Lots of good advise here, but one thing to remember, is that muscle memory is the key to doing them properly in a fast moving situation.

You should'nt need to learn to PLF initially by jumping off a table, fence, etc. Have your instructor show you the proper technique, and then do it step by step from a standing start if need be, one action at a time, until you start to do it naturally. THEN you can move on to doing it a little faster, or higher, or whatever you and your instructor feel is appropriate. Just remember your goal is to be able to execute it properly without having to think about it! If you learn to fall in a comfortable environment, you will spend a lot more time learning to do it properly! Enjoy!
Shawn

_________________

[twnsnd 1]

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If you have a good bit of forward speed, why don't you just keep flying your canopy?

You're right. That would have been my next point had I wanted to elaborate. I think that sometimes jumpers find themselves in a situation such as a downwind landing in which the skills to land the canopy are not there. Hence a fear induced slide-in landing.

-We are the Swoophaters. We have travelled back in time to hate on your swoops.-

[kaibster 0]

I can't imagine doing a forward aikido roll going 20mph, but I'm just a newbie at aikido too.

qestion for anyone...any tecnique to doing a slide besides making sure you have little vertical speed? My first student jump I screwed up the flare/ldg and seemed like i had a too much forward speed to plf so I tried to slide (at least I think I sort of tried) and 6 months later I can still feel my tailbone everytime I get up from sitting. must have still had some vertical speed going also. is there any difference in how slide and plf tecnique might differ when jumping on a student type canopies versus other types i.e more floaty. Guess I should have forward plfed..been practicing them since!

[skr 1]

> I can't imagine doing a forward aikido roll going 20mph

After reading several posts similar to this I'm wondering
whether we are all meaning the same thing when we say
PLF, because I find them even easier to do with forward
speed.

It's not a slap the mat absorb downward force move but
round off the corners roll with the flow kind of move.

Oh well, it's been a good thread.

Skr

[riggerrob 558]

What about the "banana landing" technique that was popular in the mid-1980s?
It is just a simplified PLF, emphaisising clamping feet and knees together while bending knees towards the direction of landing.
As for hand position, keep them up while landing round parachutes and do at least 3/4 of a flare (toggles to belt) when landing a square parachute.

[Zenister 0]

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I can't imagine doing a forward aikido roll going 20mph, but I'm just a newbie at aikido too.

actually it becomes a lateral (much closer to a back roll) as you begin in the same manner you would PLF (forward speed certainly helps) for me, the roll is more instinctive (and more efficient) than a straight PLF... its not a mat slapping 'fall' at all...

its far easier to demonstrate than to explain in words...

ps. as you get more comfortable with your rolls and falls in the dojo you'll find its often more fun to be the aggressor, particularly with larger/advanced akidokai using full speed and power...


wwwwhhhhheeeeeeeeee!!

needs to get his ass back into the dojo himself...

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[Amazon 7]

Ok.. I need to be a smartass here.

The alternatives to doing a PLF when you need to is a PFL ( the ubiquitous POOR F#$@$ Landing) .. and hospital time can and usually does ensue.

Just learn how to do a PLF... and when you HAVE to use it.. it will save you. It takes practice.. find some poor former military type who HAD to do them over and over and over.. whether it was at Ft Benning or at the Survival School or someplace else that required you to REALLLY learn to do it. I have had to do a couple since I came back to jumping a year ago..and I am none the worse for wear. Many years ago I did many many many PLF's, Round parachutes made landings interesting most of the time. Square parachutes can get you to an interesting landing as well....so when you need it.. KNOW how to do the PLF.

[TribalTalon 0]

hmm well i've had my share of hard landings jumping in high winds, i've never thought oooh PLF!!, in fact sometimes i've ended up planing out RIGHT above the ground where if i would have stuck my feet down to do a plf, i prolly woulda fractured a leg due to my forward speed so i lifted my legs up and made like i was sliding into home plate.. but then again i've played baseball for maaaaaany years so *shrugs*

[wmw999 2,122]

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hmm well i've had my share of hard landings jumping in high winds, i've never thought oooh PLF!!

I'm old too, and have a shitload of PLF's (but I like hooknswoop's PLR name better) under my belt. There are times when sliding in is probably better than a PLF. But there are a lot more times when a PLF (or some kind of roll) is better than a slide. The margin of error in sliding is pretty slim; hit a bump, hit a decent tuft of grass, and your legs stop and the rest of you doesn't.

With a PLF, you will probably get your rig and jumpsuit dirty. They're there to protect you; you're not there to protect them. Really.

It's kind of like justifying not wearing a seat belt because you knew that one guy who was alive because he hadn't been wearing it. There are a lot more people who would have been helped by wearing it.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[BlindBrick 0]

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In my not so humble opinion, the PLF is obsolete

I think there's a very valid point here, which is that the PLF as taught in the first jump course will be of very little benefit to someone with a lot of forward speed.

Practicing by jumping off a picnic table has absolutely nothing to do with what you'll end up doing when you've got 20MPH forward speed.

The idea that we're going to plant our feet, fall to our knees, butt, shoulder when surfing at 20mph is ludicrous. I can't think of a better way to femur.

Take it from somebody who has over 100 PLF's(yes, 100+ out of 131) on squares including more than a few downwinders. The PLF /does/ work for high speed touch downs. It just takes you a bit longer to stop rolling across the landing area.

-Blind

"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."