AFF Rating Course

[delfina 0]

I am getting ready to look into taking the AFF rating course........what instructor do you recommend and why?

[flynskydive 0]

Bram Clement. Why? cause if you pass, you'll know you have what it takes. Bram is one of the few skydivers with all instructor certifications, and has given his life to teaching. He's tough, but if you want to be trained effectively and correctly, Bram is your man. Check him out at www.skydiveratings.com

USPA Strong T-I, AFF-I, Coach, Videographer/photographer.

[Floats18 0]

Bram kicks ass.

Ask him how to make a cat sound like a dog

--- and give them wings so they may fly free forever

DiverDriver in Training

[Mixoligist 0]

November 7-13.....Skydive Deland

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Better you than me
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[diablopilot 2]

Jay Stokes.

He's the most profesional, and complete instructor I've had the pleasure of working with.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[livendive 8]

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Jay Stokes.

He's the most profesional, and complete instructor I've had the pleasure of working with.

Ditto. Jay is the man.

Blues,
Dave

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

[lauras 0]

Bram Clement gets all of my respect. Expert instruction, years of experience, current as hell and he also has Elly to round out the dynamic duo act. Bram & Elly are based out of Skydive City during the winter. www.skydiveratings.com

I did the pre-course as well as some tunnel time sticking my nose into Sally Hathaway's ribs and a bunch of jumps practicing exits and chasing and flipping Pip Redvers over. It's amazing how that man can actually gain altitude while he's spinning around on his side. Watch out as the Tevas swing by your face!

No matter who you do your couse with, be prepared. Practice as much as you can afford and you'll feel a lot more confident in your skills.

Good luck!

[SniperCJ 0]

I just finished (and passed...) my AFF-I course with Jay Stokes. I have had a ton of training in my line of work and Jay's course (regardless of outcome) was some of the best training Ive ever had the pleasure to attend.

He is thorough, efficient, and direct. You have no doubt as to what he expects out of you and there is no ambiguity as to what will get you a Satisfactory or Unsat score.

I highly recommend him.

He is at WWW.Certificationunlimited.com

[Reginald 0]

I second SniperCJ’s post. I just completed the course with Jay Stokes (Sniper and I took it together) and I can’t say enough good things about Jay. He is firm but fair. He told us what it would take to pass the course, taught us what we needed to know, and then tested us on our ability. Given all the horror stories I heard about AFFI courses I have to say Jay’s was a pleasure. It was by no means easy, but it was fair. Several instructors at the DZ sat in on the class and all of them raved about Jay’s teaching ability and how he structured the course.

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

[sparrella 0]

I took the course from Bram last year. I thought the training was thorough, professional, courteous and safe. Beyond that, I had a hell of a good time even though I worked my butt off. Additionally, it was straight forward--there were no games.

Finally, the other guy going through the course had different abilities then I did. Without putting too fine a point on it, the training we received was tailored to fit our particular circumstances and we both passed the course.

I can't comment on any of the other courses or directors, but I'd recommend Bram to anyone.

sjp

The greatest enemy of the truth is not a lie, the greatest enemy of the truth is a myth.

[Deuce 1]

I'm Stokes trained. I'm very glad for it.

I had a level 4 go completely haywire last weekend and was very glad of my Stokes training. The student was completely unstable and spinning and went from floaty helicopter spins to completely de-arched ass-down flying. Really hard fall rate changes. I said to myself "She will not have a Cypres fire" and very aggressively docked her but allowed her to deploy herself at 4700 feet. She had the handle (on the other side, I had to re-dock on the reserve side) at over 5K, but took a little more time than necessary because of a failed pull.

I have had two students scare the holy crap out of me, and both times it was not anything that Jay and Co. hadn't shown me.

The most terrifying was a level one that went completely to shiite. That student kicked my face shield out and took me to about 3 grand with harness shifts etc.

You want a very hard but very fair AFF course director.

Honestly? It's a very scary job.

The reward is a level 4 where the student realized they are in control, fly their bodies well, and land with permagrin.

The cost is the student you can't catch (not yet) who has a Cypres fire in a complete panic.

Don't do it if you are not ready.

JP

[delfina 0]

Thank you all for your input. I just successfully completed the AFFI course with Bram at Skydive City, Z-Hills. He is an awesome skydiver and an incredible teacher! I have gained so much knowledge over the last week, it is incredible. Bram is truly passionate about what he does. Same goes for Ellie, she is excellent also. I stronly recommend this duo to anyone looking to gain a skydiving rating.
www.skydivingratings.com
Delfina

[Revillusion 0]

Congrats!
Knowing Bram ... I will add

"There ya go"
Dutch accent added and palms turned upward in a lifting motion ...

VIRTUS JUNXIT MORS NON SEPARABIT

[NoShitThereIWas 0]

Glenn Bangs (if he is still course directing)

Why?
#1. Very professional.
#2. Knows his shit as well as anyone out there.
#3. No B.S. at his course.
#4. If you do what he tells you to and you have the skills, you will get the rating. (I got my rating with less than 400 jumps because I listened to him and learned a lot from him)
#5. He is super cool.

Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires."

Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

[Superfletch 1]

Just finnished the course here in Z-Hills with Bram and Elly. Tough course. Very humbling. I cannot give Bram enough praise. I've learned more from working with Bram the past few weeks than I have in most of my years of skydiving.

Bram is very committed to teaching and creating teachers.

If you ever have the opportunity to get any kind of coaching with Bram you should jump at the chance... heheheheh pun intended. I was floored by his professionalism, his ability, his post jump recall, his teaching style... you name it.

Thank Bram and Elly... I couldn't have asked for a better experience.

Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher
D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I
Videographer/Photographer

[jumpnaked69 0]

I just completed my AFF-IRC with Bram (and Elly, of course) yesterday. It was FANTASTIC! He was tough (very tough), professional, thorough, team-oriented, and an absolute pleasure to work with.

I went into the course with my friend tdog and an AFF instructor from Czech joined us. Al King (AFF I/E) also helped with the course as a DE. So between the three students, we had three awesome people to learn from.

Going into the course tdog and I had done some training jumps and spent some time in the tunnel with very experienced AFF instructors and learned a ton (if you're in the Colorado area, we've got some great pre-AFF coaches we can refer you to for the tunnel or actual jumps). But the verdict on all of the training was that we were ready for the course and we'd do fine. After the first two practice jumps with Bram, I felt like I should maybe quit skydiving all together. Bram was very positive and showed us what we did right and wrong. That man can backslide-dive faster than I can track! The intensity level stayed up there for all of our dives and we became noticeably faster and more responsive. We went through several scenarios and the learning curve was steep. Bram has over 3000 AFF jumps and who knows how many AFF-IRC jumps under his belt so there's a lot to offer the course candidates. He told us at the onset of the course that we all (evaluators and candidates) were a team to help us learn and get our ratings--if we were ready. I felt as if Bram would have had no problem at all telling me I wasn't ready for the course or the rating.

I would recommend this course to anyone who wants a TOUGH but COMPREHENSIVE instructor rating course. When you finish the course, you'll feel confident in taking out a real student.

If you have any more questions, feel free to PM me.

Thank you so much Bram, Elly and Al!


Alan

[tdog 0]

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I just completed my AFF-IRC with Bram (and Elly, of course) yesterday.......

Thank you so much Bram, Elly and Al!


Alan

What he said.

The best part of the course, to me was, the learning progression... On our second pre-course jump, Bram gave us the "full on" cat C. Tough exit - no count, dearched - non responsive to shaking or arch signal. Let him go after COA... Spin stops/blocking, followed by him falling out of the sky in a spinning backslide twice, followed by another spin. It actually, I think was the hardest jump of the course, the "lets see what they got" jump, at least for me.

Upon landing, Alan and I were down because we were not happy about the jump, but Bram kept saying "very nice skydive." I got the feeling that we "passed a test" because the focus seemed to change. He said, "you guys have the flying skills, and as soon as you get the confidence you are ready for your eval dives." Bram told us at the end that he weeds out the people who need more skills in the pre-course so his rating course pass rate is very high... I think, my theory, is that we earned our rating on that jump, and then he used the rest of the course to refine our skills and see how well we could impliment his advice.

I just really appreciated the attitude in the course, that we were there to "learn" and "progress" and "build confidence"... Even the three "hot dives" were really focused on learning and were very fun skydives... Not focusing the energy on the testing aspect, but instead focusing it on the learning aspect, allowed me to learn so much. Little details... Like, "if you would have done this, the student would have learned more because..." Or a time out in the ground work... "That was good, but try it this way and see if it works better."

Just really great! I recommend Bram and Elly to everyone who wishes to get a rating.

[Shark 0]

Congratulations to both of you. Be a good instructor and mentor for your students.
Keep learning and improving your skills. Be humble as well. It'll be a lot of fun.

[freeflyerjosh 0]

That sounds like one hell of a course. Congrats on the rating .Cant wait to work with you guys.

[tdog 0]

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That sounds like one hell of a course. Congrats on the rating .Cant wait to work with you guys.

Wow... Josh posts!

Since you are here, thanks for helping us out, sharing your stories and AFF videos, etc... Without your support, it would have been much tougher...

[skyjiver 0]

I guess we all like the ones we trained with.... I'll put in my vote for Kip Lohmiller- for all the same reasons... Laura