Tough Love . . .

[NickDG 23]

I'm going to carefully word the following as I don’t want to offend or discourage anyone, but if we agree a student losing their life is the worst thing that can happen, then the following needs saying. Since I first posted about the "hole" in the Tandem fatality thread in the Incidents forum I've received enough PMs and e-mails to realize there are way too many people saying, "Wow, I never even thought about that!"

Here's a lesson for all, especially Instructors both veteran and newly minted and of all disciplines. You don’t know it all. None of us do.

We tend to worry more about the "new mistake" a student makes, or a piece of gear displays, that no one expects. However, that discounts all the other things that have gone wrong in the past and will go wrong again. It's easy to make a few thousand jumps with students and feel you have a handle on it, but do you really?

The answer is don’t fall into the trap that any student jump is routine. There is always an "x" factor and no two students are alike. There are ones with physical problems like amputees; there are the slow witted ones, the meek ones, the ones more full of false bravado than real sense, and so on and so on. Instructors must carry themselves with confidence in order to instill confidence but you must know when to say when. There nothing wrong, when presented with something out of the ordinary, with grabbing a couple of other Instructors and running around behind the hangar and thinking it over and talking it through.

Many Instructors probably just wing it with an attitude they can handle anything that comes their way. But it's not just your reputation that's at stake, it a student's life. I don’t think most instructors start their careers with huge egos, but some grown them after all the student praise that just naturally comes their way. Keep in mind a student will love and think you a skygod just as long as they don’t die. This is false praise. It really only matters what your peer instructors think of you that matters.

So none of us can say we know it all, but I venture to say collectively we do know it all, at least when it comes to knowing what can happen sometimes. We need to pull all that information together and incorporate it into training new Instructors. Right now, for all intents we certify Instructors when we should be teaching them to be Instructors.

There are many small and medium sized drop zones that are too inbred. What I mean is all they know is all they know. And that disadvantage is passed down generationally from Instructor to Instructor at that particular DZ. The bigger drop zones have the advantage of a larger Instructor corps, Instructors coming and going from all over the world, and a bigger body of knowledge that percolates into every Instructor on the staff.

The way Instructors are taught and certified should be changed. You can see people are learning how to get through the cert courses rather than learning how to "be" Instructors. Early on when I started evaluating in AFF courses I was continually berated with, "Nick, you are here to certify, not teach." And I was continually biting my tongue because it was so obvious so many candidates needed that schooling.

We throw the title "Instructor" around pretty liberally nowadays. Look at tandem. I'd rather designate people who only carry students as Tandem Masters, and I think to be called an Instructor means you stand up in classroom full of people in the morning and carry them all way through a solo AFF or S/l first jump in the afternoon.

I think there should be Instructor camps. Gee, we have camps for CRW, camps for free fly, camps for big ways, and camps for everything else. Instructor camp would be a place you go, outside the influence of your home DZ, and do nothing but breath, eat, and poop skydiving instruction for as long as it takes. It should be normal that an Instructor, after a long and successful career of teaching first time jumpers, takes the last few years to teach the teachers. We are wasting a valuable resource otherwise.

I think every prospective Instructor should be sat at the foot of a Jumpmaster that failed to hook up a static line and learn first hand, how it's possible, and about the horror of living with a student fatality for the rest of your life. Too rough? I don’t think so.

What we call "fluke" accidents today are really Instructors who learn a lesson after the fact. We could eliminate most, if not all of those, if we just supported each other more. Instructors must stop thinking of themselves as working at DZ-X-ray and those other Instructors across town at DZ-Z-ray suck and don’t know what they are doing. As an Instructor corps we've been divided and conquered and we now only eat at the whim of whatever DZO employs us.

Jay Stokes has probably come closest to getting it right. Years ago when he explained his idea for "Certification-Unlimited" to me I was beside myself with excitement. His original plan was a fixed base operation and potential instructors would come to him. I was going to spend my golden years there. In reality most of the time Jay still has to take the show on the road and no matter how much of a straight shooter he is, when you are playing in another man's field, who have to watch what you say or you don’t get invited back.

New Zealand has a similar setup now and jumpers from all over the world are going there to pick up all the ratings with the idea of becoming professional skydivers. It's time we took instructing seriously and end the "part time" skydiving Instructor bit, as to me it's like being a part time doctor or something. Only then will Instructors make a decent living and stick with it. Every year we lose experienced Instructors to family pressure and money issues and they are replaced with new and inexperienced Instructors and it's the students, and eventually all skydivers, who pay the price for that.

I remember a time when every skydiver said the beginning was the scary part. But now you hear very experienced skydivers saying it's scary all the time. If nothing else does it that should clue you to the fact something is fundamentally wrong. In the 70s the Instructors were better than the gear they had to work with. Now, the gear is making up for a lesser kind of an Instructor . . . and that's a dead end.

NickD BASE 194

[livendive 8]

Overall, a pretty good post. I agree whole-heartedly with parts and totally disagree with other parts.

The "instructor camp" idea is a great one in theory, but has a fundamental logic flaw. The people who need it the most wouldn't pay to attend it.

As for the full-time/part-time and small DZ/large DZ points, I guess I'm going to disagree. For perspective, I'll admit right up front that I'm a part-time instructor with relatively little experience compared to many here, and I work at small DZ's, so I'm probably somewhat biased on the subject.

Here's how I disagree:
- For every kudo a full-time instructor gets for their experience and tips/tricks, they get a demerit for having done it so many times that they've become jaded and don't care as much as they should. Such instructors are a great resource for instructors like me to draw from (and I do ask questions and listen with an open mind), but I have to be careful to wear a filter when listening, so I can take just the good parts and absorb none of the bad. Luckily, the one such person I turn to most frequently hasn't let jading cloud his judgement, just his enjoyment of skydiving.
- For every demerit a small DZ instructor gets for having a limited body of knowledge to draw from, they get a kudo for getting personally involved with their students instead of teaching via an assembly line. Who would you rather have teaching your loved one, an instructor who's trying to turn the student into a safe skydiver who will eventually fun-jump with them? Or an instructor already eyeing his next student who would really like to finish up earning the rent so he can start working on the credit card bill?

Really what it boils down to though is that the proof is in the pudding. And I'll stack the life-saving knowledge of the average small DZ novice up against the average factory DZ student's every day of the week. The sarcast would say it's because they've already needed it, but I'll say it's because their exposure has been focused on the fundamentals rather than being like the "cool kids".

Blues,
Dave

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

[hobbes4star 0]

This is just my personal opinion on the matter. It is only my .000000002 worth. I always tell the people that ask how they can go skydiving that if they are only going to do it once to head the Eloy, but if they are going to learn to skydive head to one of the smaller cessna dropzone. My reasoning is it felt more one on one and I was not just another rent payment to the guy.
like i said just my .000000002 worth

if fun were easy it wouldn't be worth having, right?

[riddler 0]

I don't think I've met many instructors that truly think they know it all. I've met plenty that refuse to adapt to new situations, and that can be just as dangerous.

Quote

I venture to say collectively we do know it all, at least when it comes to knowing what can happen sometimes.

I think it's close, but I think there will always be new situations that no one has ever seen. Kinda keeps this an exciting activity.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[camamel 0]

1. English is not my first language so I might do some mistakes here and there.
2. I agree with you in most of what you said. There is a lot of instructors out there who forgot that they are their for their students... not themself. Some of our custommer always want to go... because they don't realy know what it all means. But the instructor do know.
As TME when I teach to new inst I always told them that when they will be back in the field nothing will be perfect. BUT they always have the right and the responsability to say NO.
For an instructor working on small or medium DZ I think it is way better if the DZO is an active instructor.
In some aspect skydiving is like any other business.As an owner if you don't teach your employes what to do and when, if you don't have strict and clear guides lines,if you don't over look at them to help and correct them, or if you don't do meetings to listen and encourage them ... you will eventualy loose your business. One of the biggest difference between other business and a DZ...you have to be able to do what you ask your instructor to do otherwise you have no cridibility.. so they don't listen.

When you think you're good...this is when you become dangerous.

[aironscott 3]

Although I could not agree with you more that there are positives to learning at both large and small dz's I would send anyone (everyone if I could) to Eloy to learn.
I did work there for a couple of years so I may be biased, but I have never been to a dz that took the time to teach the way SDAZ does.
The school there is separate from the dz. It allows the instructors (who are full time) to dedicate their time to their students. At smaller dzs the loads are tied in to what the student's time table is. At Eloy you just get on the next available airplane. What this means is that you never have to rush your student to the airplane. What a luxury!
SDAZ is an excellent place to send your friends, family, whomever to do a tandem, but it is also an incredible place to learn how to skydive.

“God Damn Mountain Dew MotherFuckers!”