progression vs vibes in the tunnel

[flyingwallop 5]

Premise:
I am absolutely unqualified to give any skydiving or flying advice. I have fully enjoyed 4 hours in the tunnel in the last few months. But that's it.

Today I tamed belly to back and back to belly flip transitions. A great satisfaction for me and my absolutely esteemed coach. He seemed even more joyful than i was in there.

Then during debrief he mentioned the sad news about the death of the flyer that inspired him to be an instructor. Once I was back home I watched the video that had inspired my instructor. In the beginning there is a shot of him flying on his back, static, with his eyes closed. This shot touched me.

The next time I am in the tunnel I will do this. 1 flight. static. belly or back. eyes closed. Just to feel. Not think.
Pretty sure this should be part of the curriculum.

Will report back.

[3331 108]

Stop wasting money in the tunnel.

Indoor Skydiving is not Skydiving.

I Jumped with the guys who invented Skydiving.

[flyingwallop 5]

soon my friend - had to start somewhere

[BigBUG 0]

yup, it is called flying.
for the reason :)

[Trafficdiver 8]

3331

Stop wasting money in the tunnel.

Indoor Skydiving is not Skydiving.

Its an invaluable tool for freeflying and it's fun and challenging.

I love wasting money on it.

[wan2doit 6]

IMHO dumping $$$$ in the tunnel is a great thing to do considering how good, young, energetic and cooooll it makes me feel.

[adamUK 3]

I'd never be able to do the stuff I do in the sky without the tunnel. I enjoy both. I just wish I was (a) Better and (b) Significantly richer than I am now

[raftman 12]

Yeah, some of us old timers had to learn to skydive the old fashioned way: by actually jumping out of airplanes.
I would rather waste my $$ on SKYDIVING and gear than in a windy tube!

[BigBUG 0]

i do not want to offend anyone, honestly
but from my experience people who said 'oh, tunnel flying is BS, give me real sky' usually are experienced skydivers with pretty sloppy technique, they had tried it, suck big time (which is pretty normal) but instead of changing their approach and learning the proper stuff (yes, usually they need to start from the very beginning), they blaming the tunnel.

I have been there, first time in the tunnel after 700 skydives and even some medals, and oh boy I was terrible. I never had a student as bad as myself. Now I am an instructor and hopefully not the worst one. But I remember my humiliation and urge to just leave my rig at the tunnel's hotel and drive away and never return. One of the worst days of my life.

[daffes 4]

It's all based on how good you want to be. Most people want to be as good as their friends or as good as the best group on their DZ are, since that becomes a reference of the most fun you can have.

If you have started jumping before the tunnel flying to become a trend, then you probably had an opportunity to stay on the top tier skill without it.

Now a days, it's close to impossible to ramp up to an advanced freefly level or even competition level 4 way belly without the aid of a tunnel. For some industry workers who can jump 5 days a week, they can get a little closer, for the weekend jumpers it's a no-no, it will take years, and when you get there, the level will be again much higher.

Besides that, I can go to the tunnel at night, and keep connected to flying during the week, it's a lot of fun.

As money is a limited resource, splitting it smartly between tunnel and sky is the challenge. Locally here, my advice is to do about half an hour of tunnel over your first 100 jumps to get solid on your belly. Then 1-2 hours until you reach 200. At this point, you should have enough sky awareness to push the freefly further.

Then progression starts to get quite different for each individual, how many jumps they have compared to how many tunnel hours, if they have done time in bursts during camps or spreaded over months and if they have high skilled people teaching them to freefly on the weekends. For people who hit the tunnel early on their jumping career, I see that people with around 5 hours of tunnel can perform things more than being a base and being docked and carved around, and it's also when they start playing with head down exits. Around 8-10 hours is the time that people start lifting off the net and being able taking head down docks etc on the sky.

[Sadist 0]

3331

Stop wasting money in the tunnel.

Indoor Skydiving is not Skydiving.

Congratulations!

You clicked on the "Tunnel" Section of a skydive forum to bitch about tunnels!

You win a virtual high five to the face with a chair!!

Twat.

[radical_flyer 0]

Sadist

You clicked on the "Tunnel" Section of a skydive forum to bitch about tunnels!

You win a virtual high five to the face with a chair!!

Twat.

Harsh. Maybe he came here from the recent forum discussions at the bottom of the page? Still why do you take such offence anyway? He has a point, an hour of tunnel is (just guessing) like 30 jumps (without kit hire or coaching). I'm broke af but I really want to learn FF in the tunnel but I want FS1 first. I couldn't imagine learning in the sky myself but it's clearly worked for these "old-timers".

[degeneration 5]

Time spent in the tunnel is rarely wasted.

If you want to be good at skydiving, spend as much time as you possibly can in the tunnel while still allowing you to jump. Learning curve is much steeper in there, it is AWESOME fun as well, and it will make you a better skydiver.

I've done 35 ish hours, and don't regret it at all, even though that could have been another 300+ jumps.

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