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tylorayre

Pay for a coach....WTF???

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I have read many books on canopy piloting, watched some of the best swoopers in the world from the sidelines, got advice from them, and read virtually every post on these forums. I am very stubborn and thought I can learn to SWOOP on my own. I was sick of hearing people say, " HIRE A CANOPY COACH." Fuck that...I have 800 jumps and its not rocket science!

Well, I was 100 % wrong! I hired an expert canopy coach last weekend and found out I was doing many things wrong. Yes, I can do HP turns and swoops. However, my technique sucks and I learned that I could get as good of swoop from a 90 as I can from the 270's I was doing.

This was a very humbling experience and now I have to go back to the basics. 200+ jumps down the drain???NOT, I am proud to say that I opened my eyes and I am willing to start from scratch.

I just wanted to share my personal experience. When you get tired of hearing the professional canopy pilots posting on here suggesting you hire a coach.....TAKE IT SERIOUSLY! Its a small investment in the long term and may save your LIFE!

Blue Skies and safe swooping,
Ty

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Great post.

Swooping is not something that should be learned from trial and error. Even with coaching it still carries risk, but knowing the correct techniques and the correct progression will allow a jumper to progress both faster and safer.

I have had coaching every year I have jumped from three different coaches and I see a stepwise improvement every time I get professional input.

Would you elaborate more on what technique changes your coach introduced? What were you doing before and what are you doing now to get more power?

Blues

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I hear you but the main characters that teach today the swoop curse to the new generation, learned how to swoop from trial and errors. Check with the swooping history video. So, there's still a bit of trial-and-error left in their teaching methods.

Me, I surfed today 5 full seconds from double fronts on a Sabre2 190 WL 1:1. 5 sec of surf can cover some ground if I'm in a downwinner.

BTW since I've begin working on double fronts I've focus on how much time I'm spending surfing rather than the distance I've surfed. I've figured that time spent parallel with the ground is less influenced by the weather conditions, WL and it might reflect better if I've made any improvements.
Lock, Dock and Two Smoking Barrelrolls!

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I hear you but the main characters that teach today the swoop curse to the new generation, learned how to swoop from trial and errors. Check with the swooping history video. So, there's still a bit of trial-and-error left in their teaching methods.

Me, I surfed today 5 full seconds from double fronts on a Sabre2 190 WL 1:1. 5 sec of surf can cover some ground if I'm in a downwinner.

BTW since I've begin working on double fronts I've focus on how much time I'm spending surfing rather than the distance I've surfed. I've figured that time spent parallel with the ground is less influenced by the weather conditions, WL and it might reflect better if I've made any improvements.



*whoosh*:S

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Thanks. I went to a canopy course approximately five years ago and learned a lot of great things. However, I never practiced them on a regular basis. Although the stuff I recently got coaching on may not help you much, hopefully it may open some eyes for people new to swooping.

I am kind of starting at the ground level again.
Below are a couple of things that I really learned I have to work on. After having some friends involved in life altering accidents and die within the last year I am comfortable starting from scratch.

Sorry if I am long winded, as I doubt I will mention anything new to most of you.

1) Have a flight plan including canopy drills and be self disciplined enough to follow it. I have an ADHD personality and this can be difficult for me. I have been jumping at a small DZ with a “HUGE” landing area. I would generally fly a pattern focusing more on my setup point than individual checkpoints. By doing this, quite frequently I wouldn’t make my turn initiation point at the desired altitude. My setup altitudes are generally 500’ for a 180 and 300’ for a 90. Usually being the 1st canopy down, I had the opportunity to initiate my turn higher or lower than planned and let my canopy recover where I could maximize my swoop verses focusing on my pre-planned dive, accuracy, and heading. Note- these are stupid things, which I never did in traffic at large DZ’s, nor do I recommend it in no traffic situations because it builds bad habits.

2) I initially scheduled some one on one coaching to work on my turns and dive techniques. I figured I could dial in my accuracy later, which is ass backwards. Since I was doing Hop and pops, we worked on both. Previously, I had been flying in half brakes prior to initiating a single front riser turn. My approach speeds seemed way faster and steeper. My recovery seemed quicker as well, probably because I was a little quicker on my toggles due to a faster sight picture???
My coach had me raise my turns by 100 ft, flying base leg in 3/4 brakes, going to double fronts for 3-5 seconds and then letting up on my opposite riser to initiate my turn. This did feel awkward, however, my swoops were longer. I believe it’s due to a flatter carving turn??? It definitely felt slower, but smoother and safer.

3) Some other drills we worked on "Up high" was flying/ steering my canopy within 1-2 inches of stalling
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it. I never realized how slow and controlled a highly wing loaded canopy could fly. Rear risers landings/ approaches.

Any feedback is appreciated. I will be pursuing more coaching in the near future.

Ty

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To which I would say there is some experimentation involved with getting to know your canopy - toggle stalls, rear riser stalls, flat turns, performance enveloping etc which goes on up high. But I would say that is different from trial-and-error.

The thing I heard that sums it up best is:

"Learn from the mistakes of others who have gone before, because you won;t have time to make all the mistakes yourself".

A canopy course can make that process smoother and safer.

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I hear you but the main characters that teach today the swoop curse to the new generation, learned how to swoop from trial and errors. Check with the swooping history video.



And a lot of us died. And many more never got any better. Some people never learn, that hasn't changed over the years.

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So, there's still a bit of trial-and-error left in their teaching methods.



Nonsense.
Performance Designs Factory Team

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I hear you but the main characters that teach today the swoop curse to the new generation, learned how to swoop from trial and errors. Check with the swooping history video. So, there's still a bit of trial-and-error left in their teaching methods.



You really have no idea what you're talking about, in terms of the above, or really anything you wrote in your rediculous post.

Check your history books? OK, let's. The people who 'invented' swooping did it with 90 toggle whips on 190 and 200 sq ft F-111 canopies, with very little dive, low overall speed, and not a ton of 'swoop' to speak of.

The next step was Z-po canopies, where the big advancement was in WL, but not technique. Even then, those canopies had little dive compared to today's wings, and the range of WL people were jumping was MUCH lower than today.

Even when canopy designers wanted to go 'high performance', they first went to high aspect ratios for quick turns and shallow trim angles for long glides. The end result was not much more dive, and not much more WL.

Once X-bracing hit the z-po canopies, things changed. WL started to rise, and people caught on that lower aspect ratios could get you longer dives and higher speeds. They also found that steeper trim angles would do the same.

This is when 'modern' swooping was born, with big multi-rotation turns and the refined techinques we know today.

The people who pioneered swooping were present though all (or most) of those phases, and learned step-by-step, to get to where they are today. It was not a case of coming into the situation as it currently exists and just 'figuring it out'.

If you want to jump for 10 or 15 years, and work your way up to the status quo, then by all means foget about a coach. If you want to come in off the street, and get right into swooping as it currently exists, you should be looking for some help.

Based on the other crap you wrote, you should really be looking for some help. Professional help.

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I hear you but the main characters that teach today the swoop curse to the new generation, learned how to swoop from trial and errors. Check with the swooping history video. So, there's still a bit of trial-and-error left in their teaching methods.

Me, I surfed today 5 full seconds from double fronts on a Sabre2 190 WL 1:1. 5 sec of surf can cover some ground if I'm in a downwinner.

BTW since I've begin working on double fronts I've focus on how much time I'm spending surfing rather than the distance I've surfed. I've figured that time spent parallel with the ground is less influenced by the weather conditions, WL and it might reflect better if I've made any improvements.


Lock, Dock and Two Smoking Barrelrolls!

(This post was edited by d123 on Jun 30, 2012, 4:06 PM)

_____________________________________________

First of all there is a big difference between using double fronts and doing a HP turn.
I agree with what other people are saying on this post. Use the best available resources such as coaching and stack the odds in your favor. Swooping is very dangerous and should not be taken lightly. This is the whole purpose of my original post. I have learned the hard way and shattered my foot/ calcaneous and tore my MCL before I committed to doing things the right way.
Another additional tool I highly recommend is a book by Brain Germain, "The Parachute and it's Pilot.” If anyone that frequents this forum has other books or videos they suggest, please let me know. I think these tools used in conjunction with canopy coaching are great and will absolutely increase your chances of success and survival in an extremely dangerous sport. Again, I am just a rookie merely making a suggestion based on my personal experience.

Blues Skies,
Ty

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I've took 2 canopy coaching and some free-fly coaching and calling those services *professional* it's a deformation to the term.

For your personal reference AFF it's a professional service.

Are you a canopy coach?
What's your annual income?
How often do you keep track with the progression of your students?
What's the average progression that happens after your canopy class and in how much time.
Could you point some names that you took from "zero to hero" as a reference of your teaching method?
What do you know about teaching?
Did you graduate an university?
What makes your service a professional one?

In Canopy Piloting Coaching the key word is coaching meaning that the person is focusing on coaching. I'm expecting him to be better than average canopy pilot, a fucking good teacher and a professional (paying tax, keeping records, focusing on teaching trends within his service, working on different approaches for different student type, overall believing 100% in his service to make it legit and standing behind his product).
After AFF I haven't seen any coaches that are professionals. If you don't pay tax you're just scamming.
Lock, Dock and Two Smoking Barrelrolls!

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I've took 2 canopy coaching and some free-fly coaching and calling those services *professional* it's a deformation to the term



Much like your view points on swooping are limited in their scope, so are your viewpoints on coaching.

Do you really think that in your short time in the sport you've had sufficient exposure to much of anything to make such sweeping generalizations?

In terms of the coaching you recieved, how exactly did you vet these coaches before you hired them? You want to compare to AFF, great, what I see here is anytime someone posts that they're thinking about starting AFF, we suggest they go to all the local DZs, watch the operations, talk to the staff about their programs, etc, and then compare all those factors before picking a DZ. Did you follow that protocol?

Furthermore, we all know there are good DZs, and bad DZs. Some places don't mainatin their aircraft, don't use updated student gear, don't use rated instructors, or will jump students in wind conditions beyond USPA limits. With that in mind, how would you view a student who has only jumped at one location, and it macthed that description, who then went on to call all DZs unsafe and unprofessional?

I would say that student was making a judgement with a limited scope of experience, and that they should consider expanding that before making such a sweeping judgement, just like I'm reccomending to you. Keep in mind this thread was started by a guy with many times your experience who was so impressed with his experience hiring a coach that he felt the need to post about it, to the point of self-deprecation.

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Any coaching process is a two-way street between the coach and the student. Your closed-minded attitude that is evident in this thread is indicative that you are probably not a suitable candidate for coaching in that you won't listen to advice.

This is a very dangerous/lethal trait for someone wanting to pursue canopy piloting.

In fact, you don't want coaching - don't get coaching, But don't you fucking dare come on here and contaminate the minds of young jumpers looking for advice with your closed-minded bullshit.

Most people who receive canopy coaching get a massive amount out of it. That's a fact. If you didn't, the first place to start looking for reasons is yourself.

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True.

How about we take this conversation up a notch, let's name names and review their "coaching" services.



Well
I took Brian Germain two times (phd) and Brian Vecher once (BA and MBA) and I'll remmende to anyone and will do it again.
But it you (d123) are talking about Jo with 800 jumps that ask for $25 p/p
And he say to you i"ll teach you to fly a canopy , yes he can very Nice land and swoop But is he a good teacher !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just my two cents

Amir
AM67

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Projection.



Stop trolling.

Feel free to discuss the issue, and any gripes you have about the quality of instruction but DO NOT try and bait other posters.

That said - there are good canopy coaches out there, with well structured programs (and they even pay taxes!! ;)) that you can get good quality coaching from if you seek them out.

Blues,
Ian
Performance Designs Factory Team

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In Canopy Piloting Coaching I'm expecting him to be better than average canopy pilot, a fucking good teacher and a professional



If you want to find a good coach you need to expect to make some sacrifices in order to obtain this coaching. But you are being obtuse if you think they don't exist. The fellow I received my advanced coaching from, meets this criteria you outlined. He is a better than awesome canopy pilot, he is a fucking good teacher and he is very much a professional. I had to travel for my coaching, had to pay money for hotels and car rentals (not to mention money for jumps and of course money for the coach). But it was all worth it. The knowledge I received from the coach was priceless (oh and I did this coaching on more than one occasion).

Due to the fact that I can no longer stay current since returning to Canuckistan, I have had to not only retired as a competition level swooper, but I also regretfully retired as a swooper. Swooping rocks, but you need to stay current if you don't want to crater. If you survive your next 1000 jumps, maybe you will come to understand what this all means. Until then, know this, "You are entering the most dangerous phase of your jumping career and there are a ton of people who know a heck of a lot more about this than you do". I am not trying to be an asshole here, just trying to state the facts. Been there, done that.

PS: to the OP of this thread, good on you for seeking your coaching and recognizing the value these coaches can offer the "trial and error" swoopers. Welcome to the world of enhanced knowledge of what to do up there. Just remember while knowledge is key, even the best can find themselves in the corner and the sooner you recognize you are in the corner on a given jump, the better your chances of survival are. The margin for errors in swooping is slime to nil.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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