New and Upcomming 4 Way Team

[arlo 0]

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Amazing.

Arlo: Buys DVG of PD Blue a slot on her advanced class team and herself a bronze medal in the process. But we all better know that "respect is earned, not bought".

Oh gee! cat's outta the bag. and of course, it was MY team. It was all about me. I forgot i even had any teammates. We all sucked SOOOOOOO badly that we had to find someone to win for us. it took an incredible amount of money and effort to convince dvg to jump with us. we trained hard WITH david the entire season, it was incredibly expensive, but you know, we did it. we paid david to take that bronze for us while we sat back, drank beer and watched him go (that medal cost us $3.50, by the way). i had to hire an accountant to keep up with all the money being paid out to our hired gun. we ALL know that one good person on a four-way team is all you need to medal (nationals, cir. 2001).

as far as being self-rightous: you're right. anyone that's ever claimed to be my friend or that has come to my defense ... has been paid by me. more hired guns.

arlo

(guess some of the money used for sponsorship was needed to proofread that post)

[Skymonkey2 0]

AFFI-E, Tandem I-E, S/L I-E, IAD I-E, Coach I-E
Students are our future teach them well

[Ron 7]

Who bad mouthed the team?
Not me...

I did say that it was poor sportsmanship to act like you did.

YOU said they were going Intermediate...Jumpers like Niklas have no reason to be in Intermediate 4way.

I also said that if they are so good don't take Niklas.

My issues:
1. You are acting in a very poor fashion. Bragging, and acting cocky....Funny Airspeed, Knights, they don't act like this. THEY are professional...You want to be professional? Don't brag.

2. They were taking a world class jumper into the Intermediate division...Now they are going Advanced...Better, but I think all world class jumpers belong in open. I don't think you should be allowed to buy a PRO, and compete against people who are not PRO's.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[base570 1]

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..... anyone that's ever claimed to be my friend or that has come to my defense ... has been paid by me. more hired guns.

arlo

I believe that Arlo is the greatest person that ever lived... she does no wrong. In fact, if she started her own cult I would be the first to join... as long as the money is right!
Can I get that free tunnel time now????
Jason

[base570 1]

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BikerBabe: ...
Arlo: ...
Ron: ...

The whole lot of you need to drop the self-righteous preaching. You're gonna need BASE canopies to survive the fall from your high horses.

Support your skydiving friends no matter what they decide to do with THEIR money and THEIR freetime. That includes some guy with a sense of humor and irony who likes to talk trash. Keep it up, dude, your team rocks. Not all of us are like these whiney brats.

Damn, I'm pissed
How come I wasn't included in this list?? I want to be a part of the group, PLEASE! Do I need to do more self-righteous preaching or have I been excluded because I already own a BASE rig and won't get hurt when I fall off my high horse?

Don't worry, I DO support my skydiving friends no matter what they decide to do with their money. But people that gloat and have EGO'S the size of Texas are not my friends and I feel no compulsion to support them. I think you might need to re-evaluate what you consider a sense of humor. If you think that by putting others down and making sure people know you are superior (well, this might be a point of contention here) than them is funny and deserves a laugh, then you are a truly sad individual who needs help.
Jason 570

"The EGO is the single most destructive element in society today"

[andy2 0]

[QUOTE]You're gonna need BASE canopies to survive the fall from your high horses. [/QUOTE]

[/QUOTE]I want to be a part of the group, PLEASE! Do I need to do more self-righteous preaching or have I been excluded because I already own a BASE rig and won't get hurt when I fall off my high horse? [/QUOTE]

I think you might enjoy that too much!

---------------------------------------------
let my inspiration flow,
in token rhyme suggesting rhythm...

[Skymonkey2 0]

The time we talked Nick was just the coach, when Nick became a jumping coach the team moved to the next cat up, so unless you know what your talking about. keep quite........ later dude

AFFI-E, Tandem I-E, S/L I-E, IAD I-E, Coach I-E
Students are our future teach them well

[Ron 7]

I know exactly what I am talking about.

Your team hired Niklas to coach. When your team fired a guy he moved into slot.

Your team still does not belong (in my opinion) in Advanced with a world class jumper on it.

You are running your mouth, and pissing off the comunity to sound like a big shot, on a big team.

My opinion you are making your team look stupid. And if they don't do very well, you are going to look even more foolish.

Have fun, this kind of talk from you goes against the "professional" image you are trying to have.

Ron

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[weid14 0]

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I know exactly what I am talking about.

Your team hired Niklas to coach. When your team fired a guy he moved into slot.

Your team still does not belong (in my opinion) in Advanced with a world class jumper on it.

You are running your mouth, and pissing off the comunity to sound like a big shot, on a big team.

My opinion you are making your team look stupid. And if they don't do very well, you are going to look even more foolish.

Have fun, this kind of talk from you goes against the "professional" image you are trying to have.

Ron

ummmmm..... should I jump in here and say something or stay out?

hey Ron, I'll come jump with you guys if we can go advanced

[Ron 7]

Well we are looking for an OC...And your name did come up. But we will not go Advanced.

Shoot me an Email

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[kallend 1,623]

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I know exactly what I am talking about.

Your team hired Niklas to coach. When your team fired a guy he moved into slot.

Your team still does not belong (in my opinion) in Advanced with a world class jumper on it.

You are running your mouth, and pissing off the comunity to sound like a big shot, on a big team.

My opinion you are making your team look stupid. And if they don't do very well, you are going to look even more foolish.

Have fun, this kind of talk from you goes against the "professional" image you are trying to have.

Ron

General observation - about a year or so ago Quade (I think) started a thread about the rules for qualifying for intermediate/advanced/open class, and predicted problems. Looks like he was right.

The whole idea of different classes at Nationals seems silly to me - isn't "intermediate" kind of like a World Series in which only minor league baseball teams get to play?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Ron 7]

I started a thread on this on another forum....

I look at it more like High School, College,and Pro.

When you start out, you are the High School team. This I consider to be the Intermediate class. You are just learning the rules, and the moves. It kills me that people want to do Intermediate and have 200 jumps. Kind of against my idea of intermediate.

Then you have a clue, and want to compete...Enter College..You know the rules, can play the game but are not a Pro. Advanced Class

Pro Level...There are very few teams at this level. This is where you fight to be on the US team...Looking at last years nationals there were only six teams I consider to be at that level.

Knights Gold: Full time skydivers/ 2 World Champs
Airspeed Vertical: Full time skydivers/ 4 World Champs
Majik: Full time skydivers
Knights Black: Full time skydivers
Airspeed Zulu. Full time skydivers / 3 World Champs
Fluid. Healy was full time, and Trinko is a 2 time World Champ.

Then you have your weekend teams...And to be honest that is the rest of the field down.

Frost had to go Open due to 3 members having won the Advanced class.

I think that Elsinore, Ranch Tribe and Untrained Eye did the right thing by taking the Pro's they had with them into Open.

Funny thing is that Advanced was won by a weekend team with a 13.7...That would have put them on top of all these other teams except Frost. And Nemesis had beaten Frost before.

But Frost, Nemesis, and the Beez had been around for a few years.

I just found it funny that I could have taken Joey Jones, Garry Smith and Solly Williams to Advanced, but not Carlos Curti, Kurt Gaebel and Niklas Gummeson.

So if they allow Player coach teams, then they should allow a guy with an Advanced medal to go with another guy with an Advanced medal...Or make the Player Coach teams go into Open. They would still have the same average, but no chance of taking a medal away from the best weekend team.

Or just make it one class...But that wll not happen USPA wants to make it so everyone can get a medal...Even if they buy it.

Ron

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Emma 0]

Wow...I had no idea this was the real scene behind 4way in the US!

Not being a US jumper, I can only make pretty general comments, but from an outsider's viewpoint this whole thread seems pretty sad.

Who gives a sh*t if a team has hired a player coach? It's their money, no matter how they came about it. Surely a player coach may up the average a little but not to the point where s/he's doing the skydiving for the other 3 team members?! What a laughable concept. Or does this magical player coach somehow herd up the other 3 like some skydiving sheepdog of sorts? Hmmm.

If people want to improve their skydiving let them choose how they do it.

It's surely not all about medals, is it? Unless you are a serious top team in Open...in fact, f*ck it, even IF you are a top team in Open...4way is about improving your skydiving, having a great time with your friends and doing the best you can.

Or have I missed something?

Seems to me where there is success of any sort, there are always jealous people ready to bitch. Classy. Not.

Good luck to all the teams competing at the US Nationals this year - I hope you all do your personal bests.

[quade 3]

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General observation - about a year or so ago Quade (I think) started a thread about the rules for qualifying for intermediate/advanced/open class, and predicted problems. Looks like he was right.

The whole idea of different classes at Nationals seems silly to me - isn't "intermediate" kind of like a World Series in which only minor league baseball teams get to play?

I've made a couple of posts about how I don't like the current class eligibility rules for various reasons. The amount of animosity you see about various aspects of sponsorship and player coaches in this thread among them.

I personally think the entire system needs to be reworked and I even have a plan for doing it, but I'm realistic enough to understand that there would be some pretty fierce opposition to it. It would require individual player tracking by the USPA or some other organizing body and it would completely upset the player coach system now in place.

The advantage is that an individual skydiver would not determine which class he could compete in. His past performance would be taken into consideration by the organizing body and at the end of one Nationals he'd be classified for the next season. A person could always decide to compete in a higher class, but the governing body would ensure he could not compete in a lower class until his averages proved he really belonged in the lower class. As you can probably see, this would completely do away with player coaches in Advanced and Intermediate.

You could have any coaching you wanted, but you couldn't have Carlos Delgado playing on your weekend softball team.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Ron 7]

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Surely a player coach may up the average a little but not to the point where s/he's doing the skydiving for
the other 3 team members?! What a laughable concept.

I jumped with an intermediate team for an FSL when one of the guys got hurt. The scores for all of thier meets are:
8.7, 11.2, 8.0, 9.6, 8.0, 8.4. Guess which meet I jumped with them? They never even broke a 10 before, but with me they did an 11.2. And they have not been over 10 since. I think this shows how a Player Coach does help the average.

I just spent 2 hrs in the tunnel with Joey Jones...It is the fastest my team has even gone in the tunnel...But it was only one guy changed.

It does make a difference.

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If people want to improve their skydiving let them choose how they do it.

Yep let them hire who they want, but then they should have to compete against the top teams if they want to hire them...It robs the teams that didin't hire a player coach.

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It's surely not all about medals, is it?

Then why would you have people hiring world class jumpers to jump in Advanced if not to get a medal? They could do the smae jumps in Open? Seems to be about a medal to them.

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Seems to me where there is success of any sort, there are always jealous people ready to bitch. Classy.
Not.

Or people to bring up some of the problems....And others who don't truely understand the issue.

Ron

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[kallend 1,623]

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It's surely not all about medals, is it? Unless you are a serious top team in Open...in fact, f*ck it, even IF you are a top team in Open...4way is about improving your skydiving, having a great time with your friends and doing the best you can.

Or have I missed something?

What is the point of having three classes if not to hand out more medals? One big class would do just fine for fun and improvement.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[quade 3]

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What is the point of having three classes if not to hand out more medals? One big class would do just fine for fun and improvement.

True.

However, there's also a point to be made about achievable goals.

A first year newbie team could probably never hope to perform well all of the randoms and blocks presented by the Open pool in training, let alone competition. So, I think it's totally appropriate to have at least the Intermediate Class.

In a similar line of reasoning, I think it's unfair to place people of limited resources (self funded) up against teams with full sponsorships. I believe that was the intention of the creation of the Advanced Class.

To me, three classes makes perfect sense. However, who actually is allowed to compete in each class needs some serious tweeking.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[kallend 1,623]

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***


In a similar line of reasoning, I think it's unfair to place people of limited resources (self funded) up against teams with full sponsorships. I believe that was the intention of the creation of the Advanced Class.

To me, three classes makes perfect sense. However, who actually is allowed to compete in each class needs some serious tweeking.

Well, if that was the intention, then it was implemented in the strangest way!

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[weid14 0]

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***


In a similar line of reasoning, I think it's unfair to place people of limited resources (self funded) up against teams with full sponsorships. I believe that was the intention of the creation of the Advanced Class.

To me, three classes makes perfect sense. However, who actually is allowed to compete in each class needs some serious tweeking.

Well, if that was the intention, then it was implemented in the strangest way!

no, not really, the whole Player coach thing started happening with Dr Joel... then it started getting bigger with some world class skydivers out of work, so to speak, and has started growing from there. The original intent of the classes is exactly as Ron had described it, and I did send an email of support about a rule change (that didn't happen). Of course I still think you should be able to come back and defend your title..
and... like the rules of 10 way aren't changed and modified like every year.

[Emma 0]

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They never even broke a 10 before, but with me they did an 11.2. And they have not been over 10 since. I think this shows how a Player Coach does help the average.

As I said, it will up the average a little, but Ron - are you saying that you DID do the skydiving for them? The other 3 on your team would still have had to have done pretty well. But even a good intermediate team with an Airspeed or Majik coach in one of the slots isn't going to move from an 8 point average to an 18 point average. You still have to fly your own slot. If we assume the player coach is a 'perfect' skydiver who never brainlocks or makes a mistake, he or she is still only 25% of the team.

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Yep let them hire who they want, but then they should have to compete against the top teams if they want to hire them...It robs the teams that didin't hire a player coach.

In the UK junior and intermediate teams (we have junior, intermediate and senior classes) are allowed one 'wild card'. I guess this equates to your player coach. The wild card can have as many jumps and as much experience as you like, as long as the other 3 have under a specified number of jumps when they register at the start of the season. The idea is that this will help less experienced teams train and learn how to do the formations - not that it will give them an unfair advantage and 'buy' them medals. However, just as in the US, we do have divergent opinions on the fairness of that.

I view the existence of classes below Open (or below senior) as a way to encourage less experienced jumpers to compete, and get up to the real competition, which is the Open class. In the UK we do not always 'pay' the wild card but it does happen in some teams - generally if the wild card is actually coaching the team rather than just competing with them.

The regulations based on jump numbers now seem less relevant of course, because tunnel time doesn't count in the restrictions. This has given rise to quite a lively debate in the UK. Should we log tunnel time and should it count on your 'experience' level? I don't know. Probably. The practical aspects of introducing this seem minimal so why not?

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Then why would you have people hiring world class jumpers to jump in Advanced if not to get a medal? They could do the same jumps in Open? Seems to be about a medal to them.

Does it? Or is that your perception? Lower classes in the UK have fewer blocks to learn and perfect, and with slot switches and mirrors in the higher classes, that can be quite intimidating for lower time jumpers, with or without a player coach on their team. S/he can't do all the thinking and training for them.

My team jumps intermediate (your Advanced) in the UK and we have a wild card. We wondered about doing Senior (Open) because that is our eventual goal, if not as a team then as individuals, but with the rest of us averaging about 500 jumps each, we decided it was too much of a brain meltdown issue to learn all the blocks in the pool in one season. I did a junior team last year, my first year in skydiving, and to be honest, I don't think leaping straight to Open this year would have been the best path for me to take. If choosing to jump at Intermediate level helps us to medal then great, but this isn't the reason we chose to. For me it's just a route to Open where the real competition starts. By your reasoning we could be 'robbing' other teams who don't have a wild card? But we don't pay him, and every other team has the same opportunity to pick up a wild card if they want. We all train our asses off and have had to make certain individual sacrifices of a financial and time nature to do so. It's hard work for everyone on the team - our wild card is not doing it for us.

When we trained in the States we entered AAA and jumped new blocks for the first time just to get a taste for them. Funnily enough we didn't medal but we did it for the experience of trying out the new blocks which we will be doing next year. But it's commonly accepted that having more to remember in a skydive in terms of the sequence will have a negative impact on performance. The mental side of the sport (and by that I mean just remembering the damn skydive!) benefits from having classes with different requirements and different formations. With less to learn and remember in the lower classes, lower time jumpers can focus on getting the maximum performance in the blocks they do have to do.

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Or people to bring up some of the problems....And others who don't truely understand the issue.

It is an interesting debate however, isn't it? I don't think it's so different in the UK from the US and it might benefit your discussion to consider the way things work outside the US. I was just surprised that there was so much bad feeling about it over here in the US. I had wrongly assumed there was more of a free market approach here, fewer restrictions on classes you enter and, because it's a bigger sport in the States, more acceptance that competition is for the betterment of the sport and the achievement of personal goals, rather than pretty medals. I guess not.

Emma

[Ron 7]

As I said, it will up the average a little,The other 3 on your team would still have had to have done pretty well. But even a good intermediate
team with an Airspeed or Majik coach in one of the slots isn't going to move from an 8 point average to an
18 point average. You still have to fly your own slot. If we assume the player coach is a 'perfect' skydiver
who never brainlocks or makes a mistake, he or she is still only 25% of the team.

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It rasied the Average from a 9 to an 11....Thats a good jump in Average for only changing one person with no training jumps at all...Just added me. Now, would that be fair?

In the UK junior and intermediate teams (we have junior, intermediate and senior classes) are allowed one
'wild card'. I guess this equates to your player coach. The wild card can have as many jumps and as much
experience as you like, as long as the other 3 have under a specified number of jumps when they register
at the start of the season.

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In the US we don't have a jump restriction for the classes....I could hire Joey Jones, Doug Park, Garry Smith and go enter Advanced, or even Intermediate.

However I could not take my old team who had 3 people with an Advanced medal back into Advanced. Advanced is where we belonged, we did 70 jumps, and Nemesis had beaten us once during the year, and tied us one other time. But the rules say that since more than 25% of the team had a medal...We had to go open.

Now I could win a gold in Advanced, and hire Majic to fill in and go Advanced the next year...What sense does that make?

If they want to allow paid Pro's in the lower classes, they should not MAKE others move up.

My team jumps intermediate (your Advanced) in the UK and we have a wild card.

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No, our Advanced does the SAME draw as open...so if you wanted to hire a Pro, why not go open if not to buy a medal? You would still get the training benefit, but not be able to win a medal. We had a Dr. over here that hired some world class jumpers just to get a medal...For several years.
Last year we had jumpers in Intermediate that had a bronze in Open, and another team that had a guy with a Bonze in Advanced...Our Bronze medal winner in Advanced had a Bronze medal winner from Open on it. Now if you were the 4th place team, and a guy from a open team was standing on the podium collecting a medal in Advanced....How would you feel? You spent years, time, and money to train.

One person DOES make a difference.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Emma 0]

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It rasied the Average from a 9 to an 11....Thats a good jump in Average for only changing one person with no training jumps at all...Just added me. Now, would that be fair?

I still don't think this is an argument against player coaches. I never said adding a better skydiver would not improve the average. When we put a team together we generally want to jump with the best people we can. It doesn't mean the rest of that team should have to enter a class that does not suit them personally.

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However I could not take my old team who had 3 people with an Advanced medal back into Advanced. Advanced is where we belonged, we did 70 jumps, and Nemesis had beaten us once during the year, and tied us one other time. But the rules say that since more than 25% of the team had a medal...We had to go open.

Now I could win a gold in Advanced, and hire Majic to fill in and go Advanced the next year...What sense does that make?

Agreed, that is a bit f$cked. However that anomaly does not make the player coach thing 'cheating' as you seem to imply. That is what I take issue with.

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No, our Advanced does the SAME draw as open

Hmmm. Not trying to be difficult here but when we entered AAA at Deland recently, the draw was different for each class. AAA had more complex dives. Excuse my confusion in this -could you explain why?

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Last year we had jumpers in Intermediate that had a bronze in Open, and another team that had a guy with a Bonze in Advanced...Our Bronze medal winner in Advanced had a Bronze medal winner from Open on it. Now if you were the 4th place team, and a guy from a open team was standing on the podium collecting a medal in Advanced....How would you feel? You spent years, time, and money to train.

One person DOES make a difference.

Yes there is no argument that they do not make a difference but they don't do the skydiving for the others. It is a physical impossibility. I've done some training with world class skydivers, just like most 4way jumpers have - and yes, dammit, it was easier to do better dives! But I am under no illusion that it made me as good as them - it just meant I did not have to compensate for or deal with other team mates' errors to the degree you have to on a regular, equally balanced team. It helped me focus on getting the technique for my own particular slot right - and I think that is good for my jumping. If I do a 30 point skydive with someone from Sebastian XL, none of my peers are going to think for a second that I would be able to replicate that on a 'normal' team, or that I am as good a skydiver as Pete Allum!

We have exactly the same scenario in the UK where people who have medalled in Open compete on teams in junior and it definitely improves their score. That's life.

How would I feel? I am indifferent - it really does not piss me off like it seems to piss you off. I think we are coming from different places. It is not about the medals for me, it is about skydiving my best, and if that means my team gets beaten by a team with an Open class jumper on it, well, them's the breaks. The rest of that team didn't sit on their arses on every training camp 'letting' their wild card do it for them. Good for them. The other 3 still would have to have worked hard, trained hard and spent money they could have spent elsewhere. Don't slag them off because they have done well. It's supposed to be fun. We're just jumping out of planes here, not saving the world.

[lauras 0]

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Hmmm. Not trying to be difficult here but when we entered AAA at Deland recently, the draw was different for each class. AAA had more complex dives. Excuse my confusion in this -could you explain why?

The NSL class breakdown doesn't exactly match the class breakdown used at Nationals.

NSL AAA = Open/Advanced draw (all blocks)
NSL AA = Intermediate (16 out of 22 blocks, iow no slot switching)
NSL A = Intermediate (8 of the 22 blocks)
NSL Rookie = No blocks at all

Check out www.skyleague.com for more details.

[Ron 7]

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I still don't think this is an argument against player coaches. I never said adding a better skydiver would
not improve the average. When we put a team together we generally want to jump with the best people
we can. It doesn't mean the rest of that team should have to enter a class that does not suit them
personally.

But it is an advantage...One that a team that does not use a PRO and works hard on their own could see it as cheating. We have people over here trying to buy teams and enter into lower classes just to medal...Thats pretty sad to me. You want to hire a PRO fine by me, but don't use it to short cut the system and win a medal agaist a team that didn't.

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Agreed, that is a bit f$cked. However that anomaly does not make the player coach thing 'cheating' as you
seem to imply. That is what I take issue with.

Well its really messed up, and the USPA will not change it.
Seems unfair huh?

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Hmmm. Not trying to be difficult here but when we entered AAA at Deland recently, the draw was different
for each class. AAA had more complex dives. Excuse my confusion in this -could you explain why?

NSL is NOT the USPA....NSL has Rookie, A, AA, AAA....
USPA has Intermediate, Advanced , and Open.

The NSL AA is equal to the USPA Intermediate.
The NSL AAA, is equal to the USPA Advanced/Open draw.

Now the USPA Advanced class and Open Class use the SAME DRAW. So why would a team in Advanced hire a Pro, and enter Advanced if not for the medal? They could do the SAME dives if they went Open, and post the same scores...The only difference is they will not medal in Open.

So see how I see it as cheating? They hire a Pro, and then compete in a class that was intended for weekend non-pro teams. You can't have more than one person on an Advanced team with a gold enter into Advanced. They HAVE to enter open, but you can hire three Pros and go Advanced?

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Yes there is no argument that they do not make a difference but they don't do the skydiving for the
others. It is a physical impossibility. I've done some training with world class skydivers, just like most 4way
jumpers have - and yes, dammit, it was easier to do better dives! But I am under no illusion that it made
me as good as them - it just meant I did not have to compensate for or deal with other team mates' errors
to the degree you have to on a regular, equally balanced team. It helped me focus on getting the
technique for my own particular slot right - and I think that is good for my jumping. If I do a 30 point
skydive with someone from Sebastian XL, none of my peers are going to think for a second that I would be
able to replicate that on a 'normal' team, or that I am as good a skydiver as Pete Allum!

Yep, but you will score better with Pete than with a peer..

I think it is fine to hire a Pro...I just think you should have to jump against them and leave the Intermediate to the beginers, and the Advanced to the Weekend teams.

Keep the Pro's in Open.

So now that you know that the Advaced teams do the open draw, and the ONLY reason to hire a PRO and compete in Advanced is to get a medal....Can you see how that could be unfair to the teams that don't do that?

Ron

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Emma 0]

Yep, if I was entering the US Nationals and Advanced and Open do the same draw I would definitely enter Open. Advanced and Intermediate should only be used as routes to get into Open in my opinion - it's where I would want to be as quickly as possible.

Does this really piss people off? I would measure my 'success' by my team's point average and how well the team functions as 4 or 5 people, not by the shiny medals on my wall. As Andi said somewhere, better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a fox. But if a team with a player coach beat my 'Advanced' team, I really wouldn't feel too hard done by. They still had to skydive hard themselves.

If the draw is the same I can't see a reason for any team to enter Advanced though - player coach or not. The class looks redundant to me.