Individual body fly skill

[Igorsky 0]

Hi!
I would like to ask everyone an opinion about the individual body fly skill in a team performance.
Here in Italy people tend to invest in team jumps overlooking the basics.
I think that basics ARE the foundation of a team performance (and I have 3 Airspeed Tunnel camps on my curriculum...).
Many thanks to all the reply.
Blue skies!
Igor

[Ron 7]

A team is the sum of its parts....So the better the team members , the better the team.

But there comes a time when team jumps count.

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

[NeedToJump 0]

Quote

A team is the sum of its parts

And a really good team is greater than the sum of its parts. Indivdual performance is extremely important, but so is being able to jump as a team.

Wind Tunnel and Skydiving Coach http://www.ariperelman.com

[mjasantos 0]

Hi Igor!

I guess you already know my opinion about this issue... we've been talking since long time about this and other related FS issues.

Anyway, and just to share, here it goes what I think about this:

Individual flying skills are very important... just talking on the technical point of view, the most advanced the team members are regarding their flying skills, the most possibilities the team has to score higher.

But to get to the advanced level, any individual has to get all the basics first... without applying the basics, an individual will never reach an advanced level regarding his/her flight skills performance.

That's the mostly common mistake Formation Skydivers do: thinking that will score more points by rushing... to score more, the team (and obviously all its team members) have to go faster, but to the point where fast is not rush...

When I talk about this subject, I always remember when I was coached by Dan BC at Skydive Arizona (2000) and SkyVenture (2001). He used to tell me: go as fast as you can control, but not faster than that.

Synchronicity is also important in a FS team: it's useless, even if you are able to do it in control, to perform a 540º turn in 1.5 sec if you have a teammate performing it in 4 secs, because by having very different speeds within the team, that might affect synchronicity, something that many times is responsible for brainlocks.

Dan also uses to say that if you look at world class top teams and play their tapes in slow motion, you'll see that they are applying all the basics... they are not rushing and going over the basics without applying them... the secret is that, due to their training, they are able to perform all the steps including in each move at a much faster pace, mostly because they have reduced pauses time... if to make some move it's required to perform a certain number of steps, those steps are all there... the difference is that they don't spend too much time waiting at each step... their training made them able to reduce pauses and that is what makes them going faster.

Also at the tunnel, while training compressed accordians, I clearly remember Dan telling me to "STOP" before doing my grip... this avoids passing the momentum of your move onto your teammate... looking at normal speed for the tapes of teams performing at or above 20 points average, we have the idea they are not stopping... but when we look at slow motion or even frame by frame, we see that the STOPs are all there... they go faster through all the steps because they can control it and have smaller pauses... going faster without control, without being able to STOP before grip, it's just rushing, going over the basics, and all you need at your team to block your team progression average is to have an individual rushing... the remaining teammates might be going through all the basics, but if one is not, then the team is "done".

This was just an example to show how the basics are important... but many times they are misunderstood... any skydiver with advanced skills, is always going through the basics.

So, just on the technical point of view, I agree that the basics are the foundation required for any team to progress further. If we could use a concept of team speed for how fast the team can perform FS moves, we will always find (even at higher level) that team members have different "speeds", meaning that each one limits are different... then the team has to find a "window speed frame" enough comfortable for those who are faster can slow down a bit and those who are slower can speed up a bit (but always without losing control... if they lost control for a moment, they have exceeded their limits)... this is the way to achieve synchronicity.

But the team performance, as you know, doesn't depend exclusively from technical skills. If anyone in your team is not willing to learn, that will block your team progression... the same when the level of enjoyment and fulfilment is low: the results will be a negative effect in the motivation of the remaining team members. Lack of commitment is also a bad thing for the team's life... not to mention team communication and other team dynamic aspects... without communication both in the air and the ground, a team won't also progress... the human being is a very complex thing... I know what you are talking about and why you posted this thread... I have already had that experience too... welcome to the "team"!

Blue Skies!

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Mario Santos
Portugal