FREEFLY TIPS

[OzoneJunkie 0]

Hey all. I've been asked to keep the "freefly tip of the day" to a single thread - makes sense to keep this stuff together, so, I'm starting this new thread, and will use this thread to post new tips as I write them.

Thanks to all for the PMs about the helpfulness of the tips. I'll post new ones as time permits.

Also, find attached a text file of the previous tips I've written.

[OzoneJunkie 0]

2003 Dec 02: Improving Your Leg Coordination

(Continuing with the idea of using your legs while taking headdown docks)

Ok, close your eyes. Now, all skydiving geeks, raise your hands. Wait! Raise your hand, so it's exactly 4 inches from your left ear. Ok, now open your eyes. Were you close?

I'll admit it, I'm a skydiving geek. I always hated the fact that I could only jump a couple of days a week - I wanted to be able to work on skydiving stuff on a daily basis. When I was in my first year of skydiving, I was working on headdown stuff pretty much exclusively. Just as I described in my previous tip, about using your legs to balance yourself when taking single-hand docks, while headdown, I wanted to be able to work on this while I wasn't jumping.

I'm sure many (if not all) of us have done those bicycle exercises, where you put your legs up in the air, and support yourself with your arms (with your elbows and forearms on the ground). In fact, you've probably at some point seen freeflyers do this at the DZ. So, geeking out at home, I started doing this. My bed at home - the mattress itself is on the floor (no box spring or frame), so I can actually use the bed itself to support me (my shoulders and neck are on the ground, and my upper back is supported by the bed). Now, the exercise would go something like this. Close my eyes. I'd start with my legs above me, closed. Then I'd open them, in a standard straddle position. Then, I'd imagine I'm going to take a right hand, headdown dock. I'd put my left leg behind me, and my right leg slightly in front, and slightly out (to the right). Now, I'd open my eyes, and check my leg position. Are my legs where I envisioned them? Now, repeat, pretending to take a left hand dock.

The purpose here is to build muscle memory, as well as your spacial awareness of where your body parts are versus where you imagine they are. It also helps you remember the leg motion/position you'll use while in the air.

Now, a word about this: what you do on the ground will not be exact to what you do in the air. A number of factors will dictate a different leg position from what you practice. The leg positions may be more exaggerated, or less exaggerated, then what you practice on the ground. But still, the exercise is useful for building that coordination.

[freeflyneo 0]

Who is this guy and how good is he? Get a life hehehehehehehhehehehheheh i'm back!

[WrongWay 0]

From what I've seen he's pretty damn decent!!
(Okay so those triple cartwheels would kick my ass...)

So who're you dude????
Neo? Your name please?

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[OzoneJunkie 0]

2003 Dec 03: Stopping Those Lazy Legs

Ok, I was thinking about posting this tip anyway, but when I saw sunnydee123's post about her headdown progress (congrats, keep up the good work), and having "lazy legs" I decided today was a good time to throw this one out there.

Flying headdown doesn't necessarily require using your legs as your primary steering mechanism. It's possible to be very leg lazy, and fly mostly by tilting at the waist. However, doing so is extremely limiting.

I do see a lot of freeflyers who are in the beginning stages of flying headdown get very lazy with their legs. They often fly in a "riding the horsie" position - their legs a bit bow legged, toes often pointing outward. Again, you can still maneuver this way, but ultimately it will limit you.

So, the tip is, very basically, to do jumps without a jumpsuit. On those nice summer days, do some jumps in shorts and a tshirt (taking the obvious necessary precautions - tucking in your shirt, making sure your handles don't get covered, etc.).

Flying with bare legs will really teach you (I hope) about using your legs. As we discussed before, about how to use your legs while taking headdown docks - without a suit you can really exagerate the leg movement. It allows you to pay more attention to your legs, because more leg action is required without a suit.

Flying a suit is like driving with power steering. However, don't become reliant on your suit. In fact, overly baggy suits, especially in the legs, can be a detriment, as you may be actually fighting the suit in order to put your legs in the proper position.

After a few suitless jumps, practice your legs position on the next jump you make with your suit. You'll most likely apply too much leg input. Hey, this is good - means you're leg-aware, and leg-stronger now. Just tone back the movement amounts.

- o3j

[WrongWay 0]

Quote

They often fly in a "riding the horsie" position - their legs a bit bow legged, toes often pointing outward.

No shit dude!! I had this very same problem, and it looks really goofy on video too, but anyway, after I got my legs straightened out it helped EVERYTHING. Fall rates, turns, movement, all of it was so much easier and effective. Now I look at that old video and think "what the hell was i doing??".

BTW, my last post, can ya put that into english? I can't get what I'm tryin' to say, hahahhahahaha!!! Just one of those days...

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[OzoneJunkie 0]

Quote

BTW, my last post, can ya put that into english? I can't get what I'm tryin' to say, hahahhahahaha!!! Just one of those days...

Uhm, huh? you mean this? :

Quote

So who're you dude????
Neo? Your name please?

where you asking me, or FreeflyNeo?

[WrongWay 0]

Neo...

His info has NOTHING on it. But I've been to your site many a time, you guys rock btw!!

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[OzoneJunkie 0]

Wow, cool. Thanks :)

[OzoneJunkie 0]

2003 DEC 04: Side-sliding While Tracking

Just as a follow-up note to the problem of flying headdown with weak legs, in the "riding a horsie" bow-legged position. A little exercise that you can do involves, while flying on your head:

1. In one smooth motion: straighten your legs, rotate your legs so your toes are forward, and put your legs together.
2. Open your legs, but keep your legs straight, and feet/toes forward.

Anyway, on to tracking stuff. The past 2 seasons my friends and I have been getting into a lot more tracking stuff. My teammate and I were working on just some fun, simple stuff - like both of us back tracking next to each other, taking docks, etc. One thing that is fun is to have one person lay base on their back, and the other person orbit the base. So, that person would pass under the base, float up a bit, and over the base, then sink down a bit, and repeat. Granted, this orbit (at least ours are) are a bit more elliptical than a headdown orbit.

Now, one thing we found was that moving towards a target while back tracking, we'd often just point our bodies at our target (aim our head/body towards the person), and track at the target. This works ok for covering large distances, when you're behind (relative to the flight path) the target. However, taking this approach when someone is next to you yields some unwanted results. Aiming at the person when the person is off to your side tends to make it hard to see that person. Also, the trajectory created isn't so desirable, as your path no longer matches your base.

So, instead of tracking at the person, one can side slide while tracking. To do so, first picture a standard back tracking position. This method will work regardless of whether your legs are open or closed while tracking. Now, the goal is to rotate the body, so that air is deflected off to one side. Normally in a back tracking position, your arms are at your sides, but open, in a V pattern. Now, simply pull one arm in to your side. Pulling your left arm in, and leaving your right arm out will cause the relative wind to catch your right side more, and rotate your body, so your right side will be a bit higher then your left side. This will push you to the left. What's nice here, is that you maintain a similar trajectory as the base, while still remaining parallel, body-wise to the base. To slow down or stop the sideslide, just change arms that you are putting out. Sliding left, to stop, put your left arm out, and bring your right arm in.

It's quite possible, using this technique, to cover some good distance, and we've found it extremely useful for doing the tracking orbit thing.

EDIT: PS, thanks skymamma :)

[grega 0]

Quote

1. In one smooth motion: straighten your legs, rotate your legs so your toes are forward, and put your legs together.
2. Open your legs, but keep your legs straight, and feet/toes forward.

Could you please explain why pointing feet/toes forward and not to the sides?

Is it only because if you do what you said in those 2 points, you'll spread them more?

I saw people flying HD in numerous ways, but since you posted this tip, why is it better like this? and why knees straight, i really don't remember seeing straight legs with anyones technique.

"George just lucky i guess!"

[OzoneJunkie 0]

Well, everyone has their own style - and I'm not going to knock that, so whatever works for yah, that's fine. The main point here behind that little exercise is to get away from that legless type of flying.

I've just found that for me, and my teammate - we prefer flying with feet/toes forward. It seems the most versatile to us, more so than feet/toes out, and definately more so then flying daffy all of the time. It allows one to easily and quickly go from forward/backward movement, to sidesliding, to taking docks, etc. Plus, aesthetically, to us, it looks better.

Again, I'm not trying to bash anyone else's style - there's certainly smoking freeflyers out there that can fly with their legs in any style/position they want. And there are times that you probably do want to point one or both legs outward. But, for us, toes forward, with little to no bend at the knees, is our neutral position.

Find what works best for you :)

EDIT: btw, if you've ever seen Alaska Jon fly - well, he's a freefly technician at it's finest. He's extremely body aware - and I see him flying more with toes forward than toes out.

[sssbc99 0]

This is the same ideas that I got from taking coach jumps with Mike Ortiz in San Diego. His basis for flying with your toes/feet forward is the same; it is much more versatile. It was so much easier to make small forward and backward adjustments in close to a partner with your feet/toes forward.

It is pretty simple if you think about it. One thing that he told me to do was to stand on the ground in the position with your toes out. He would then try to push me over. I was much more balanced with the toes forward position. Also, if you try to make small movements back and forth with your legs, it is much easier with your leg straight, i.e. you have a much larger range of motion.

Edit: Another important thing that I forgot to add was that when you fly toes out, you almost always lose the ability to use the bottom half of your legs as a flying surface. It seems from practicing head down and watching various experienced flyers that this surface can be one of the most vital to someones advancement in this flying position.

[WrongWay 0]

So lemme get this straight. Let's say I'm flying with my legs straight out, and my feet not totally forward (like facing 12 o clock) but out a little bit, maybe 45 degrees or so, perhaps less. If I fly with my feet straight forward, I'll have a little better range of motion and easier method of precise movement?

Why is this aerodynamically?

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[freeflybella 0]

It's less about aerodynamics per se, more that if you point your toes you lose the tops of your feet as a control surface - and with your toes out instead of forward, you're more likely to push your hips back and chest forward. This is harder to do when you fly with the outside of your legs and the tops of your feet.

Quote

If I fly with my feet straight forward, I'll have a little better range of motion and easier method of precise movement?

You'll more likely use your legs for fallrate and rely on your hips for movement. Also, it sets your body alignment. This is definitely more aerodynamic.

Try it - stand with your legs rotated slightly outward (bent a little and then straight) - then roll your hips forward, around and back in a big circle. Then try it with your legs rotated straight forward (straight or bent). Especially when you simulate forward motion, you can see it's much more comfortable and allows for a higher range of motion.

Action expresses priority. - Mahatma Ghandi

[sunnydee123 0]

oh boy...the guys in the office are getting a kick out of me trying this one but it makes sense now that I stand here and do it......

Dreams become reality, one choice at a time...

[OzoneJunkie 0]

Quote

So lemme get this straight. Let's say I'm flying with my legs straight out, and my feet not totally forward (like facing 12 o clock) but out a little bit, maybe 45 degrees or so, perhaps less. If I fly with my feet straight forward, I'll have a little better range of motion and easier method of precise movement?

Why is this aerodynamically?

Again, the purpose of describing that little exercise, resulting in your toes forward, was to help stop that bow-legged type of headdown flying. It's very common, because when you first learn to fly headdown - the main thing you're concentrating on is balancing, and often the adjustments that you make are drastic, coming from the hips. As sssbc99 points out, flying this way often reduces a large part of the flying surface of your legs - namely the lower part of your legs. That's not to say that you can't fly toes out and legs straight. It's just that if you're bow-legged, then often your lower legs are out of the equation.

Now, as far as toes forward versus toes at a 45 degree angle being more or less aerodynamic - well, there is NOT a lot of difference here - so I'm not going to say "better" or "worse". What I will say is, 45 AND toes forward are both better, to me, than toes rotated completely out. Why? It's pretty meaningless when you're flying straight down, doing nothing. Strike a disco pose, for all I care. But, when it's time to do something, you want to be able to use your legs efficiently. And this means, using them in a way that benefits the goal you're trying to accomplish. I know, before I make a move, what the goal of my legs are, before I make that move - be it forward/backward motion, sidesliding, docking on a hd formation, docking on a sit (may be slower fallrate) formation, etc. Not that I really need to think about it anymore (here's where, once you're comfy with something, you tend NOT to go through the mental process of what needs to get done). So, to me and my teammates, we feel that the best neutral position is one that allows us to go into a desired leg position with minimum amount of movement, and widest range of motion. Economy and efficiency of motion.

So, sometimes I will have my toes at 45, or even rotated out all the way - if that's what's required at the time. In fact, I don't fly with toes completely forward - I'd say they're rotated out just slightly - more like 20 or 30 degrees. Anyway, again, it's our neutral position, and works well for us. I hope I don't come off as trying to dictate a flying style - like I said, there's many a smokin' freeflyer out there, and many different styles. The tips I post here are from my own experience, from my own flying, and from flying with and coaching others. For what it's worth.

[skynole 0]

Quote

EDIT: btw, if you've ever seen Alaska Jon fly - well, he's a freefly technician at it's finest. He's extremely body aware - and I see him flying more with toes forward than toes out.

This immediately made me think of a Parachutist cover shot of him a couple of years ago. It's a grainy picture, but I think you'll get the idea.

[partyboy 0]

Hey Ozone Junkie, I am as well a new freeflyer, with 85 total, and about 35 of those are freefly. I have now found the feeling of the head down view, but I have now come into some conflict when Im there.? how do I turn 180in a smooth but quick enough to not lose out on a cool shot or somethin like that. I just kep falling straight down and it just feels like the wind has trapped my movements all aoround, all I can do is go back to sit. . . ? oh weell, thnx for your time. Partyboy

Up High!!

[OzoneJunkie 0]

2003 Dec 09: Turning While Headdown

As with headup flying, turning while headdown is most easily accomplished by twisting at the waist - in effect, rotating the upper torso. Twisting is a bit of strong word for the motion, however, as it's not as drastic as the word implies. Basically, it's very similar to how you would turn to look at someone to your side, if you were sitting in a chair. You tend to rotate your head, and the upper torso, if necessary. So, simply keep your shoulders level with each other, and turn that upper body.

There's other ways to rotate, however, and those other methods are more useful if you want to rotate faster. You can use your legs by themselves to turn. You can use your arms to assist you turn. Or, you can use a combination of all three techniques.

With both the legs-only and arms-only technique, the concept is the same. Lets first look at the legs-only method. The goal is to present these body surfaces in such a way that the relative wind will cause the entire body to rotate. If you have ever taken a piece of paper, and folded it in such a way, as to create a Y, and let the paper fall, you see that it rotates as it falls. This is basically what you need to do with your legs. You start with your legs open (in the straddle position - which is just both legs open - neither in front or back). Now, if you put your right leg back, so that the lower part of your leg (and upper, if you are flexible enough) is catching air, this will begin to rotate you (to your left). Without doing anything with your left leg, you'd most likely get some forward motion along with your rotation, and begin an orbit. But, if you put your left leg forward (keep in mind that your legs are more open than closed, here) - you'll balance your position. If this seems similar to the tip I gave for flying a headdown single handed dock, you're right, it is similar. But, it's one of those things that, you have to do a few jumps and try it, and get the feel for the differences.

With arms-only rotation, you're doing something with your arms that will cause the wind to rotate your body. Placing your left arm in front of you, as if holding a bowl of cereal in the palm of your hand, say, at waist level, and putting your right arm behind you, again, same position, and same level, you'll see that the air is hitting your forearms - and will rotate you (again, to your left). The thing to realize here, is that your forearms are not perpendicular with the relative wind. If they are, that means your arms are too high, relative to your torso. They need to be lower, around waist level. Your forearms need to be at an angle to the relative wind, not flat with the wind. This angle is what deflects the air, causing the rotation.

Now, as far as practicing all of this, there's a few things to do. One common exercise is to trade off 360s or 720s, with a flying partner. I suggest doing these, initially, using the torso-turning technique. Practice the arms only and legs only techniques on some solos. But, with these, rotate more than once or twice. Try to continue the rotation, and build some speed. Adjust your legs in and out, (one side more or less, if necessary), to keep your body on axis. You want to rotate fast and smooth, but it must be on axis. If you are off axis, you'll wobble, or drift. Again, this becomes a "feel" sort of thing - finding that balancing point.

Once you can rotate arms-only, and legs-only, you can try them both at the same time. Check out Eli Thomson or Charles Bryan - those cats rip helicopters at sick speeds. When you have practiced all of this, you'll be able to use the arms/legs techniques even for single 360s - and can make them very fast.

[OzoneJunkie 0]

I was thinking a bit about this, last night, after I posted the tips on turning while headdown. After reading the other thread about this topic, I decided that I wanted to clarify and add just a few small things.

In regards to doing arms-only or legs-only turning, it wasn't really apparent in my post - but, it is important to realize that the "twisting" part of headdown turning plays an important role in doing fast helicopters, being thru arms, legs, or both. Using legs, without twisting, will gain speed, but it's the twisting that really kick-starts the whole motion.

Also, when doing twist only motion: I basically initiate this motion with twisting, as described, but, the feel of the move, as I do it at least, is to keep your arms in their normal position, but to pull an arm back, keeping the upper torso and arms the same, relative to each other. It's like, cutting through the air behind you, with your hand. Basically, that (bad) tendancy for people to rotate their non-docking hand/arm/shoulder out while doing single handed docks, is very similar to the feel and motion of starting that twist/turn. I don't know if this helps or confuses, but it IS how it feels to me, when doing this action.

[OzoneJunkie 0]

2003 Dec 10 : The Magic Headdown Position

Ok, am I allowed to air a repeat? This was posted in another thread a while ago, and I forgot to include it in my text file above. I think this tip is valuable enough that it bares repeating (with some minor edits). So, blah, blah, here we go...

Q: What's the hardest thing about flying headdown?
A: Holding the headdown position.

ok. guess what. WRONG!!

Headdown isn't about holding the magic position. There's no such thing. You angle your body to accomplish your needs at the time, be it forward, backward or side sliding movement, steep tracking, etc. I think this is part of the problem that makes headdown seem harder to learn than it actually is. Too many people trying to hit a position they think is correct, and wondering why they don't stay headdown.

So, here's my suggestions/exercises (it's called the "pendulum" exercise):

Leave the plane. Belly to earth. Slowly de-arch. Bring your arms in (all the way - you won't be using your arms yet). Straighten your legs, and open them, in a straddle position. You'll slowly go head low. Allow the relative wind to take you onto your back. Now arch. You'll slowly return to a headdown-ish position, and continue onto your belly. Repeat. You'll basically be penduluming back and forth between being on your back/headdown and on your belly/headdown.

Important things to note/do:
1. Keep your head level, eyes straight ahead. This will allow you to observe where the horizon is relative to your body angle/attitude. Be very specific about this.
2. Keep your arms in the whole time.
3. Do this exercise perpendicular to jump run. At 6k, stop, go belly to earth, check your position relative to jump run, check below you, etc. Track or deploy if necessary (you flew up/down flightline, or someone is below you, blah blah...).
4. Repeat this jump 3 or 4 times. Then repeat it again, this time with your arms out.
5. Lastly, and importantly - let the relative wind do the work. Even if you go severely onto your back or your belly, apply the proper arch/de-arch, and let the wind take you back over. Even if it takes some time. In fact, that's the point of the exercise. Don't try to stop the pendulum movement short by trying to stay headdown. Instead, do go all the way past headdown each pass through the pendulum. Later, when you're better, you'll just use body torque to bring yourself quickly into position. But this exercise is about 3 things:

A. Learning/feeling the relative wind and how it works in relation to headdown flying.
B. Not concerning yourself with the mythical magic headdown position.
C. (Similar to A) Learning how to move your body relative to the horizon to adjust to the desired angle of flight.

Safety notes: You obviously are going to be moving around a lot when doing this exercise. I suggest taking all precautions to keep yourself out of other groups' airspace. Many people, when doing forward/backward type of exercises will track perpendicular to the line of flight, first, as soon as they exit the plane. I used to go out last, track a bit away from the line of flight, then start the exercise. I'd stop the exercise at around 6500, go flat, and look around (above/below/etc), and pull if necessary.

This is a nice exercise to do when you're at the dz, and feel like spending a day doing solos. Do, say 8 or so total jumps doing this exercise. 4 with arms in 4 with arms out. I can't really express how important this exercise was to me when first learning to fly headdown, as well as learning forward and backward motion. Ultimately, this is something that you can apply to sidesliding, as well.

[OzoneJunkie 0]

2003 DEC 12 : Sidesliding In A Sit

Forward and backward motion, regardless of position, will get you to where you want to go. Often, one will use sidesliding to fine-tune one's position in relation to a target. This is true, in particular, with headdown flying, as forward and backward motion is argueably the most powerful and fastest means of movement.

Sidesliding, will sitting, however, is interesting. I have to give credit to my teammate, Adam, for really exploiting this, and showing me the usefulness of it. We've found it (to my surprise) to often be faster (and easier) than forward motion in a sit. It's actually pretty amazing how fast one CAN go using sit sidesliding.

So, to start, let's picture a classic sit position. Upper body upright. Arms out to the sides, palms down. Upper legs are 90 degrees in relation to the torso, and 90 degrees in relation to each other (90 between your legs). Finally, 90 between upper and lower legs.
Let's target a sideslide to the left.

Now, if you turn your left arm, so that your palm faces forward, and then bend your arm at the elbow 90 degrees, your left forearm should be straight up in the air (your left upper arm is still out to the side - so you've made an L with your arm). With the legs, push your right leg down, in other words, straighten it, as if you're doing a stand. Keep the left leg bent at 90, as it was. Turn your head to the left. Now, tilt your upper torso to the right. As if someone was pulling your right arm (which is still straight out to the side). Keep that arm parallel with the ground. The relative wind will deflect off of the right side of your torso, and your right leg. By having put your the left arm in the described position, you remove air resistance on your left side. Similarly, your left leg provides less resistance.

Not only is sit sidesliding fast, it can be particularly superior to forward motion on certain sitfly exits. A lot of times on sit fly exits, rear float (facing the prop) will have a tendancy to sink, and possibly drift away). Using a sit sidesliding while facing the tail allows you to actually move towards that person below you. It seems to work better than using forward motion in a sit. In this case, with forward motion, targetting a person below and in front of you, you'll often go into a stand. But, based on how the hill angles your body, you'll tend to have less efficiency in your forward motion. The sit sideslide allows you to drop down and get better forward movement.

Play around, try it out. You may find yourself zooming past your target faster than you thought possible. This brings me to a point. There's a tendancy to not point directly at your target when sidesliding, attempting to keep your body "open" to your target. Turn a bit more then you think you need to - in other words, you want to line up the side of your body with your target, so as to travel directly to them.

[OzoneJunkie 0]

I know I wasn't exactly clear on this, but the sidesliding technique I mentioned above (call it "fast sideslide") is for covering large distances. For doing fine-tuning sidesliding, simply use the standard sitfly position, and lean to one side, keeping your arms parallel to the ground. Actually, we use the fast sideslide even for small gaps, if we're taking a hand dock to the side.

We tend to use the higher speed sidesliding mentioned, for those large gaps we need to cover. We use it in place of forward movement, since it's faster to us. Using a stand with forward motion is probably better when you need to get down to someone and move forward to them. But the fast sideslide tends to have a similar fallrate to a normal sit, so we use that for large horizontal gaps. Trying to use sit (not stand) forward motion for horizontal gaps is not as fast for us.

[freeflynick 0]

Hi Junky!
I wanted to thank you on an awsome thread - there's some priceless info coming out of this. Its great for me as a temporary arm-chair freeflier (an unfortunate incident at Bridge Day!). I've been looking at getting some serious freefly coaching going at Skydive Houston but need to get my own flying sorted out first, so I'm using this time off to allow me to mentally get into better flying habits and think about new techniques, and your info (and the others who are contributing) is helping me achieve this.
So THANKS, and keep it up!!
CHEERS!
Nick

Hobbes: "How come we play 'War' and not 'Peace'?"
Calvin: "Too few role models."