Airhead

BRISCO What the moderator of the DZs website meant was outsiders or screwballs taking things outa context...I do believe! Ya know we jumpers aren't completely crazy...Well, now BASE jumpers, that's a different story, of course!!!

SKYROSE I'm STILL on student status. AFP#4 is next step. Hope to make it thought to graduate before shut down of DZ this fall, but would still need to get in those 20 jumps to get my A License, and need to get them in at my training DZ (right?) if I don't drive everybody crazy at my training DZ and make it through my student status OK! I HOPE to check out OTHER DZs next year. WHERE IS GREAT LAKES DZ AT IN MICHIGAN??? DO TELL

Hohonukai: Whoa, whatcha trying to do organize a great party for all us? Anyways, I usually drink Diet Coke and tons of H2O, good for the bod, ya know? A week ago Saturday, I HAD MY FIRST BEER IN A VERY LONG TIME! My JM gave it to me after I took my first AFP jump AND the FIRST JUMP with my own chute and rigging...VERY COOL...But I tell ya what: Not gonna do that again after such a long day when I gotta Drive home 90 Miles! I did OK. But next time, I'll save any drinking post jump for when I have a tent to crash into for the night.

QUADE: WOW !!! I wish my JM gave such great detail to me! Do YOU work at a DZ? WHERE at?? (smile) Anyways, WAY helpful stuff. I'll tell ya, I'll be printing that off and keeping it for reference, too. I can just SEE the faces of the people at the DZ when they see me climbing up on stuff and looking around...HAHAHA Hmmm...Actually, Quade, I did post a similar Question on my DZ's message board and got a private e-mail from one of the moderators telling me NOT to ask questions LIKE THIS ONE on the page for 'Student Questions and Experiences' because "it might be misunderstood...and encourage someone (who reads the message board) to jump off a building or out of a tree.." It's very discouraging. I don't "get it" about the boundaries for "acceptable questions" to post! Sometimes I get the feeling that my questions push the edge of the envelope for my DZ's website with too technical or too specific questions, AND I don't really want to P*SS off the personell at my training DZ with too many personal e-mail questions, either, Honestly, I do try to simplify my questions. This question that I posted IS TYPICAL for most Newbies, isn't it?? Thanx a Load..I APPRECIATE ALL OF THE IN-PUT...BIG TIME!

Canuck I HOPE to get in AFP#5 this?weekend. We'll see about the $$$...But I feel the pressure to move along in my training...The air's getting cooler here in MIchigan, and the geese are starting to organize there flights outta here...AND the DZ where I'm training basically shuts down end of October!!! SO I've been jumping as often as I can afford to! Hope to graduate AFP in about a month, and have somewhat??? of an understanding about landing by then, too. Thanx for the WAY cool observations and tips, especially "observing the individual blades of grass"!! I'll try to keep that in mind next time

TheBile, Whoa! We have been doing practically the same kinda "almost" landings, Huh?!! Yikes! When did you do those last jumps? Did you feel sore from them? I'm not feeling too bad today, but it's been 2 days now. Doing some yoga since I first started jumping's helped me become more flexible, too. Reading your accounts of your jumps are somewhat of a comfort. Especially since we're basically in the same place in our student training! But, hey, this is frusteratingly more difficult to judge correctly than I had anticipated...'cause I really love playing with the canopy on the way down, I thought, "Hey, this can't all be that hard...now can it?" OH YEAH...it can! AT least SO FAR! Like you, dude, I AM gonna "get it" this NEXT time, too... But, Hey, unlike you, I'm a "chick"...not a dude!

Diverdriver,

Freefalle, Thanx for the in-put. I guess I'm not the real patient type when it comes to slowly learning anything. I usually catch on to things so fast...that I want to "get it" and really"get it right" quickly. But I can definitely see the mistakes that I am making, already, and see how there can really be serious consequences from not following instructions- like flaring too high! - could mess me up in a big way.

Jimbo, I guess PLF is to be used for all landings and not just hard descents or in difficult situations, then?? Should I using PLF on every landing while I am on student statis then? PLF, meaning: Legs and knees together and bent up, touch and roll on the ground?

SkKYROSE7, I don't try to be mean either...I still get really tense and stressed about jumping out that door! Freefalling is a rush, but still pretty intense. I absolutely love the descent under the canopy...but then again, it's a challenge to land, well at least this early on it is for me...SO joking around at the DZ and in the plane really can ease things up a bit. HEY REMEMBER, LAUGHTER REALLY IS GOOD FOR YOU!

I've had 7 jumps so far, 4 tandems all landed WELL...I just got in my 2nd and 3rd AFP jumps yesterday...But I haven't had a good landing on AFP yet. I landed the first AFP my butt...So yesterday, I was hoping to be on my feet. I am having difficulty judging speed and depth perception. The first time I thought I was going to touch before I did and started moving my feet too soon and ended up catching my foot and belly sliding on the ground. Second time, again, I miss judged how close I was, didn't wait for the the radio guy to tell me to flair,thought, "OMG! I'm gonna land really hard if I wait for this dude!!" flaired on my own too soon,the chute's descent slowed, caught some wind and the chute pulled me onto my back. Both times I was way out in the middle of the DZ and needed to wave to the radio dude that I was OK, embarassed but OK, and a little sore today. HOW do you judge WHERE the ground and WHEN you are going to touch the ground??? THANX I appreciate it!

Totally Cool...You DA MAN, Steve!!! Hey, I'm a newbie too. I did four tandems before I got myself psyched up enough to go into a Freefall program. AFP, it's like AFF but with one JM. So far I've got in 7 jumps, 3 of them in AFP. Yesterday I did my first skydive without the JM holding on to me the whole time...AND the adreniline/endrophine BUZZ really is still pretty intense, lasting for hours with me. Skydiving is awesome, isn't it? Welcome to "the tribe" of sky jumpers!!!

Hey, Don't be too analytical about the whole "Joking About Fear" thing. Sat. before this past Labor Day I began AFP training. I was in a class of 10: 5 Static Line and 4 others in AFF. The Static Line guys got to go while the rest of us waited with our AFF instructor. I was gonna pay an extra $25 to have a 2nd JM to help me out, just like the other AFF were gonna have. I'd done tandems only previously, but I was current, so I didn't necessarily HAVE TO go AFF. After waiting all day for a 2nd AFF JM who never was available, my JM said that I COULD go with only him if I so choose to do so. I paced back and forth mumbling and holding my head and running my hands through my hair for about 45 minutes thinking it through...To the accompaniment of morbid jokes and verbal prods from the licenced jumpers, riggers, video nuts and some instructors. Well, their joking around with me and AT me helped my resolve and got me motivated!

WOW! The most vivid memory??? My first jump, was a tandem, this past July, the weekend before my birthday... I really wasn't too nervous until we got up about to an altitude of about 7500. Then we were sliding backwards from the back of a little cessna to the open door, and putting our feet out onto the platform over the wheel...I actually started to do a kinda of a wing-walker-move before the tandem dude grabbed my arms to my chest. It was so wild: there was another skydiver handing from the strut and the camera dude hanging off the door...The wind was fierce and the sky so blue and the sun so bright...BUT MY THOUGHTS WERE STRANGELY ABSTRACT...I THOUGHT: THE WIND IS LIKE A 'LIVING' THING! LIKE AN INVISIBLE DRAGON...as we began to sommersault into space I thought...I'M PLUNGING BRAVELY INTO THE DRAGON'S LAIR!?!! HONEST! Those were my thoughts as I made my first jump. My first jump was THE MOST INTENSE EXPERIENCE I'VE HAD(so far) in my whole life! "My first skydive was an ephipany!"

AH, DEAR JAS... Been there lady. I am a newbie with a torrid past...My twenties are a blur, too many men, too much partying...I was definitely into the catch and release thing. But yeah, your heart gets thumped on pretty hard sometimes when you realize that the thrill for thrill's sake got blind-sided by feelings for some one who originally you didn't want "any strings" with... I got married-BADLY-to a mysterious bad boy..that I had met in a bar...How cliche, Huh? Anyways, I was loyal to him and stuck through with him through a lot of garbage...But it ended with divorce. Five years ago...Been celibate this whole time, too! (Although barely on a few occassions!!) Being celibate can be really tough, especially when good loving would be the perfect thing to end up a day...Like after my first jump when I was on such a great adreniline rush. ONLY NOW it seems that I finally got my head on straight and ready to move on. It is weird though just getting into skydiving and going to the DZ all by myself. As a single and unfamiliar woman, I'm finding that the guys are friendly, helpful, flirty and fun (most) and the women tend to be offish, some what aloof and REALLY TERRITORIALl!! (But to be fair the Skydiving women are getting friendlier now as they see that I am loving the learning of the sport as I am now AFP and getting to be a familiar sight at the DZ.) Hang in there JAS. "This too share pass." MY FIRST SKYDIVE WAS AN EPHIPANY FOR ME.......

Hey, thanx! The encouragement that you all gave to me the day before my first day of AFP training. It was truly one of those "Murphy's Law" Days!! It is that pretty usual with skydiving??? It kind of went like this: 5 Static Line guys and 5 of us AFF & AFP(me) had a 8AM class on Sat. Aug. 31. We were done with the class by 2PM and split up to get more info from different instructors for our jumps. So far so good. Well, by 3:30PM we learned that one of the two cessnas was out of commission due to engine difficulties and everyone would need to wait their turn for the one cessna! And this is on a busy Labor Day Weekend Saturday. Well all the Static guys were getting the go ahead and were beginning to get inthier jumps after the tandems were fininshed up with but for some reason the AFF&AFP were not getting any jumps in...Turns out there was only two possible AFF instructors at the DZ this past weekend and one was the instructor with us and the other was (unavailable)fixing the cessna! I guess he was being paged but was not making himself available. By 4:30PM my instructor said I was the only one who was gonna be able to jump due to being current & AFP. So... Every other AFF had to come back another time or reschedule. But I got to go up and make my jump. It was wild. The pilot who flew didn't throttle down when I exited so the 80MPH freaked me out. I took too long jumping off the strutt (20 seconds I was told later) so that I was made to pull at 7000 because we were way out of the DZ and with 10 MPH winds needed the extra time to get back to the airport. It was exhilerating watching the chute pop open (and fluttering noisily like a huge kite) and playing finally in the play area and landing it was so easy...I really was empted to flare harder than the radio guy was telling me so that I could've landed squarely on my feet instead of like I did..sliding in on my butt!

Tadbad, I'm AFP starting on Aug. 31st at Skydive Hastings in Michigan. How far along ae you in AFP? Where's your DZ at? This is gonna be interesting to say the least... But I am really psyched about it. WAY cool! "I just wanna fly...."

HEY! GOOD and INTERESTING POST! I'm a NEWBIE that is best discribed as a "younger" Baby-Boomer. I AM young in mind and look younger than I am! Hey, if you keep fit, and take good care of yourself, ain't nothing that should hold you back from doing ANYTHING that you want to do. GO FOR IT. A Good Attitude, A GREAT sense a humor about life and ability to change and grow will keep you feeling... YOUNG, WILLING and ABLE! MY FIRST SKYDIVE WAS AN EPIPHANY FOR ME!

jlmiracle, Thanx. Yeah, I'll try to keep my form right. Is it really different than tandem in the freefall??? I'm sure it will be a relief not to be strapped up with somebody else. But by nature I've always sought some sort of adventure and thrill. I do have a brave heart... BUT I am nervous about MY OWN CHUTE...and not knowing who is gonna be "watching my back" especially now that he/she is not gonna be ON IT!!! Bet tandem doesn't come near the rush of freefalling on your own!

HOOK Now, I know you're trying to encourage me, But I think the "Rolling over" bit was a little too much info for this COMPLETE NEWBIE! I have no history for the terminology or the meanings of a lot of the initials and phrases you-all use all the time. But hey, your heart's in the right place, dude, and I value your experience and wisdom. SMILE..Hey, really, I do!

Hey diverdriver, Thanx Chris. I loved flying in little Cessnas before, didn't realize the last time I was in one that I'd be LOVING to JUMP OUT OF THEM, too! Yeah, I'll visualize, practice and relax and sure be sure to smile. My first jump was truly and epiphany for me. Totally awesome. This is gonna be THE ultimate...I can hardly wait....

THANX EENEr, WHERE am I AFP at? Michigan's Skydive Hastings. You can check them out at www.skydivehastings.com. I would consider tent and sleeping bag, but not this time. I'm not familiar enuff with the bunch there yet, and it's possible that it might cause me more stress than fun and R&R at this point. I'm thinking I might just camp out at the DZ when I'm planning on getting more jumps in on the weekend. Thanks for the encouragement!

YOGA: Yeah, Baby! Really helps with flexibility in amazing ways, and works out tension and stress pretty effectively, too. I can see how it's really helped me so far. Tomorrow I make my first jump in AFP, (first jump other than tandem, anyhow) with my own chute!! I'll see how I feel later! Anyhow, You really should check into it. Ya Gotta LOVE it!

HEY, from NEWBIE to NEWBIE: We are gonna have some aching bods! WHAT HELPS ME is YOGA. I've been doing since the day after my first jump. About a 1/2 hour in the mornign and then again at night, too. And if after a jump my bod hurts, I do some awesome moves to stretch it out right there on the padded floor of the DZ. TRY IT YOU'LL LIKE IT!

Hi all! I am really new to skydiving...but it's really in my blood already! I had my first tandem at the end of July...The weekend before my birthday. The BEST present I ever gave to me!! The next weekend I was back for more. I began a progression program. I've done four tandem and am now on to learning freefal and all the maneures with my own cute on my back. I'm learning at a DZ that normally does an program utilizing one JM but I'm gonna pay extra for a 2nd JM until I feel ready to go 1 on 1 with a JM jumping out with me. It's a long drive to the DZ where I'm learning so it's gonna be an early morning for me to get to the 8AM class. I need to go to bed confident and wake up happily looking forward to an awesome day. PLEASE can you all give me some GREAT tips to center my mind and prepare myself for what lies ahead? THANX to all...blue skies and warm breezes.