Karen89

1. I don't think there was ever a motivation. My boyfriend knew it was on my bucketlist and paid for me to do a tandem skydive. I did it twice, and knew I just wanted to do it again. I just have this urge sometimes. I look up at the sky and smile..sometimes I daydream. It's like any persons dream really. Not skydiving but any regular person has a dream but theirs might not be as "scary" or "risky" as ours. 2. Wait what? From the moment I wake up in the morning the day of a jump my heart is already racing. It gets better once I'm in the plane. There were two times I didn't jump out of the plane because I was overcome with fear. But now I'm still nervous until I get in the plane. I've already made a decision to jump no matter what because I already have a rig on my back. 3. Well I'm a newbie in this...so I have a lot more jumps to go until I can skydive alone. :)

Men

Bad- First weekend I haven't been at my DZ because it was too cold..and the winds were too high for students. Planes flying over my house all day, at one point i had to put music on because it was pure torture. But good cause now I'm with my boyfriend and we are talking about how one day we will skydive together. :)

On my second IAD I had one line twist because I didn't arch (long story, learned my lesson) and it untwisted itself. With AFF you deploy higher so you have a longer time to fix your problem. Though don't worry too much about malfunctions or you'll freak yourself out like I did. :) enjoy it!

I got gloves today :) under armour.

Whatever! Gloves suck. :) especially the ones I was given. Now if I slip off next time without gloves I will admit its my fault.

I'm still blaming my gloves. haha. I had no problem the first time without gloves.

Thanks everyone for the advice. Though I am going to talk to my instructors just to be safe :P. I'm gonna go look at gloves today. :) don't wanna be out of the sky for too long.

I'm going to start working out way more! The only part of my body that hurts today is my left arm. I have little bruises on both shoulders, but my shoulders don't hurt. Thought I would be limping today from that landing, but I iced my ankle on and off last night and it's fine today. I'm pretty lucky. I'll admit I freaked out yesterday, was a little shaken from my hands slipping. I didn't even arch so that's probably what the shoulder bruises are from. I never look at the ground while coming closer to it. I felt like I was coming in too fast and flared too early but kept my arms down. My instructor said that I flared a few seconds before I was supposed to. I don't remember the wind direction but yesterday the winds were 4-6 mph.

Welcome to the forums. I'm new too. The things I've learned in the past month is have fun and make sure you know where your reserve handle is. :)

Yeah definitely need to practice more PLF. When we did the day of the class it was hard for me to get down. I'm a lady, I'm too pretty to fall :D hehe jk

Pretty sure they said 40...but maybe that is just for students?

Well today I did my 2nd solo IAD jump.One of the skydivers there gave me a pair of gloves and my instructor said they would work fineI was fine in the plane, had my nerves under control even when the door opened. I was stepping out on the step, getting ready to dangle...as soon as my feet started to dangle I felt my hands slip off....damn GLOVES! I was pretty pissed..Probably scared the heck out of my instructor cause she didn't even tell me to go. Had a rough landing..tried to land on my feet and I did but it was so hard my knee basically hit my chin...well it was a good skydive because I walked away and will be another story to tell one day. They told me I should find gloves...but I'm not sure where to look. I'm weird about spending money and I don't want the same thing to happen again next time I go. Btw, first time I went I didn't have gloves and I was able to dangle with no problem...But they said after a certain temperature the USPA requires gloves...Any suggestions?!

Haha I actually butt slided. I didn't plan on butt sliding but by the time I decided maybe it's a good idea to put my feet down I was already in the grass. Got a little road burn on my one hand from the pavement, but it didn't hurt for more than 10 minutes. :)

Thanks :)

My names Karen. My first tandem skydive was in May of this year and my second tandem was in August. My first solo was yesterday. Two weekend before I took the IAD course, but we couldn't jump that day because the winds. Last weekend I went to the drop zone, went up in the plane TWICE and chickened out. I felt horrible after I came home. I kept obsessing about when the door opened. I complained to my boyfriend cause he had done the AFF course years ago, but ran out of money and hasn't done it since. He told me to either jump or move on with life. I kept thinking about the door opening and I would get a lot of anxiety from it. So I decided to move on with my life. The next day was my first day of work at a factory. While working I looked across the room and I caught someones eye who looked familiar to me. It was one of the skydivers that was in the plane with me the first time I went up that weekend! He came up to me and we talked. He told me that no ones ever died at that drop zone. He said once I let go of the plane I would be fine because my parachute would come out right away. He asked if I was going to try again. I told him I didn't know, but then later I was thinking, what a small world?!? This guy and I run into each other at a new job and were in the same plane!! To me that was a sign.... So I went yesterday. I kept myself in a zen mode all the way up and when the door opened I was a bit afraid. But I told myself just to let my body go through whatever it is going to go through and just do it this time because last time when I didn't I felt horrible. Best decision EVER!! I am going next weekend too! Here's my video :) Also the guy who threw out my pilot chute and filmed it was the guy I work with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYRMA--P5g4&feature=youtu.be