petetheladd

Yes, if you were trying land ninja style on a balance beam without making a sound. The balls of the feet would be better. However The procedure is meant to be as simple and effective as possible - (think of reserve drills). So although using the toes to ball to heel sequence might soften the bang a bit, it increases the chance of you blowing your foot out especially if circumstances are less than ideal i.e. when the doodoo is going down and you scared or inexperienced At the beginning, Only if you lock your legs straight - a no no. Near the end only if you sit on your bottom - also a no no A PLF is not an insurance policy, come down hard and you may still hurt your self but a PLF will usually ameloriate the circumstances. Which is better - having a bruised heel or a busted ankle :: think on it Its good to see people perking up their ears on PLF's. The widespread use of the Square definitely shoved this art into the closet with instructors usually only throwing a nod the PLF's way. No, Not without incident

not quite..i'll leave it to any of the military JMs to explain better, but you dont want to land on your heels..its harder to transition smoothly to a roll if you land on your heels vis the balls of your feet. the exception would be for a rear PLF when landing heel first is pretty unavoidable.. Hmm... I disagree, certainly my old military JM's bellowed it often enough - TOESSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssssss... UP. I certainly would not want to be up on the balls of my feet doing a twisting motion on the ankle with my full body weight slamming in behind it. The heel has the major shock absorbers attached to it ( the knees ). As long as the ankle is kept solid/immobile, you have beveled your feet to the landing direction, you can naturally roll. No, Not without incident

PLF has saved me from a few rough situations on a number of occasions. I was just behind and to the side of a jumper 2 years ago who on a real hot day hit the same turbulence I did. She went down legs akimbo and broke one, I PLF'ed and walked away, bit of a grass stain on my leg. Although some people might be agile enough to triple flip with pike and stand up a landing. A PLF was designed to be the simplest way to spread out contact with the ground back in the days of round chutes where every landing was a thumper. PLF - requires Legs slightly bent and springy - locking the leg puts all the initial impact in that small period of time of first contact with the ground Feet together - so the initial impact is spread to both Legs. Landing on one leg doubles the shock to that leg Toes up - so the heels hit first and not the toes which will break easier and also means they wont catch dragging on the ground and bust the ankle. Feet are angled to direction of ground motion so the roll is sideways w.r.t. the foot. - hence the foot,ankles do not catch and break the ankle. The roll now starts from the bottom side of the leg smoothly up to the hip as the legs bends. When your hip contacts the ground, back should be piked so the roll goes across the hips to flip the legs over and the otherside of the whole leg thumps the ground. - This saves your spine and head from taking impact. So to recap heels together, Legs bent and toes up. Hit and roll. AND Thats a PLF, My first 55 jumps were PLF'ed under a round canopy that gave you a good solid whack to the ground. P.S. A PLF is of course accompanied by flying the canopy all the way to the ground. No, Not without incident