OzoneJunkie

At the rist of offending many - it bugs me when smokers throw their butts on the ground. "Littering is ok for me". FU.

Just more fear-mongering BS from the gov't feeding the media, so they can gear up and do what they want, revoke more civil rights, etc. The Patriot Act (amongst other things such as TIA) make me sick.

Hey, no worries Ivan, just playin'. We jump when we can, aye?

My brother and I had a good laugh the other day. The name of their company is "Dual Star". That's just so wrong... or is it ??

Can you say: FUCKING WEATHER??? Weeeeeeee, I got him to post about something other than "Boobies and re-posts" I WIN \o/

What amazes me is his postcount to jumpcount ratio...

Hmm, if you have a computer, with a soundcard that has an input, then you can find some software only multitrack recorders for free on the net. May not be as portable though. Just a thought.

Yeah, koz sums it up pretty nicely. I agree - if you try to push against the relative wind to try to "hold yourself up" you tend to just fall faster. Relaxing does seem to help. Don't ask me why Also, I think that learning to fly daffy can help, but, I think flying straddle position with legs very wide is a bit better. Depends on what you're doing. Docking on a slow sitflyer, I tend to use a bit of a daffy position, because I'm balancing out my body from the dock anyway. As I've mentioned in the past, using a very baggy suit can actually make you fall faster - since you're fighting the suit to open your legs wider. When I switched to a slimmer suit a few years ago, at first I was worried that my fallrate would be too fast (I'm 200lbs. w/o gear). But in reality, I'd say my fallrate didn't get faster, it stayed about the same. And when I needed to slow down, it was easier. Finally, realize that there is a point where you can only fly so slow, and sometimes that's not gonna be slow enough. What can I say - go on a diet :P

2003 DEC 17 : Solo Routines In case I haven't stated their importance enough, I'll say it again. Solos. Critical to development as a freeflyer. Busting out a new trick on an N-way, without having practiced it first on some solo jumps can be risky. But risk aside, it can be a waste of freefall time for both (or all) of you if you know you're only gonna flail your first few attempts. Anyway, my first year of freeflying I spent a lot of time doing solo headdown jumps, where I'd do different routines. One of my favorites went like: - Both hands in front - Right hand in front - Left hand in front - Right hand in (across my chest) * - Left hand in (across my chest) * - this, if I recall correctly, Mike Vail referred to as "Wounded Clown". Basically, your left arm is out in a normal headdown position, your right arm is completely in (out of the airstream). You need to push your right leg out to the side more than your left leg, to balance this position. These type of positions may not be so "useful" in normal day-to-day freeflying - but they're good for teaching you how to balance a position. I would hold each of these positions for about 3 to 10 seconds. Initially, before I was comfortable with some of them (single hand in front) - I would put a hand out quickly, and then recover. As I've mentioned before - there's definitely something to "just doing it" - making yourself try something, and allowing your body to naturally seek out the balance. The whole "baby learning to walk" thang. After I learned to hold the position, then, within the exercise/routine - I'd hold that position for the 3 to 10 seconds. For sitflying, I find useful: - Grab right foot with left hand * - Grab left foot with right hand - Put right hand in front - Put left hand in front * when grabbing a foot with your hand, you often need to push the non-grabbed foot down, almost as if in a stand. One more headdown one: - Tap feet together - Grab right foot with left hand (left arm/hand goes behind your body) - Grab left foot with right hand Before the actual jump, I'd visualize the jump during the ride to altitude, so I didn't forget what I was doing in freefall. Visualize not only the particular items/order in the list, but what you're planning to do with your body. I think that as soon as you have a position (sitfly/headdown/whatever) down enough that you're fairly comfortable, you should immediately start challenging yourself in that position, by trying things that you know are going to make you unstable. This really helps avoid plateaus in the learning process. PS: Glad to help, Nick. Hope you have a quick recovery.

Anyone play quake3arena? I was working on a skydiving mod for it a long time ago... I work on another mod for q3 now - defrag http://www.planetquake.com/defrag (note: mods cannot legally be sold - not an advert.)

I sure hope not because I have the most bizarre dreams. I don't want to deal with godzilla in my next life. Then you gotta learn how to lucid dream. You could BE godzilla

Mmm, perhaps, when we define our realities based on the "normal, waking" perception of reality. But, if when we die, we shed our physical, and time-space becomes less "defining" of our reality, then dreams may be closer to life-after-death than normal reality. If you were so inclined to believe in such things...

I used to have OBEs when I was younger - used to get feverish, have strange dreams, OBEs, etc. In the past 10 years I've had a few, but not injury related. Meditation, lucid dreaming, etc. type stuff.

Does that mean, when you hear people on the ground telling you to pull, you dump?

Congrats. It's great when you hit a milestone - it fuels you to keep going. Way to go!

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.

I quit a job under similar circumstances - school work comes first. Sux that they couldn't accomodate you, but, I'm guessing that this is a "need money for school" job and not a career job - so hopefully this is all for the best.

Hmm, the video is from a few different dropzones. Elsinore has a beautiful landing area - like some golf green or something. Well kept. But I think you're referring to the video done at our home DZ, "Sky's the Limit" in New Jersey.

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.

don't have any closeups, but, well, who says quantity doesn't matter !?!?

hmm, me? Nope, I'm not (at least, not for the dz.com boogie). Wish I was. I did say in another thread that Adam and I may be out in Eloy some time early next year...

nice :) Looks like a cool scorpion's tail on the rig

Ghetto Soundwave by Fishbone, on Truth & Soul

wow, good line. gotta use that ;)

Nope. Wish I could. Have fun. Adam and I may get out to Eloy in March or April next year, for a week or so. Anyway, take some pix for us all :)