MikeJD

Beautifully written, Annette - engaging, evocative and funny.
I liked it a lot. :)

Cygnus-X1: also, the instructor reaches across to pull the handle on the right side of the student's harness. Albeit this is an unusual configuration for main deployment these days, it'd be odd if that were the position of the reserve handle.
Plus, if you watch the video more carefully you can see it's a main canopy that's deployed.