Emma

Odd thing to post, for a skydiver. If you wish to vent your strange views, may I suggest Talkback?

Hey... 16th till 29th Dec... Tracking, bigways, flat stuff (4way???anyone???). I'm going out earlier than 'normal' (gotta love freelance work eh?) so happy to hook up with people for some jumps and beers :) Quite excited now Emma

Yeh, thanks, I know. But the funny thing is, I didn't thing there could be anyone who didn't know these guys' names...Well, not in the RW forum anyway... However - suits me, I haven't been able to reserve my slot yet, so all the better if the hoardes stay away while I try and remortgage my grandmother or something...

Wow, you make Alienangel look like Germaine Greer... Impressive!

Not to worry, if God was a guy he'd have put testicles on the inside...

Hi, It's not just about arching, it's also about body position. It depends if you fly boxman or mantis (ish). A lot of slow-fallers I know who were trained in the box (scourge of RW) tried to go faster by moving their arms further and further back. This isn't very effective in increasing your fall rate and crap when you want to take grips. Make sure your suit fits tightly, is made of fast-fall material, get some coaching in a good mantis position and learn how to increase fallrate by bringing your arms IN instead of trying to push them further back. Make sure your weight belt is around your waist and not on your chest, and don't be scared to load up on lead - most of the top teams have at least a few members who wear lead. I wear around 21lbs in the tunnel. :)

Do you mind me asking how you know that? Out of interest. Thx

I researched this as part of a post-graduate in education and would say it's true. There is an equal tragedy for boys in the classroom, whose academic achievement is increasingly falling below that of girls. This is largely due to the disruptive nature of their bad behavior. Boys acquire status among peers through negative attention, girls through creating micro-cultures of selective exclusion - and the latter generally does not disrupt studies so dramatically. Schools definitely need to change the ways they teach and discipline children based on gender, to counter-balance current cultural influences.

Nice

Watch out on those 'personal attacks'...

I'd hardly worry about that, it's all over the press. It's personal attacks and judgement on here we should avoid (and I've seen no-one on here out of line on that score). The arrests might come to nothing.

Their photos were on the front page of Metro this morning. It is common knowledge who has been arrested.

I don't think skydiving will ever really appeal to the general public as a spectator sport because they will never be able to relate to it. Even with live big-screen footage of 4way/ 8way/ 10way etc, the public just won't 'get it' because a skydive, let alone a fast RW jump, is so far removed from their experience that they can't possibly understand the skill involved. For instance - let's take skate-boarding, BMX, even synchronised swimming - people all have some experience/ idea of being on a board/ bike/ in a pool, so they can see that the stunts or moves require some impressive skills. Freefall is too difficult for people to appreciate. Maybe swooping will appeal as it's so fast and immediate, but freeall - no. Not until tunnel flight becomes as widespread as say, kids getting on a board in their neighbourhood. And it's a lot cheaper to get into BMXing or boarding even at a low level than it is to start skydiving.

And don't forget AZ Warp Factor who missed the Advanced silver by only ONE POINT (and had an awesome round 5). A very close meet with great performances from all medalling teams (and many of those who missed out!). It's great to see so many Advanced teams pushing up the standard.

Sounds pretty specific to me. From the article: PALLBEARERS QUESTIONED Two teenagers who acted as pallbearers at the funeral of skydiver Stephen Hilder are continuing to be questioned by police after being arrested on suspicion of his murder.[.....]The pair were arrested at Scunthorpe Police station yesterday and taken to separate police stations in the Humberside Force Area to be interviewed.