etannenb

No, I'll be travelling in the U.S. for almost all of November, so I'm only starting the course December 20th. It'll be a while, but I'll definitely keep you posted once the course starts how things proceed

Hi, thanks for the input. I honestly feel a bit embarrassed at this point that I made the family issue a much bigger deal than it deserved to be (I was a lot more concerned about the spinning issue). As things stand now, I'm signed up for the course at the end of the December, and I'm really looking forward to it. And from conversations with my father, it looks like I'll have understanding, if not agreement, which is the best I could hope for (I doubt my parents will come to the dropzone, so that they're not witnesses to anything if something happens. But there's always the video afterwards ).

I'm already signed up for the course! Anyway, that's pretty amazing that you were skydiving until you were four months pregnant. I wonder if skydiving during pregnancy aids in later child development? Is there any way to do a study and test that? I bet you could get it published in the New England Journal of Medicine: Take a control group of 1,000 pregnant women who didn't skydive during pregnancy, another group of 1,000 women who did skydive, and see what happens to the kids eighteen years down the road .

That's an awesome picture!

I figured I'll just answer your questions one-by-one: 1. Do you value their opinion so much that it alters your own? -- No. 2. Are you scared that they will be mad at you and perhaps stop talking to you? -- No. They would never do that sort of thing. 3. Are you looking for ways to blame others for not taking the course because perhaps you don't really want to do it yourself? -- No. I won't pretend like I'm not scared, but I do really want to do the course. I did a tandem last year, and really enjoyed it, but I had a massive adrenaline rush, and couldn't remember that much from the jump. I thought I would never jump again. This year, I only went because a good friend of mine really wanted to go. The experience was much better. I had total awareness during the freefall, and even had the presence of mind to look up after the parachute deployed to make sure everything was normal. Since then, I can't get skydiving out of my head (which is bad, because I have a day job :-)). I'm on dropzone.com every single day, and I've been reading reviews on equipment, deployment methods, pretty much anything I can get my hands on! 4. Do you simply desire everything to be on the up and up? -- This is closer to the truth. Like I said before, the final decision rests with me, but from conversations I've been having with my dad it seems like I won't get approval per se, but understanding. Anyway, like I said before, I'm already signed up for the AFF course in December. And another aspect of my personality is that I don't like backing out of anything.

Wow, thanks for all the helpful advice guys. You're a pretty cool group of people

I think I have to at least give it a try, and hope for the best. Anyway, the only two dropzones in Israel, Skykef and Paradive, seem pretty restrictive: Hook turns are forbidden and you can't jump without an AAD. Paradive, where I'm planning to take the course, was founded by an ex-Israeli-army parachuting/skydiving instructor, so I heard that there's somewhat of a "military" mentality there (whether this is just a gimmick or actually makes the place safer than the average dropzone, I have no idea). As far as I know, there was one guy that almost got killed a few years ago at Paradive, but the incident report on their website shows that it was entirely preventable: He borrowed his son's rig which used a pull-out deployment method that he wasn't very familiar with. He was doing some relative work, lost altitude awareness, only pulled at 2700', dropped the grip on the handle (guess he was used to throw-out), so the pilot chute got caught in the burble. He then didn't do anything for several seconds, and finally pulled the reserve ripcord at 600' (right around when the AAD fired). He had a hard landing but survived.

Well now I feel a bit embarrassed. What you write is definitely correct, and I did not mean to make this a bigger point than it is. My main question (and probably that's the only one I should have asked) was regarding freefall stability in a solo skydive. Regarding family, my plan is to take them to the dropzone several times before I start the course, to hopefully alleviate some of their fears. The final decision to do the course rests with me.

Thanks. That's actually very reassuring. In any case, I think I've read enough about the sport now that it's simply a matter for me to just go ahead and do the %$!@-ing course . The main obstacle (other than fear) is getting family understanding for this decision (although at 27, it is within my legal rights to simply not pay attention to them ). Take care!

Will do. I'm slated to do the AFF course at Paradive (near Haifa, Israel) at the end of December (I'm traveling in the U.S. for most of November, so that's the most convenient time). Hopefully my family will be accepting enough of it to not cause too many problems (keeping my fingers crossed

Ok, thanks for the info. Have a great weekend

Hi, I am not a skydiver, I have only done two tandems so far, but now I'm thinking of doing the AFF course. I have two questions, though: (1) Is there an idiot-proof way for recovering from a spin? I have been told that solo skydiving is very different than tandem, and I was guaranteed that I will spin at some point in freefall. It seems like every year there's someone that dies because of an unstable freefall. I don't want that statistic to be me . (2) Also, did anyone ever have family issues because of their decision to skydive? How did you get your family to come around? Thanks, Manny