BannanaGirl

Took my time but I got there in the end!

God your all sick!

Ok so how do you manage double penetration then like they do in the blue movies? Surely bits bump together then!?

LMAO! I have with most of the DZ watching!! I guess it is a case of "chill ,baby, chill". Thing is I don't do cool very well unless sedated. Ahh I will get there I know! I Have to! Thanks for the words of encouragement, at least now I know most people struggle (unlike Miss 1 tandem and I can pack female!) God don't you just hate that! And I bet she will piss all over me by 10 jumps, crack out a 10 point skydive or something silly like that! Cow!

Fill in your profile so we can see where you live and then guage which DZ would be most practical for you geographically. I guess you must be somewhere in the southeast seeing as you mention Headcorn. There are many DZ's around and all of them will have their pro's and con's. As far as it will be for you as student the standards of training in this country are first rate no matter where you go from my understanding. You are picking a good time of year too to start training which is possibly one of the negatives of UK skydiving (weather and mainly winds with students). But another option would be looking into going abroad to do your course (although if going abroad AFF is all you should consider and not RAPS). With going abroad you can focus on what it is that you want to do (skydiving) and forget about the humdrum of everyday life, and chances are you will have cracking weather especially in Spain. You could come back fully qualified with consols under your belt within a week! Have you done a tandem yet? If you are looking at AFF you may think about a tandem to experience freefall first. It would also be a good way of integrating yourself into a DZ and talking to the actual jumpers there before you book up a course. Good luck anyway with your task ahead and be prepared for the adventure of a lifetime!!!

My packing method goes as such...... "scruntchy" cuss, swear scruntch some more...sweat profusely, stomp about a bit and make a scene, pick the whole lot up and shake it around psychotically and then start again only to repeat the above! Eventually some dear soul will take pity on me and sort it out. But it would be nice to be 100% independant within the next 10 or so jumps. And it is getting a bit of a pain in the arse having to get someone to pack for me because they are quick so I can get on the next load. The rules states if you are not packed then don't manifest. Sods law dictates that the black ball of shit over in the east will be overhead when the lift after goes up!!!!! I will get it in the bag...I will get it in the bag!!!!

Cool as!!!! This is the bit of packing that has me growling and cussing. Oh well I am sure like you I will crack this nut one day soon. It has just been so hot over here lately and the heat and I do not go well especially when I have a canopy to get into a D Bag! To top it all of this 1 jump wonder of a tandem student has cracked packing already and she floats around the DZ all calm and serene and occasionally comes over offering to help! Gggrrrrrrr. I know I am pathetic now bugger off!! On the bright side I have done so many "Pro" bits of the packing now I can do that bit in about 2 minutes flat now!!!!

I just keep on and on at other skydivers to jump with me...basically I wear them down until they give in. I refuse to be shy about it! Works everytime! I too had doubts at times when doing AFF if it was for me and the cost of doing this sport was a major factor, but each time I lose the will I do another skydive and it would be another hurdle cleared and I would have learnt another thing and land on a high! And never worry about screwing up.....one of the funniest skydives I have done so far was where we funnelled the exit! We were all over the show in spectacular fashion and brains were malfunctioning. Funny as.

Used to be the exit for a while, but now I really enjoy flying my canopy (apart from some funky ass openings lately - do not like that one bit at all!) But how can you pick one thing really...some skydives you will land and go "god I loved that exit!" or " that freefall totally rocked, or on some occassions for me in the past.... "That was shit! I am gonna give up, go home and take up knitting!".

Amen to that!

Oh thanks for the word of warning there. Ryan Air it will be not!!! I think we are going to fly BA now anyway, mainly because Heathrow is an easier airport for us to get to rather than Stanstead. It actually works out the same price as by the time Ryan Air sting you for taxes and other fees the difference in cost is nothing (this is not including the potential excess baggage charge either)! It could end up being a really expensive flight. I do hope BA are'nt muppets though when it comes to carrying on rigs.

I breathe a lot in a very rythmic way to cope with whatever mood I am in or to focus the mind on the ride up sometimes, kind of like circular breathing that you use to play the digereedoo or mediatation, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Slows the heart rate down and empties the mind. I do it with my 3 year old daughter when she gets in a massive huff and screams the place down, I get her to breathe deeply, within 2 breaths her red face goes back to normal and you can see she has forgotton what it is she was flipping out about, so it must work if it cures those temper tantrums!!!! I am also an oxygen thief and I yawn a lot on the plane (that helps with the ears and is also relaxing), some people naturally feel quiet sleepy on the ride up so if this is you just go with, relax, chill out, you will soon wake up when they open the door and it gets a bit drafty in there! I am nowhere near as nervous as I was at the beginning as you do get more used to the feelings of nerves and managing them and to a certain degree my nerves are more focused on not screwing up the skydive rather than "oh shit I hope this thing opens" now. Nerves are there to enhance the experience, respect what we are doing and to give you a nice surge of adrenaline (buzz). Embrace it and go with it rather than fight it, it is your friend, and personally the jumps I have the most nerves on actually seem to end up being the most rocking. Talking to other skydivers about nerves is pretty humbling as some skygod(ess) with like thousands of jumps turns round and says "jeez I still crap it even now", makes you aware this all part and parcel of why you do this and nobody is immune to it. Biggest bit of advice I had about nerves especially associated with performance (and you do have to perform for your instructors) is to NOT be too hard on yourself. If it goes tits up, it goes tits up, so what, pull, land and repeat. Everyone started at jump number 1, everyone else knows what pressures us newbies face and nobody expects you to be superman or woman, just to be safe. I suck at flying big time...still hate it now, but I faced it head on by throwing myself out of an aeroplane....making a decision, sticking to it and then doing it all in a split second is all it takes and the rest then kicks in. Once out the door you are commited, so focus on what it is you will be doing once out the door rather than the bit building up to it. Actually a recent tunnel trip I was on I was more scared of going in the tunnel and doing an impression of an angry moth hurting myself than actually exiting the plane as to me that is now my familiar enviroment...it is what I have become accustomed to. It is scary shit, no one denies it flinging oneself repetively at the planet earth for fun, but with time you won't loose the fear but manage it in a different way. Have fun & good luck!

Don't know if you have heard of her but music by "Kosheen" is really cool, laid back drum and bass but with a very floaty edge, and her voice and lyrics are great too. I like the song "Hungry" off her album "Resist" and "Suicide" is another good one off the same album. I have actually seen a freefly video (amongst the million others I have seen) with one of her songs on and it really worked, very artistic and was very memorable which I guess is what you are aiming for.

I scared myself to death only the other week calculating my expenditure since Mid March when I did my AFF, and the total is just shy of £6000! Holy cow man! I need to lie down. However in that there is my AFF costs (and I had to retake my level 5 several times), my consols, jumps, coaching jump slots, tunnel time, rig, helmet, protrack, jumpsuit and so on. I estimate (if I average it out over a year) I may get in around 10-15 jumps a month as I am a weekend jumper so that would work out £200-£300 per month max. I will also go away a few times a year on a skydiving holiday/boogie as well, fiscal status allowing. The other side of it is I don't go out pissing my money up the wall on clubbing and boozing anymore which used to cost me an arm and a leg and now I exist off other peoples beer fines and the occasional one I owe. And I get plenty of fresh air and exersise as a bonus! To me it is worth every single penny I spend!

I don't think I could ever drink the stuff again. I am still hanging now and it has been a week. Unfortunately Easy peasy Jet don't fly direct into our destination so that would then mean more travelling around when we get there which would ruin the general plan and that is to land, get hire car, locate DZ and beer. I do like Bigways's original idea as thinking back on past booking in's they only asked me if I had packed my hand luggage myself and if I had left it unattended etc...at no point did they weigh it or even look at it on any of the airlines I have flown with. So I am going to try that one I think. One of the guys who is coming said he is going to give them the "would you charge me excess if I weighed 20 stone" routine and see if that works if it gets a bit tasty. Unfortunately one of the guys will have to stick his rig in the hold as he is taking all his camera equipment on as hand luggage, but personally for me I am going to do my hardest to get my rig in the cabin with me, I can wash my travelling clothes and stuff but if I cannot jump straight away cause some prat has popped my reserve or lost my luggage I would be steaming. Thanks for the advice. It seems it is just the luck of the draw with all these airlines. Besides I can do pissy, irrate "I wanna see the boss" routine really good and who knows we may get a slot on that first class TV programme "Airline" or something, kicking off at check in. Keep your eyes peeled.

I am planning on going away to Spain late September and the airlines I may fly with are either Ryan Air (who seem to have extortionate excess baggage fees) or British Airways. Now I've never actually flown with a rig before so can someone tell me which out of the two are the best to go with and if there are any issues travelling with these folks with a rig or if there is a better airline to use etc. Also should I carry on or let them stick my rig in the hold? I feel a bit uncomfortable letting some jackass baggage handler bash my new baby around, but am I just being a bit paranoid? I know this question has been asked a million times before but I am having a muppet day using the search facility on here so any help will be most appreciated and I can then get on with booking the flights. Cheers

That's right! Bristol (or brizzle) speak...."cor that was girt lush that was".

Get a cat and train it to hide it's shit in their garden so they can smell it but can't find it.

Oh god the word "minger" reminds me of something I do detest and being a red head it does get on my nerves, but when someone calls me ginger they say "gingeerr" pronounced as you would minger but with a "g". Usually it comes from only slightly evolved Sierra drivers as they drive by (Mondeo drivers or maybe BMW drivers - known as CHAVS in England) who think it is cool to stick a whale tail on the end of their car even though it has only 3bhp and a muppet at the controls. yeh very fucking funny....learn to speak the English language "cum muncher" and get a labotomy whilst you are at it you twat (female clitoris), is my general response now. Me bitter? No never. For all it's colourful sounds and expletives, the English languages best has to be for me "tosser". Variations by accent are..."tossa", "Tosser", "tossar" or "tosspot". As I am west country mine goes "oi you proper tosserrrrr, gets of me tracterrr".

Very informative list! However it did not have a new one I came across a while ago when someone was describing a very ugly person..."munter". Hopefully it was'nt directed at me as I am bloody stunning I am! Doughnut is another good one when refering to someone's stupidity...similar to muppet really. Bugger...I usually use that word when feeling sorry about someones situation...like "oh the poor bugger!". I guess it beats saying "the poor fudge packer"!

Whats is it that Tori Amos said....."gotta be big to bring it close to my lips?" Or is that me thinking that was what she was saying. I am kinda in the middle myself. Big guys are cool when you are gagging for it and feel like getting split in half but on a regular basis....the John Wayne walk does not do it for me and I have to sit down a lot in my job.

In a safari park in the UK. Caught at it on top of a hotel roof....but then the sea search and rescue flew over us with the diver sitting outside the door about 20ft above us - not coming to save us but they were on training I think. They saw everything. Crikey did the earth move for real on that occassion.

I love their "Blue Lines" album and I have been listening to it a lot lately (getting over a break quiet successfully may I add

Fair enough. I think our CCI likes us to keep in our allocated landing area and not scoot off wherever the wind takes us...he is a bit of an accuracy freak and has got one of those tuffetts I believe. I will be having words with him this weekend.