grabiarz

This past week I've had four different people from completely separate groups of acquaintances ask me about tandems, where to go, etc. Anyone else notice spike in tandem interest or is it just me? Solar flares giving same ideas to people?

After almost a 10 month break from jumping I was nervous as heck before getting back up. What calmed me down was repacking. I don't know if you covered that part of training yet, however my main point is I was nervous till I started trusting my gear. Plus about 1100 gear checks in between putting my gear on and being out the door

I have the same exact problem with same exact symptoms you are describing, i.e. can pop the shoulder back in when it falls out. Thankfully I never subluxated it during freefall. Let us know how it all works out.

Thank you all for your input. Finally managed to do the refresher today. After telling the same story to my instructor, she suggested that I jump something bigger first. So I jumped my friend's rig (Safire2 189). Everything went perfectly. Feels great to be back :D

Wanted to get some opinions here. When I started jumping I was about 220lbs and managed to get a rig that fit me at the time with a Sabre2 230. In the meantime I managed to lose a good chunk of the excess weight and am now 170lbs. My current gear has gotten too big for me and the last time I jumped it, I had the harness tightened quite a lot. The webbing was against my ribs and on opening it smacked me around a bit. Felt like a solid punch. Because of that, and other reasons (read $$$) I took some time off. While off I started to look for new gear and, miraculously, found a great ($$$ wise) offer for gear with harness that fits me well, it's an Icon with Pilot 168. Went ahead and bought it already. So my main point is that I'd like to get a second opinion on my new configuration and all these factors coming together: 1. Smaller me 2. Smaller gear - the ratio of my weight to canopy size is similar, maybe a tiny bit more aggressive. 3. Not jumped in a while (going to do a refresher this weekend) Part of me thinks 'you'll be fine' but then the smarter half of my brain thinks that too many new things are at play here, hence the need for some knowledge.

When carrying it on, should one put it in a bag or just wear it?

Stupid things... had a few in my short career in the sport: -Jumps 33-35 (still no A license at that point) I was not stowing the breaks properly, toggles before the little ring on risers instead of behind it, thankfully the elastic bands held it together until I learned better -Jump 48 pull at 3000' (I usually pull at 3.5-4k) as the canopy is opening I hear my dytter flat line. I thought that it was set to 2500' checked later and it was 2000'(oops..) Thank God I didn't have a malfunction, this one had potential to be really painful given my experience level.. -Jump 52 tightened my chest strap went to the bathroom for a sec since I still had time. Went back to the plane, as I was about to board someone pointed out I forgot to put my legstraps on (and I thought this would never happen to me..)

...and credit cards, and a kidney...

As a student reading this thread I was feeling pushed away from this sport with each new post I read. Up until I read hukturn's replies, he made me feel welcome. I felt like I'll be categorized and looked bad upon just because I'm new and young. For me, when I'm in the air I'm having the best time of my life. While on the ground I spend most of the time with fellow students I do talk a little with the experienced jumpers. For me skydiving is about fun in the air and being around cool people on the ground. Is that bad? Will this mindset contribute to the "death" of skydiving?