TLS
I have TLS! (Suck it, Nico) For a long time, I never bothered to get certs for this website so the interwebz would not recognize that it is not suspicious. However, after some cyberbullying my “so-called friends”, colorbarf-dot-com now has TLS. Please note that it does not say “Not Secure” in ominous font at the top of your browser anymore.
FLCPA and CP Nationals
Oh my goodness, the time it flies. I intended to write this as we were leaving Skydive Midwest after CP Nationals and FLCPA, but I blinked and now 4way is over. And then I didn’t finish this blog because 8way was starting and now 8way and VFS are over! (But I will talk about those later.)
About a two weeks ago, SDMW hosted what appeared to be a marathon of canopy events: FLCPA and CP Nationals, which is a rad feat for a not-a-huge dropzone. Despite some weather across both events, many swoops were done; the pond was thoroughly swooped. I remain pretty confident that there were no new entrants to the Midwest Corn Club, an offshoot of the Midwest Swim Club. (If you’re not a follower of @mwswimclub, treat yourself.) However, a few people (Richo included!) took a dip.
I’m pretty new to observing swooping. Up until last Nationals, I didn’t know how the event even worked. Now, I have a handle on most of the events and some of the rules. One of the biggest hurdles remaining is remembering to pay attention to the little things – Did someone vert the entry gates? Did they stand up their landing on accuracy? Did they drag water before gate one? I don’t know. I get really wrapped in the whole zoominess of it all and I forget to watch for the details. Coincidentally, I congratulate people who I believe did well, only to have them inform me that the zero’d that round for some reason or another.
Here are some of my take-aways, as an ignorant spectator:
- Favorite Event (of regular CP, not freestyle): Distance. I like watching people zoom off into the sunset. Speed stresses me out and I can’t, for the life of me, remember which zones are good and which are undesirable in accuracy.
- I probably should learn how to judge, to be helpful. There is a lot of staff, mostly for watching the individual gates, or marking distance, or setting up pond stuff, or things. It would be nice of me to help. *Puts it on my to-do list*
- Everyone seems to have the same color canopies for freestyle. It’s very hard to tell who is who. No points awarded for personal style in canopy choice. Where is the neon?
- The mutant/reclined harnesses frighten me. I just don’t really know a lot about how it should be flown, but it just seems like they are so-so-so low when they’re rolling out. But virtue of the reclined harnesses being, well, reclined, to a spectator, it seems like their tailbones are just way more exposed and in danger. I don’t really like watching people swoop in those harnesses; it stresses me out.
- Even for a fair-weather sport, CP takes the cake as being even more fair weather than most. This shouldn’t surprise me but it did. Canopy piloting has more strict wind limits than most things which really can screw up a meet. A lot of time was spent waiting for clouds to clear or waiting for wind to settle down.
- Maybe I’d like to get into le swoops. I started doing 90s recently and it’s neat. I’m definitely driven by structure and competition is great for that. I also am drawn to parts of the sport with great women mentors. I got to talking to Jeannie and her passion for getting women into swooping is inspiring. Maybe I’ll try to work with her in the upcoming year. We’ll see how full my plate ends up being.
The whole atmosphere of CP Nationals strikes me as rather different than freefall Nationals. First, everyone seems way more familiar with one another. All the competitors know everyone else (mostly). Even though the number of participants is lower than freefall Nationals, I think that FLCPA probably can take credit for this. All the non-big name swoopers who might be in the lower two classes (Beginner and Intermediate, in FLCPA, I think?) (like the PD Factory Team or Alter Ego, the people that everyone has known for years) compete throughout the year at a handful of FLCPA events, so they know each other. Whereas, even though there’s always repeat faces in the freefall events, I have nowhere near the familiarity with most of the competitors at the FS and VFS events as the CP peeps do.
Second, the whole thing has way more camaraderie. Maybe this is because each person is a team of 1, because you don’t really have that primary team bond like you do in 4way that means you spend time bonding with all the other competitors? Maybe it’s because everyone competes right out in front of everyone else, so your successes and your failures are on display? I’m not sure. But it does feel different; it’s pretty neat.
Going into Freefall Nationals (Are we done yet?)
This year, the only 4way belly I participated in was as an unregistered alternate for Tummy Team. Whew, is it liberating to not be all caught up in the shuffle of 4way. It is far-and-away the biggest event at Nationals (even though, this year, only 48 teams showed up, compared to the 60+ teams of regular years). I’ll add some future thoughts to the “How Did It Look Like 4way Went” to my retrospective blog of freefall Nationals but I am not in the mood to write that right now.
8way
For now, we’re keeping it forward looking. Technically, today marks the first day of 8way competition. (and now, I’m finishing writing this after VFS wrapped.. I’m so delayed on writing. Believe it or not, the van isn’t an inspiring place to write and I can’t seem to focus if I try to work/write in the hangar or Eat Up.) Today, the clouds and storms chose to roll in and loiter over the DZ all day. We spent today on temporary releases, “hoping” a hold might clear. (There was little hope.) I’m super stoked for 8way! Elsinore Jambalaya (Aka “For the Glory!”) warms my heart; I can’t wait to skydive with a bunch of my friends from Elsinore. Yesterday, Patrick and I whipped a fun 2way as my tummy warm-up and I just love remembering why I do this. It’s fun to put on my power booties and twirl around. The engineering of 8way, the smooth dance when it goes well, the clunky traffic jams when the dive presents problems.. I love it. Twice the people, twice the fun. Where 4way rewards power and speed, 8way rewards engineering and calm. It’s more of a dance.
Well, I’ll break the news to you: My 8way team won Advanced Gold! I am pretty pleased! Honestly, I went into the whole thing really nervous. I am not joking with you when I say it’s been months since I’ve put on my booty suit. Maybe 5?? I haven’t done a proper belly jump in my booty suit for closer to 9 or 10 months probably? More? Uncurrent is my middle name (in belly). But, I benefitted from hyper-currency in freefly stuff with all my prep for the VWR Attempts. It didn’t quell my nerves though.
I flew outside-front which was a new position for me. The exits challenged me a bit; we put the Fun in Funnel a couple times. However, we really flew strong together. I am really proud to know that I’ve still got it; I am relieved to know that freeflying hasn’t made me worse at belly.
VFS
2022 marks the inaugural year of SDC Core-n (corn) Trails! It may also mark the last year of SDC Core-n Trails but it was fun while it lasted. Tracey Holman, Steve Huffman, Richo and I all threw together a pick-up team for VFS and floundered through the draw together. We had a few really good rounds! We had a few really challenging rounds. We had a lot of fun. Nick Nash flew our video and just crushed it. He actually films VFS on his feet from below which doesn’t seem like it should work, but he takes amazing video somehow.
This year might be the last one I do pick-up VFS. I really love it, but I just have come to realize how much I crave that feeling of improvement you get from a season of flying with the same people, the consistency and connection you get with them. That’s such a huge element of what I love about competition; I owe it to myself to work to find a team for next year. If not, I think I might save the registration money and skip pickup VFS.
MFS
MFS starts tomorrow! Tune into the scoring on InTime to watch Let’s Make Colin Watch in Advanced MFS. Richo and I are flying inside; Colin Conway is our camera pal. So far we’ve had one training camp: a dinner out to sushi (no training, per Richo’s rules). We’ll have our second training camp tonight: going out for pizza (again, no jumping).
Even though I love training, I’m actually all about pick-up MFS. I’ll probably dive into that later. Anyway, this post has been delayed long enough.
SO…
Happy Nationals y’all! Congrats to all my friends that medaled. I’m so proud of you! Good luck to everyone about to compete still! Big thanks to the hosting DZs: Skydive Midwest and SDC. More blogs to come…