I did Nationals! Man, I’m glad to be done. Whew. For an event that I tend to love, this year felt like… A slog? Yeah. A slog.
I love competition. This year didn’t exactly pan out how I thought: some things sparked joy! Some things left me a bit forlorn?
I really, really loved a few things about Nationals this year. I did MFS and VFS for the first time; now I’m obsessed. While I’m always shooting for podium finishes and we didn’t quit hit that, (solidly last in VFS, and mid-pack in MFS), I’d call it a success. It’s like the first year I flew 4way belly at a Nationals; despite the teams essentially being pickup teams, I got the bug for new disciplines.
MFS
For MFS, Richõ and I flew inside, trying our very best to hide all the grips from our camera flyer Hiley. Hiley crushed our dreams of getting donuts across the board, flying super excellent. His flying was especially impressive, considering that he doubled his jumps for the year on our warm-up day going from 7 jumps in 2021 to 14. Plus, this was his first Nationals! I love the excitement of a First Nationals; sharing the electric experience of oodles of competitive skydivers all at one DZ gets me giddy. I love competition and I relish the opportunity to get other skydivers addicted to Nationals and teams.
MFS really reinforced my attitudes about clean flying: It’s important, sometimes the difference between winning and losing. I generally aim for zero busts in competition. Some people find that attitude to be hard-nosed and unforgiving but I really, really value clean flying. However, for MFS, I had to reset my expectations. After one of the rounds, we got super psyched when we saw we got a seven as our score (our best score up to that point!), only to realize on watching our video that we also busted seven points. Whatever. This many busts seems fitting, considering one name we considered was All Power, No Finesse. But next year, I’m going to aim for a less than 50% bust rate in MFS. Shoot for the moon.
MFS might be the most fun discipline I’ve flown. The quirky transitions, like slamming vertical mixed accordions down to flat, are so fun. You can get creative and weird with it; it’s so much less prescriptive than the belly flying training I’ve done. I love that. Because it’s only two inside flyers, I’m realizing the personal dynamics are even more important than 4way. I’ve flown a couple days of MFS with someone that I don’t gel with and the results approximately equal screwing up a baking a delicious cake: It should be something that everyone enjoys, but it’s actually terrible. I have a lot more respect for the disciplines that involve only 2 inside flyers instead of 4 inside flyers now.
VFS
VFS might be my favorite discipline now. It rewards measured, precise flying like 4way FS but is so much more challenging. Maybe I like it so much because it holds so much challenge for me. My transitions are floaty and my sit fly is slow. Hiley, Richõ and I grabbed Yanni, who flew camera for my tummy team, to make up the inside flyers and Wade Baird flew camera. (Richô would like you to know that he asked every person with a pulse to fly camera. And their dog)
VFS was incredibly fun. Since we were a pick-up team, there was no expectation to fly that well. We launched a G (mixed round) when the first point was an 11, just for funzies. We picked who got to do the fun bits of skydives (like the head up slot of the C, shoeshine or the solo flyer on the 1, arrowhead) based on who wanted to, not which slot conventionally flew that. It was fun to be unconstrained by “this is how we do it”; if I get more serious about VFS, I’ll buy into the dogma of doing things the right way. But it’s fun to just cobble it together too.
Another major perk of Nationals: Yanni and I were cross partners! Until this point, I’ve only flown with him as my camera flyer for 4way which is a really different relationship. Only recently have I tried to describe the relationship between 4way FS teams and camera flyers and I did a poor job at it. But trying to describe it caused me to appreciate how different flying inside with someone is. Anyway, Yanni starred in one of my favorite skydiving moments of Nationals: Hiley, flying center, slid backwards and Richò started chasing him. The whole VFS jump took on the personality of an angle and Yanni and I looked at each other, more and more confused. But before we could really get moving on our VFS angle, Yanni reach out and stiff-armed Richo. Our 35 seconds of working time ends perfectly with a freeze frame of it.
What happened to my VFS team, The Flying V? It didn’t pan out. Someone once made the comparison that skydiving teams function more like bands than like “sports teams”. That comparison seems appropriate here. Anyway, one member had to step out for work reasons (an understandable bummer). Which left us 3 to decide whether we should fly at Nationals as a pickup team, find someone to train with for a couple camps, or to just not fly at Nationals at all. The other two had heavily invested in MFS training this season and weren’t sure whether they wanted the distraction of a pick-up VFS team. How do you juggle priorities and time/money constraints? How do you have tricky conversations about that? I don’t have good answers. Believe it or not, sometimes I’m bad at voicing my needs and wants, so instead of pushing for a decision, I waited to hear what they were thinking for a couple months. I really wanted to fly VFS at Nationals, no matter what, and I should have said that from the outset. As Nationals crept up and registration day was just a few days away, I reverted to action and got on a pick-up team instead. I really wish The Flying V had gotten to fly together because we had such a fun time training together, but Nationals happens.
I think my take away is simply to just be comfortable asking for what I want: In this case, just asking for a decision within a certain time frame instead of being discontent in waiting.
4Way FS
Kombucha Punch, named after the black eye I had at our first team meeting, flew ten rounds and did our very best to have fun. I spent a lot of time hemming and hawing about 4way this year. I honestly felt like I’d spread myself too thin, trying to 4way FS, VFS, and Project 19 events. I kept feeling like I wasn’t giving my all to anything, and thus, flying poorly at everything. True or not, that’s an awful feeling. We aimed to have 100ish jumps by the end of this season but got closer to 80. Frankly, it’s mentally difficult for me to come to Nationals feeling under-trained and unprepared. I didn’t bring my very best, and I hate that. That’s exactly how I felt this year. At our last camp, our exits rolled over and died on us. The timing of the count seemed off. Indeed, the heartbeat of the team seemed weak and erratic. I realized that I don’t actually really like flying tail very much either. Quite honestly, I hate 10s and suck at them. But I love flying the back piece of the 8 and the 22. Long story short, I had fun but my personal 4way performance left me a little dismayed. I think I am going to take a break from 4way for a year or two to let my thoughts about what I want coagulate. (Unless someone some baby player-coach team needs a coach. That sounds fun.) Maybe I’ll do a pick-up 8way team or a slightly-trained 8way team next year, because 8way is my real, true love.
Welp, there it is. Nationals. Over and done. After having a really quiet 2020, getting back into the 2021 groove of teams and training drained me more than I expected. My stamina for travel and training is much diminished and I’m building it back up. In the mean time, lots of other excitements are happening! I’m going to the Women’s CA Vertical Sequential record next weekend, getting canopy coaching, going to try a CRW camp. I’m looking to go to 200way & P19 try-outs in Eloy and Sebastian probably. Hoping to keep paragliding and use my snowboard pass some this winter too.
ALSO: MY GO-FAST HOOLIGAN BOYFRIEND BROKE SOME RECORDS AT CP NATIONALS AND FLCPA. He also is very charming. Can you tell he noticed my omission of canopy nationals in the first draft?