And I’m in charge
Guess what! The Northern California Skydiving League is back and I’m going to be running it!
What is NCSL (Northern California Skydiving League)?
NCSL is the local chapter of the National Skydiving League, run by Kurt Gaebel. It’s the Cloud Games, before Cloud Games. It’s a remote skydiving competition for 4way belly, both indoor and outdoor, that runs all year long. Local events happen pretty regularly throughout the year and the scores are posted to the NSL website, so the participants can see how they rank against other teams across the country. Additionally, you’ll find all sorts of other interesting info there; Kurt keeps everyone up-to-date on the latest in 4way scores, team lineup changes, and gossip. (If you’re curious about NSL, check out their website: https://www.skyleague.com)
Specifically, NCSL was, for the longest time, a really, really well run chapter headed up by Lori Conner. She hosted a couple indoor events at iFly SF Bay and iFly in Sacramento every month, as well as several outdoor meets during the summer, rotating between dropzones. She herded cats and juggled schedules and coordinate the heck out of the NorCal league for years and years, but now, she’s passing that baton to me.
NCSL and Lori have played a massive role in the belly scene in NorCal. In fact, I credit Lori as being one of the big reasons I started flying 4way belly at all; I’d venture to say I’m not the only one, either. The NCSL did a great job at welcoming really rookie flyers into the fold through 3way and 4way events, creating a really low barrier to entry. She always did an excellent job setting people up for success, pairing newer people with coaches and easing them into the world of FS. She put a lot of effort into making the NCSL something super valuable for skydivers in the area and I hope to do the same.
If you’re interested, fill out my form here! I’m going to use this info to help me figure out who my target audience is and what they want, to make the events as successful as possible.
Google Form for NCSL: https://forms.gle/kGp9YLGhULu2gaSq7
So, What’s the Plan?
Well, I am kind of starting slow with this. I started writing this before I left for an MFS camp in Guatemala, where Michelle Hart and I coached los paracaidistas on some MFS (Expect a blog soon), thus I’ve been a little busy trying to get all the kinks worked out there, as well as trying to get a freefly team cemented for this season. So, the progress towards getting things lined up is pretty slow thus far. But!
Outdoor Meets
I would ideally like to hold 2-4: one at Skydance, one at Skydive Silicon Valley and two at Skydive California (my home DZ). Honestly, if I get two teams at each event, I’ll consider it a win, because I believe that giving 9 people (two 4way teams + camera, minus me because I’ll also be flying) a structured comp event would be a great start for a year! Honestly, more than 4 teams and I’ll feel a little overwhelmed.
This year, I anticipate single day events where we will probably aim for 5 or 6 jumps. If I get mostly experienced people, we’ll just have proper competitive teams. If we get a lot of newer people, perhaps I’ll aim for some player/coach style teams.
Either way, my struggle is always trying to figure out the pay structure. If it’s a player-coach event, are people willing to pay to cover the coach’s slot? The coach’s slot + camera? I think I may be starting out with the camera flyer covering their slot (unless the person has previous experience flying camera for a team or flies camera at the DZ for work, because I hate the idea of people paying for a camera slot for a new camera flyer but running the risk of the newer camera flyer missing a lot of points). The cost of the events is going to be just enough to cover the fees to NCSL + maybe covering coach/camera slots.
Either way, I’m most stoked about the outdoor events because I love a good, busy day at the DZ. I love the hustle and bustle of a comp day and the pressure that comes with focusing on a dive and doing your best. I can’t wait to give people an excuse to come out and spin around on our tums.
Indoor Meets
Oh boy. These are going to be a lot more of an ordeal. With all the requirements of the tunnels these days, this is going to be a headache. But I do really love tunnel events so I intend to try.
I have no idea what an expected schedule might look like or these eventually. I think I’m probably targeting June for the first event, and would LOVE to host them 1x a month, alternating between the tunnel near Sacramento and the tunnel near SF. But that all really remains to be seen after I gather interest and run the first event.
The first meet, I am for sure only going to allow people who have flow 4way in the tunnel before to attend. I’ll have to collect IBA #s, and make sure everyone is signed off, and that iFly isn’t going to do something incredibly annoying that will ruin the event. I fully expect them to set up some new, insane hoop that we/I will have to jump through last minute to run the event. But I’m willing to do it. For y’all. For 4way. For the love of the game.
Eventually, I will open these events up to people will less experience. I’ll probably have a “sign off” night, where anyone who wants to get signed off for 4way events can sign up, and we’ll have an instructor sign them off on all the skills they need. After that, the person will get put on my “Good to Go” list and will be welcomed with open arms into the NCSL tunnel events. Hopefully, organizing an event like this will remove some of the guesswork around determining if so-and-so is allowed to fly 4way at the tunnel, based on iFly’s standards.
Finally, there’s the really tricky question of how do we adhere to the NO OUTSIDE COACHING rules of iFly while also helping newer flyers to improve? I need to chat with some iFly folk to see if they have ideas, but this is my thinking. 1. I can’t refer to teams as player/coach. They shall be experienced/inexperienced teams. 2. Nothing we do at iFly will be coaching, it shall only be “team discussions about flying techniques” even if one teammate is doing most of the discussing, and another teammates is doing most of the listening. Perhaps we will be in the clear because there will be no money changing hands for advice being given? Idk. iFly’s rules are awful and I really wish it wasn’t such a headache to just fly in the tunnel. But is is. And here we are.
(If you are a person that works at iFly or with iFly very closely and have any advice or could perhaps grease the skids on scheduling/coordinating/etc etc, please hit me up.)