Category: Skydiving

It’s time for the 200way try out review! Even though it’s been two weeks, it’s better late than never.

How did it go?!

Well, it went. Surely, you’re all probably wondering if I got in invite. In fact, I did not. Nope, no invite to the 200way nor to Project 19. Honestly, looking at the golden ticket list on the website, very few people that were there in Eloy actually got invites. I’m assuming that most of those new names appearing there recently got invites at the event in SoCal in December or at the Sebastian event in November, because I didn’t see them in Eloy. I don’t feel bad knowing very few people got invites, because it’s not as if I am the only one missing out; lots of great flyers were there and they didn’t get the golden ticket yet.

How was the camp?

Awesome! I always like a good excuse to see people from all over the country. That aspect of skydive is so unique, having these friendships scattered all over, and getting to see each other at rad events. It builds my stoke for the upcoming events and is just one more reason I talk myself into stomaching the high costs of chasing bigways and records, because they sure do cost a pretty penny.

Despite the clouds, I had an amazing weekend. Saturday, we had intermittent clouds all day and we started jumping a few hours after our meet-up time. Instead of doing 15k passes with two planes, we aimed for several single plane formations from 13,500 (or whatever we could get). My group luckily made it to full altitude every jump but a couple other groups only got 9k. One load ended up just being a whole plane of hop and pops.

Sunday, the clouds vanished and we got 15k+ with both planes. Two plane shots are simply delightful. I love the sight picture, watching two airplanes just poop people into the sky. It’s a magic, watching the base shape out and the formation build. 40 people in the air is such fun. Some people dislike the spicy aspects of bigway like break-off and all those canopies in the sky, but I like it. I like keeping my head on a swivel. I can’t wait for the opportunity to do even bigger freefly jumps; bring on the 60ways! The world I came from (belly flying) has so many two and three plane events, like the Arizona Challenge and P3 events. In my discipline-switch, I was surprised by how infrequent these same type of events are in freeflying. I’m looking forward to these type of events becoming run-of-the mill, instead of a big ordeal, like a tryout or a elites-only type event.

How did I fly?

I’m pretty pleased! Overall, I was way less nervous than I expected to be. Even though it’s been months since I did any real big way practice, i managed to stave off my nerves pretty well (lots of mindful breathing).

The first day, I dove from near the back of the plane, docking as a bridgeline-whacker-boogery person. Our pod didn’t build so I just waited mostly, trying to calm all the wiggles out of my legs and the spasms out of my arms. Honestly, I didn’t mind not docking. I was relieved, not worrying about actually touching anything. After diving a little slow on one of the jumps, I resolved to diving much faster the next dive. On the following dive, I tried so hard. The wind was SO loud and I was going SO FAST. Only, I just realized I forgot my earplugs and probably wasn’t diving any faster. Oopsies.

The second day, my position in the formation was a similar slot but approaching from a skyvan float. I sat right by the door: Holy Icicles Batman. Anyway, that slot made for a fun approach despite the fact that my skyvan exit isn’t great. And I touched the formation! Several times! On every load I was allowed to (the first jump, only the base and the first stingers were allowed to dock). I even got a compliment after the camp for flying with quiet legs. Truly, a reward all in itself, although an invite would have been better. On the last jump of the day, I got to sub in as 2nd stinger for the pod which was a huge improvement because I sat 2 people away from the door and didn’t freeze my teeth out for one plane ride at least.

What’s my plan?

Keep on keeping on. My mental game desperately needs a tune up. I’ve mostly stopped meditating and have not been diligent about regularly visualizing. It certainly shows. My brain is mushy. When I try to visualize, my mind can’t focus as well. I don’t see the mental pictures as clearly. When I try to do my mindful breathing in the plane, trying to find that midpoint between calm and amped, I get distracted by thinking. I gotta sharpen my skills up again!

Goals: 1) Visualize every day in Feb 2) Meditate 5 minutes a day 3) Keep on going to events
I’ll see y’all in Sebastian in February, at Eloy in March, and Houston in April

It’s almost here! In just two days, I’ll be at the Vertical World Record tryout in Eloy! As I write this, I realized it’s somewhat baffling that I’m here at all. I didn’t intend to be doing this. But things led to other things and here I am, I guess. Until now, the VWR didn’t occupy any of my mental bandwidth. As a belly flyer, I always assumed that the world records were somewhat done, that I came along too late to be a part of any records. However, I have stumbled my way into freeflying and, as the goal-oriented (or am I goal-obsessed) person that I am, the thrill of the chase drew me in. Initially, Project 19 presented itself as an attainable goal. But now, with the P19 slots looking rather full, I thought, “Well, why not the VWR?”

What am I feeling?

Feelings! Busy buzzing feelings cluttering up my head. All these thoughts (that will probably only serve to be distracting this weekend) zip about in my brain, so it seems like an apt time for a blog, to let me brain-dump a little about it.

Nervous & Excited

I started to imagine how I would feel on the ground the morning of our first day. I anticipate feeling anxious, feeling pressure to do well, feeling nervous. Usually, my nervousness is actually visible in the sheer number of Checks of 3’s that I do on the airplane. If I’m stressin’, I can’t help myself; my fingers repeatedly dance over friction adapters on my leg straps, then on my chest strap, then to my handles, then down my three rings.

Pressure, but a Self-Created Pressure

No one has any expectations of me. No one else has a horse in this race. Honestly, I barely have a horse in this race. Because what are the consequences of not getting an invite this event? Nothing. Nothing but good can come out of this weekend. 1) I will get more current 2) I will get more experience with more planes (currently, the most I’ve done is a 2 plane shot for freefly jumps) and I think this weekend will be 3 planes. 3) I will get a better idea of what I need to work on. Fingers crossed, I’ll get some good feedback from the organizers. Either way, I’ll definitely be able to debrief myself and have a better idea of what I should be doing to improve.

But it’s good that I already know this. It’s good to be thinking about it. I’ve already developed tools for focus, and for nerves, and things. I just gotta open up that toolkit.

So How Prepared Am I?

On the scale of Super-Duper Prepared to Woefully Unprepared, I’m somewhere in the middle.

How have I prepared?

Last summer, I did all the big way camps I could In the last 12 months, I’ve probably done 6 or 5 big-ish way camps, which means I’ve gotten to see a lot of the slots (1st stinger, 2nd stinger, right hand, left hand, podcloser, floater & diver).

Last weekend, a couple peeps and I did our best to practice floating approaches with only 4 people. So there’s that I guess.

How am I unprepared?

My last month, between the holidays, a snowboarding trip, and covid, I didn’t jump as much as I normally like to. I wish I’d been at the dropzone more, because currency assuages my nerves.

I haven’t been visualizing as much as I would like. I’m planning on visualizing every day from now until the February camp. (Hopefully, I’ll be able to see a measurable improvement in my skydiving just by visualizing.)

What are my expectations?

Because I’m solidly in the middle of the preparedness gamut, I crucially need to set my expectations appropriately. The more appropriate my expectations, the more likely I am to feel comfortable in the moment, which (I believe) will help me fly better at the try-outs. To clarify, if I set my expectations wrong, I’ll spend my day worrying about whether I’ll meet them, instead of focusing on flying well. I’m not expecting to get an invite to the VWR at this camp. Instead, since this is my first experience at a big way try-out camp, I’m expecting to just get my feet underneath me. So, with that weight off my back, I can just relax and do my best flying.

What are my goals?

Fly my best, focusing on flying quiet, clean, and quickly as I can
Get a feeling for the organizers of the event, how they operate, how they run things
Get some feedback about my flying and identify what I need to be working on
See some friends! Do some skydives!

Why don’t we give women as much feedback in skydiving?

I have witnessed so many instances where women receive far less feedback than men, including while on teams, at Project 19 events and at events.

On a number of my teams, I received far less feedback than then men on my team. But, in honesty, I was flying stronger than those men. In a team setting, I didn’t think to question that I was getting less input. The team needs to improve as a whole, so I was fine with the team getting less personal feedback for the sake of the team. It never crossed my mind to think twice about it.

However, after noticing this trend related to feedback and women in skydiving, I brought it up to a friend who coaches 4way. She’s a very talented, motivated skydiver with a lot of accomplishments in the sport. I would call her an ally for women in the sport. However, after some thought, she told me she was guilty of doing the same thing: giving more feedback to the two men on the 4way team, than to the two women. But after realizing it, she also couldn’t exactly put her finger on why she did that.

Lately, I was even thinking back to when I’ve load organized. I tend to give a lot of feedback to men. But, those men also tended to fudge up my skydives egregiously, so I justified my ratio of feedback based on that. The women were doing well. “You’re doing great. Keep refining things” is short feedback. Explaining “Well you really goofed that skydive and here’s why you shouldn’t and here’s how you should avoid that” is a much longer discussion.

So should we extrapolate my experience and assume that women aren’t goofing the skydives overall? It’s possible they aren’t goofing it egregiously; after watching a lot of women fly, they tend to fly less aggressively, less all-power-no-finesse. So maybe when they goof, it’s not as loud. Or is it that we’re scared to hurt their feelings if they do a Very Large Goof? Or do we assume they already know how to avoid the goof in the future and we don’t bother to validate that assumption?

I confess that, at times, I’ve been really frustrated with feedback, especially when I cognitively know what I need to do, but my body hasn’t figured out how to do that yet, when I still don’t know what “right” feels like. I will fume, mostly directing my anger at my flappy limbs that refuse to execute the skydive correctly. Maybe that fuming looks like pouting, like I’m taking the feedback poorly, causing people to stop giving me feedback. I’ve also taken feedback really poorly when I’m already high-strung for other reasons. If I feel unqualified to be on a team, or a skydive, I feel self-conscious, as if I’m the worst person in the room and that I don’t belong there. When I end up in this state, I receive feedback and criticism, even constructive criticism, poorly. Maybe we don’t give feedback because we worry that women will gush tears and cry, and crying scares us?

I’ve even noticed that men get more feedback at co-ed Project 19 events. In fact, I’ve taken tallies during debriefs at events, to make sure it wasn’t must my bias talking, making assumptions. The feedback per debrief hovered near 50/50: 50% to women, 50% to men. That seems alright, however, there were approximately 3 dudes and 20 ladies. This phenomenon has happened at most of the events I’ve been to, and most organizers do it, both male and female organizers. I’ve noticed that organizers seem to be comfortable giving feedback to men in a joking, light-hearted manner. Maybe, somewhere deep down, we’re worried women can’t take a joke? I just don’t know.

I can’t help but wonder why we do this? Why do we give more feedback to men? What implicit bias do we have that we do so? Do we even realize? If we start forcing ourselves to notice this, how do we fix it?

I don’t really have any answers. I mostly just have more questions. For me though, I’m trying to take what I’ve noticed to heart in my coaching and load organizing in the future.