someone please explain this to me...

[yim666 0]

i'm a freeflyer and the last time i did a belly jump was on my a license check dive. i have nothing against bellyflying, it's just that i prefer the vertical environment. well, this weekend i was at a dz out of town and got involved in a conversation with two old time bellyflyers who went on and on about how freeflying was ruining the sport. unfortunately, i was pretty enebriated and i can't remember their reasoning behind this belief. this one guy in particular was extremely belligerent and told me that i was "fu__ing stupid" doing freeflying because i only have 250 jumps and that it was completely unsafe for me as well as my jumping buddies. according to him i'm also "fu__ing stupid" for jumping with lower number jumpers, saying that i have nothing to teach anyone because i don't have thousands of belly jumps like him.
now, if his beliefs are accurate, then does crew "ruin the sport"? what about freestyle or skysurfing? why does it matter to anyone whether i want to sit fly or belly fly? i can appreciate the danger of corking etc but this whole sport is dangerous. someone please explain the reasoning here, because i'm baffeled.

don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things

[SBS 0]

There's no reason...they just don't get it...

:)

-S

_____________
I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

[PhreeZone 20]

I'm starting to think that while the vertical environment it really cool to play with, there is'nt enough belly flying going on with lower jump people. I was the worst case of this there was.. started freeflying at 50 jumps and have 325 plus since then. I started to belly fly again and saw that people with only 75 jumps were able to fly way better then I could. That bugged me a lot. Taking low jump people out freeflying is dangerous. the control factor and awareness just is'nt there yet.

Its not that freeflying is ruining the sport.. the attitudes associated with it cause a lot of hostility in a lot of places. Just look at the exit order situation... Freefliers are tired of landing off so they want our first, bellyfliers should go first... conflict now happens. Also the whole sterotyping... bellyflyers are old fashioned... Freefliers are hot shots that fly small canopies... that could'nt be further from the truth most of the time, but because I've seen people like that I understand how people could dislike one type of flying or the other.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[pop 0]

Here is my thing on it. I beleive we should preach unity in the sport. We are all skydivers and should treat each other as that. If someone is calling you stupid because you use more complicated body positions in the air, well then they are not so smart themselves. We all should respect each others disciplines, and even try them ourselves. Those who are ignorant, let them be so. They are not gaining anything by being the way they are. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Let's give each other the respect they deserve, and quit this stupid segregation of very rare people (skydivers).

7 ounce wonders, music and dogs that are not into beer

[yim666 0]

dude, that answer freaking rocks.

don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things

[SBS 0]

I started to belly fly again and saw that people with only 75 jumps were able to fly way better then I could.

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Of course they did better than you could, they were practicing belly flying, you were practicing freeflying. You have to choose one or the other, you can't expect to be great at both if you don't practice, both. I would say, though, that you are more likely to develope belly flying skills while freeflying, than you are to develope freeflying skills while belly flying.

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Taking low jump people out freeflying is dangerous.

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I would be curious as to how many accidents can be attributed directly to people with low jump numbers freeflying. I, personally, think that it would be a lot less than is speculated by people who are not pro-freeflying.

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the attitudes associated with it cause a lot of hostility in a lot of places.

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This isn't necessarily a freeflying attitude, it's the attitude of a newer generation in everything that we do...we are driving faster cars, we are snowboarding more instead of skiing, we are doing a lot of things differently that the more "traditional" people look at as "ruining" their chosen passtime.

I think there could be more understanding on both sides to make it easier for one side to live peacefully next to the other.

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Freefliers are hot shots that fly small canopies...

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There are also belly fliers that fly small canopies before they are ready as well...unfortunately, they are not scrutinized quite as much as the freeflier who does that, because the freeflier is already behind the powercurve, and is considered more "care-free" and dangerous.

I just wish that people could see more that we all love this sport, and there is no need for one method of flight to dominate another...can't we all just get along??? :)

-S

_____________
I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

[yim666 0]

i would truly love a bellyflyer who actually believes this way to chime in.

don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things

[scottbre 0]

Hey everybody! I do both. I'm not terribly good at either.

In favor of belly flying: It feels pretty cool to be able to just slide right into your slot

In favor of freeflying: It feels pretty cool to be in a vertical position


Look at it this way: we've all gotta be a little crazy. It's not like the "old timers" in the sport are only sort of jumping out of an airplane.

"Your mother's full of stupidjuice!"
My Art Project

[riggerrob 643]

Maybe the guy likes doing big ways and you are distracting young jumpers from joining him on big ways.
Remember that some people have life all figured out by age 20 and are upset by changes.
Most skydivers are more flexible than that. For example, I had 300 jumps before tandem was invented and now I make my living as a tandem instructor.

[Albatross 0]

O.K. I am a belly flier. I am a 4-way belly flier.I love flying in the tunnel, in competition, at Airspeed camps, what ever I love doing 4-way.
Hoever, I also like to Freefly. Granted I have like 10 freefly jumps (I can hold my sit, rotate, and change fall rate) but it is fun. The major difference is the way that we prepare. Hold on because i am going to get high brow. It is ike the impressionist vs the Neo-classical. One has hard and fast rule it is sharp and strong like a cathedral. The other is lose and fuzzy the feel is what is important. the lines blend it is about expression and feeling not rules.
Is one better NO they are the same coin just different sides. Understand that we are best wehn we can take from it all.

Chris

[Viking 0]

Quote

Just look at the exit order situation... Freefliers are tired of landing off so they want our first, bellyfliers should go first... conflict now happens.

ummmmmm i understood it as a safty issue. Freeflyers Fall alot faster that belly flyers so they get out first. If they got out last theres just to much of a chance of somebody in a headdown wizzing past a 10-way or somthing.

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[Jessica 0]

Viking, read this:

www.skydiveaz.com/Exit_Order.htm

Skydiving is for cool people only

[JohnnyD 0]

>ummmmmm i understood it as a safty issue. Freeflyers Fall alot faster that belly flyers so they get out first. If they got out last theres just to much of a chance of somebody in a headdown wizzing past a 10-way or somthing.

Exit order at our dz is dependent on wind direction. Jump run goes east to west. If winds are out of the west, belly flyers first. If winds are out of the east, freeflyers out first. The logic on the easterly winds being that freeflyers will not drift as much as belly flyers back into the jump run. Works very good.

[Samurai136 0]

I have no deep political opinions on RW vs. freeflyin'
I got into the sport because RW looked like the coolest thing to me. CRW and canopy swooping, the 2nd coolest thing, In my meager opinion.

However I have heard experienced RW skydivers that have 10-40 years in the sport say that Freeflying is gonna kill the sport. Here's why.

Where will skydiving be 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now? Will there be enough people skilled in the sport to make RW record attempts? probably not. If a 300-way RW record is not set in the next 5-10 years it will probably never happen. It is their opinion that the over all pool of skilled RW skydivers is continuously diminishing and not being replentished w/ new jumpers.


I don't know what the biggest FF formation is, But I doubt it will ever be 100-way, 200-way, or 300-way. Could you imagine trying to organize the top 100-300 FFlyers to turn points in a head down?

20 yrs from now, How many people will stick with the sport if you have to be a free-flyer, which is a harder skill to learn and there are few to none RW jumpers to learn from?


I think the experienced RW skydivers see a future where skydiving consists of ONLY tandems, freeflyers, swoopers, and RW will be "that thing I had to for the first 10-20 jumps". This thought makes them very disappointed in the future of skydiving.


I don't know if all experiencecd RW skydivers think this but I know many who do. Personally, I think in 40 or 50 years everyone will be goofing on Zero-gravity sports and the "Space Games" will mean something totally different.


Ken

"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken

[CanuckInUSA 0]

I honestly don't know where this sport will take me (what with myself being a novice skydiver). I do want to learn some RW, but I can't wait for the day when I can do some head down freeflying with someone else tossing a ball back and forth. That just looks way too cool.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[skreamer 1]

Yeah, must say I have to agree with Eric. A lot of the bad attitude does come from freeflyers. Thing is, with flatflyers it is really easy to gauge skill levels (level of competition competing at, points turned etc.), with freeflying there seem to be a lot of people who have the 'image is everything, skill means nothing' mentality. My freeflying is not that good (yet!), but even I can edit good bits from all my videos, stick them all together and dub a Limp Bizkit choon over the top. The result might make it look like I am good, but obviously I am not.

Hell, I used to think Stylies were friggin ridiculous and looked like poncy ballerinas, then I found out that Omar, Olav, Rook Nelson and other top freeflyers were all really top at Freestyle at some stage. Made me look at that discipline in a whole new way.

Bottom line : I want to be able to jump with my friends and enjoy myself no matter what we are doing. If that is freeflying, RW, CReW, wingsuits, whatever, one day I'd like to be able to do them all (to varying degrees of proficiency of course). Anybody who only does one discipline and then looks down their noses at other disciplines is a fucking idiot.

Will

[Marz 0]

Someone brought up the snowboarding analogy... I think that's kinda the way I see it... It's also how I explain Freeflying to a whuffo (the difference between skiing and snowboarding)

I started freeflying at 50 jumps, and honestly think I couldn't keep up with many belly flyers on a formation. I saw Airspeed doing some sick 4-way stuff and I gotta say that it made flat flying look awefully fun!!!! I totally respect that, and I think that RW skills are VERY important to VRW. Which is why I'm gonna get some belly coaching. I don't want to do 200 belly jumps, but I think a good base is RW would help me.

Let's face it, most of the best freeflyers were flat flyers first, and have thousands of belly jumps - Olav, Fradet, all of them. I'm sure the experience came in handy when they switched and developped other disciplines. I went to the Canadadian freefly festival this year, and a guy was talking about "flying your slot". Unless you've RW'ed a little, that don't mean that much... and I think it's a skill much better mastered when corking into someones face isn't an issue...

All that to say that yes, I freefly, and it's what I love, but I think the skills of our predecssors should not be ignored.

I went back on pair of skis last year after 14 years and I loved it. Although I'm still a snowboarder...

If someone gets my point, please explain it to me? LOL. I'm lost.

_________________________________________
Did I just kill another thread?

[cbain 0]

Quote

I started to belly fly again and saw that people with only 75 jumps were able to fly way better then I could.

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Of course they did better than you could, they were practicing belly flying, you were practicing freeflying. You have to choose one or the other, you can't expect to be great at both if you don't practice, both. I would say, though, that you are more likely to develope belly flying skills while freeflying, than you are to develope freeflying skills while belly flying.

I do RW and freefly

In my meager 170 jump experience I've found that even when I haven't done RW for 30+ jumps because I've been working on my freeflying then I do an RW jump my RW skills have gotten better even though I've only been freeflying. Just an observation.

I've also noticed that more people are like me, learning both RW and freeflying. I personally don't see freeflying taking over RW but as things advance that the lines between RW and freeflying starting to blur. Maybe it won't be a 100, 200 or 300 way head down record but what we think of as a hybrid. Everybody just flying. We already have so much control over fall rates that bellyflying and freeflying fall rates overlap and as people keep pushing the envelope that range of rates is going to keep getting bigger. Instead of asking whether a group is RW or freeflying, they'll ask what's your fallrate going to be for exit order. Just an opinion.

Christina

[goose491 0]

My first sit jump was around number 30... There's a lot of people that may frown upon that but you know what? Screw it, sit is what I wanted to do! I can be stable on my belly, I can fly to you, away from you and I can work levels so I'm not crying if I'm not flatflying at competition level because I am SAFE on my belly and that's good enough for me.

I hear a lot of people saying it's dangerous to learn any FF in the early jump numbers (corking etc.) but on my first jump I was told that in freefall, if I Arch, I WILL end up belly to earth. Well, If I bring my knees up to my chest, and my arms out and up... I WILL end up in a primitive (and relatively fast) sit. If this body position was the first one you learned, and mentally practiced going to this position when unstable... what's the problem?... Other than having to go flat to pull? Frankly, I just don't see the HUGE danger factor in bringing a low-number jumper into the dark side if they can do this, and you are sure they wont brain lock on you. My buddy had faith in me and took me for a sit, I could not thank him enough

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[quade 4]

It's all a big wheel.

Take a peek at United We Fall the first real book about RW and you'll see that way back in the 70s the folks that were doing the "real" skydiving were people shooting accuracy and doing style. They were complaining about the folks that were doing RW as being too out there and ruining the sport.

Back then if you got 10 folks in the air and made a simple round it was a big deal. Today, if you get 10 freeflyers together and they all take grips it's a big deal too! Today it's possible to put nearly 300 people in an RW formation and have it fly. Who's to say what could be done by the freeflyers 30 years from now?

It's all a big wheel.

The reality is that we're all a part of something much larger that continues to grow and evolve. Something larger than could or should ever be classified by a single label other than the simple term "skydiving".

It's all good. If some people don't get that, then maybe they are ruining the sport.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[wildblue 7]

Quote

I don't know what the biggest FF formation is, But I doubt it will ever be 100-way, 200-way, or 300-way. Could you imagine trying to organize the top 100-300 FFlyers to turn points in a head down?

Yeah, and people used to think you'd never be able to get 2 people together in the air, let alone 200.

We're not doing anything new people - history is just repeating itself in a different orientation. Baggy suits with no grippers to less-baggy suits with grippers. Is that the history of RW or FF? Anyone? Anyone?

Now go stand on your head while I pass you this baton. No really, it'll work, it'll be cool.

I don't understand the division either. It makes no sense. I think for the most part there really isn't one, it's the minority (from both sides) that create it. We're all there for the same reason, get off the "My discipline is better than yours" kick and go jump.

it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

[wildblue 7]

that's ok... I'll be the unintentional echo today

it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

[amy 0]

>well, this weekend i was at a dz out of town and
>got involved in a conversation with two old time >bellyflyers who went on and on about how freeflying was
>ruining the sport. [...]
>this one guy in particular was extremely belligerent and >told me that i was "fu__ing stupid" doing
>freeflying because i only have 250 jumps and that it was >completely unsafe [...]
>now, if his beliefs are accurate, then does crew "ruin the >sport"? what about freestyle or skysurfing? why
>does it matter to anyone whether i want to sit fly or belly >fly?[...]
>but this whole sport is dangerous. someone please explain >the reasoning here, because i'm baffled.

Yim, I think you have to understand the change that these guys have seen in the sport in the last 10 years. Some of it has happened because of freeflying, but a lot of it has happened for other reasons.

CYPRES turned 10 years old last year, and the first ZP canopies were sold around the same time. Prior to CYPRES, an AAD was something that was recommended for students, but very few experienced jumpers used them. It seems like anyone who made more than a few jumps with an FXC (the most common AAD 10 years ago) had a story about the thing firing at 7 or 8 thousand feet, or worse, right after exit or at pull time. Not because they were pulling low, but because AAD technology wasn't well-enough developed. AADs at that time were something that had a very small chance of saving your life, but seemed to be much more likely to kill you with a misfire.

Reliable audible altimeters are also a relatively recent development. Does anyone still use the old Dytter? The one with the gold dics that you turned to set it, and the little nubs that were supposed to represent 1,000 foot increments? That was state-of-the-art as recently as 5 years ago, and before that your only option was the Paralert (if you don't jump at a DZ with some of us old farts, you may not have even seen one of those. It was about the size of an alti-III and attached to the back of your helmet).

The reason all of that history is important (or rather, why it's important to understand that all of this high-tech stuff is relatively new) is because there are a lot of skydivers (and most of us are belly-fliers) who learned to skydive when the only things we could rely on to maintain altitude awareness were our altimeters (which are subject to failure, although it happens rarely) and our eyes. And in the absence of a reliable AAD, losing altitude awareness more than likely meant death.

A lot of other things have changed since then. More and more people get into the sport through tandem and AFF, and that's a completely different experience from a static line progression. Climbing out onto the step your first freefall in a static line course is a very lonely experience, and if you didn't believe you could pull for yourself you didn't do it. There are people who started out in the sport that way who feel like tandem and AFF students have a safety net that we didn't, that students these days figure if they don't pull then the jumpmaster will do it for them, and nothing bad can happen

And it's probably true that there are people in the sport now who never would have made it through a static line progression, because they never would have been able to take that leap without the safety net. You can either say "Wow, how coool that we can reach more people with this awesome sport," or you can see that change and think that skydivers as a population are becoming less self-reliant and more dependent on technology. I'll never say that anyone's ruining the sport, but it does make me a little sad that there are a lot of us who never landed after their first freefall, having done it all alone. It's an amazing feeling.

And then there's the issue of freeflying, of course. It's strange for those of us who "grew up in the old days" to hear that freefly coaches tell their students "never look at the ground," and that a lot of freeflyers only wear audible altimeters. No altimeter, and you're not supposed to look at the ground? What's your back-up system? Some people wear two audibles, but there also seem to be a lot of freeflyers whose only back-up is their CYPRES (I don't know what the norm is in freeflying, so please don't flame me for being misinformed. But realize that whether it's true or not, that's the perception of a lot of old-time belly flyers). If you come from a generation that valued self-reliance, and if you have an innate distrust of AADs, then relying on an audible and an AAD to save your life when you can't see the ground just seems. . . well. . . it's just unimaginable to a lot of us.

Please don't think I'm saying that freeflying is wrong, or is ruining the sport, or anything else. Some of my best friends are freeflyers. It's just that there's an attitude among newer skydivers that a lot of us don't understand, and unfortunately freeflying seems to bear the brunt of that misunderstanding and "generation gap." I'm not saying you have to agree with those guys, but just realize where they are coming from.

Amy

[goose491 0]

Quote

It's all a big wheel.
...
It's all good. If some people don't get that, then maybe they are ruining the sport.

All too true, I've never had anyone put me down for not wanting to do more RW but then again, I will never do the opposite... We all jump out of planes right? right!

There is a lot of teasing between disciplins and that is both fun and necessary for a healthy relationship between them. I do beleive some people take it out of context though.

There's a whole thread around about closing pin necklaces... Could you ever imagine this: some stranger approaches you, pointing at your neck, and says:"Hey man, you a skydiver?" And you say:"Yeah, I'm on team X...(or something that gives away your preferred discipline) and He/she says:"Oh, you're one of those eh?" and loses interest with a snear??? I didn't think so.

It is my beleif that deep down, with a rig on your back and a little respect and safety, you will be accepted among skydivers.

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[yim666 0]

excellent explanation. thanks. i think you're exactly right.

don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things