question for instructors

[PhreeZone 20]

>To you, I would be overweight. To my JMs, I was no issue.

To a Tandem Master that is'nt the smallest themself, there is a possibility of overloading the gear. AggieDave is a big guy and there is no way he could take you since combined you would be well over the gear limits.

On a tandem if its clear someone can't lift their feet and its a low wind day I'd fight with manifest not to take them.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Michele 1]

Phree, at no point did I say that someone shouldn't take if there is a danger of overloading. As a matter of fact, I mentioned that in the post you're responding to.

But base it on more than an ability to do a pull-up, please...that's all.

Further...there's this really cool guy I know. He can't walk up stairs, and he can't do a pull up. His name is Rebel, and his tandem changed his life. Remember him, Phree?

Here's a far better link. The vid is included....Rebel with A Dream

So, Ron, or CoconutMonkey, tell me again. Pull ups are important? Walking up the stairs is important for a tandem??? No, making it into the sky is important...

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[PhreeZone 20]

>Rebel, and his tandem changed his life

And extremely special considerations are needed in cases where disabilities are concerned. Jumping only on days with enough wind to stop forward motion completely is one thing that can be done, only jumping with TM's with 1000's of tandems also helps.

Pull up helps, but the ability to have enough stomach muscles for a crunch/sit up is more important for a tandem. Large people sometimes have to help in the flaring on tandems, this is where having enough arm strength to do a pull up is needed. I can't think of a faster test to see if someone can flare then a chin up.

Until you are an instructor and have some one elses safety 100% in your hands its easy to say nothing is important... Once you get that responcibility suddenly you start questioning everything to make it as safe for you and them as possible.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Michele 1]

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Until you are an instructor and have some one elses safety 100% in your hands its easy to say nothing is important... Once you get that responcibility suddenly you start questioning everything to make it as safe for you and them as possible.

I agree. But I also think saying something along the lines of if you're unable to do a pull-up, you are arbitrarily dismissed from tandem jumps is patently ridiculous and is similar to saying "I don't jump with blond people because their hair is too fine, and gets up my nose...."

So, in your opinion, only in special circumstances should someone be allowed to go on a tandem when they can't do a pull up?

Phree, I gotta say. I graduated a police academy some 10 years ago. For the life of me - the literal life of me - I could NOT do a pull up. I could haul a guy who outwieghed me by 80+ pounds (lift him and carry him), wrestle and win (cuff) a 6'2" DI with a bastardly attitude (he bit me during crit. scenarios...), fly over a 6 foot brick wall, run miles in good time. I did 120 full sit-ups (not crunchies) in 120 seconds, and did more than 40 pushups - one footed, btw - and could never ever manage even one damned pull-up. Even when they told me I'd fail the entire academy, I couldn't do one. (And that was just to see if panic would help. Sadly, I still just hung there, halfway up. I still graduated top of my class, thank you very much...).

That's why I have an issue. Arbitrary comments like "or a pull up" will limit someone like me, if I chose to believe it was important. It is important, perhaps, but not a reason to exclude someone from doing a tandem.

Make it a real reason. Not some arbitrary aspect from someone's opinion that really has NOTHING to do with safety.

And I maintain that with the amount of people who do tandems who are 90, amputees, blind, unable to move, and/or victim to another unfortunate circumstance - and they are just fine - then it is arbitrary at best to include a pull up or walking stairs as "definitive parameter".

Unless someone can actually demonstrate that being able to do a pull up is vital to me or the tandem master's safety, I will continue to encourage absolutely everyone I know - EVERYONE - to experience the immenseness that is the sky and the amazing joy inherent in flying your body therein, coupled with the feelings of total personal empowerment which comes from facing - and walking through - their fears and personal challenges - irrespective of a presidental physical fitness medal or ability to do a chin-up.

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[GravityGirl 0]

Yup. I remember it well. Willy from Buckeye. Wore cowboy boots. Released him. Moved to the front and he panicked and grabbed me by the upper arms. The lights were on and nobody was home. I had to backflip off of the dude. put my feet on his chest and kicked off. After that he did the gun slinger move and pulled faster than the eye could see. Thank gawd, 'cause I didn't want to go back in there to pull him out.

After that I wouldn't jump with him anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace and Blue Skies!
Bonnie ==>Gravity Gear!

[Ron 10]

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So, Ron, or CoconutMonkey, tell me again. Pull ups are important?

If you read my post I didnt say pull ups were important...I said general physical shape.

If you can't walk up a flight of stairs I would not take you.

Not worth the risk of getting you killed, and me getting sued.

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Emtional shape CANNOT be assessed from physical appearance

Nope, but if you are grossly out of shape the additional struggling CAN cause more stress. I have seen it over and over again.

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Unless you have a stress test, you will not know if someone who gets winded walking up the stairs is in fact winded, or like me.

And if you were to start to go to hyperventilation, I would consider you a dangerous student. Serious health problems can be deadly in this sport.

This sport is not for everyone.

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That is your right. Thankfully, my JM's had a different, more generous thought, and were willing to work with me to teach me how to skydive

And that is their right to risk lawsuits and killing you.

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that if someone really short decided that I was too tall to safely take, he wouldn't make that decision because of my weight...

I don't care how big you are, other than not allowing the gear to be overloaded. But even if you were a tiny waiff of a girl and you could not walk up a flight of stairs without being winded I would not take you.

Get over the looks part....I don't care if your big or small. I don't care if you are black, white, green ect.

All I care about is saftey. And someone who is grossly out of shape (not fat, but out of shape). They are a dangerous student.

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To you, I would be overweight. To my JMs, I was no issue. They taught me, taught me well, and I've remained safe and hopefully will continue to do so. Thank God I had the JM's I did and not a pull-up master.

I never said you were overweight...I said I would not take a person that was in such bad physical shape as to get winded after a flight of stairs...Then you took it personal since you seem to get winded after a flight of stairs...

Given what I now know about you, yes I would not have taken you. But then again I don't instruct for a living, and I don't have to take marginal students so I can eat.

and once again here is what I said about the damn pullups:

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The pull up thing is not such an issue, but if you are not fit enough to climb stairs...Then I would doubt your ability to handle the physical stress, and the emotional stress of skydiving.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[AggieDave 6]

The following can be considered crude, but please stay with me here, I'm trying to make a point.

Weight isn't so much the issue as is overall condition. If someone weighs 220lbs isn't so much an issue as if they're a fairly solid 220 or a very unsolid 220.

Someone who is what is refered to as a "flow-er" will NOT be confortable during the skydive, in the plane and especially during opening and under canopy. Why? Well, that's how that very crude term was coined. Every time you tighten the straps, they seem to flow out. What that means is to get the harness to a point where they're not going to shift and they're not going to slam against the leg straps on opening, its going to be very very uncomfortable for them.

Another side effect of this scenerio, besides being uncomfortable or possibly getting hurt by being slammed against the leg straps on opening, they run the risk of the harness, even when adjusted properly, cutting off circulation at their legs and/or at their shoulders. That means they will most likely get dizzy and feel ill. Thus they can and will most likely either pass out or throw up. Both of those scenerios are relatively dangerous for landing, since if they're sick or passed out, they may not be able to get theyr legs up for landing. That my result in broken things for them as well as me.

I don't give a shit if they can do a pull-up or not, hell, for all my strength I can only do about 15, where as most of my USMC buddies I knew while I was in the Corps of Cadets could crack out 25+.

The point is overall fitness level. Fit + some fat is fine, fit is fine, no fitness and fat is generally bad.


Oh, Michele, I've never personally met you, but I've seen pictures of you and your TV special, with that bit of information, I'd say that I'd be able to take you, you'd be fine in the gear and we'd have a great time (gear limits considered).

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[elfanie 0]

I'm not quoting or replying to anyones thread specifically because I want to address the general notion of fat and fitness, not address any one specific thing that any one specific user has said...

It's been insinuated that if someone were fat, they'd be out of shape and unsafe for skydiving. (I won't touch the maximum safe weight for canopies, because that's a truth that just needs to be dealt with)

Fat does not always equal lack of fitness.

I'll make that statement more specific: Just because someone is fat doesn't mean that they are inactive, or that they are any LESS fit that someone who happens to be thin...many many MANY thin people are horribly out of shape, and many overweight people are more fit than many very thin people.

Me? I have lost 200 pounds off of my 5'2" frame. I have gone from a size 30/32 to a size 6/8 (I know, I know..you guys are going to look at those numbers and have no clue what they mean. I'll just say I went from VERY VERY large, to someone that a lot of people are calling, "Very petite".)

at 331 pounds, no...I couldn't have gone skydiving because I simply wouldn't have fit. Could I have walked up a flight of stairs? You bet. Was I in good shape? I wasn't in BAD shape, I was just carrying extra weight,
After I lost 125 pounds and was still about 75 pounds overweight (something most in here would call "grossely overweight" still..I was as size 18/20), I did my first 5K marathon.

Yet I've known very thin people who were in horrible shape....who ate like crap when they DID eat, who never exercise (I've known women who said they didn't want to exercise because it would make their muscles bigger and cause them to look larger and they didn't want to 'gain weight' by going to a gym)...and who can't do one flight of stairs without gasping.

Yet it appears (and this may be an incorrect impression) that some of the people responding to this thread are saying they'd take the thin person with few questions and wouldn't be comfortable taking the fat person (again, I'm not saying anything about canopy weight limits...talking about physical fitness here).
that's making the assumption that the fat person is automatically out of shape...and that's not the case.

I think it would be a good idea if someone were to come to your DZ looking for instruction or a tandem jump...rather than looking at them and judging them solely based on size, you should WORK with them and see how they do first. (both fat and thin people)
walk them around...mock them up...'show them around' the DZ landing area..see how they respond.

(BTW...when it came time for my solo jumps...I was on a Manta 288 as well as having a 20 pounds weight vest strapped to my chest. Yes, I was HUFFING and PUFFING dragging myself and all of my crap in from the edge of the landing zone in 100+ degree weather. I'm not saying that this isn't a physical sport...just that the assumptions being made equating thin with fitness and fat with lack of fitness aren't often accurate.)

--------------------------------------------
Elfanie
My Skydiving Page
Fly Safe - Soft Landings

[winsor 236]

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There was a student I refused to take last summer. The wheel was spinning but the hamster was definitely dead. This IAD student absolutely refused to listen to anything I tried to tell him and insisted that since he was a pilot that he knew exactly what he was doing and accused me of just being too safe.

If I remember correctly, this was after his first practice pull. He wanted to go right to his clear&pull then an immediate full-altitude jump.

That was pretty much my progression, with the substitution of a 5 second delay for the full-altitude jump.

1st square jump - XLCloud w/FXC, IAD PRCP.

2nd square jump - DeltaCloud w/FXC, throwout.

3rd square jump - CruisAir, no AAD (my rig), throwout.

4th square jump - same rig, 5 sec. delay.

etc.

Yeah, I'm a pilot as well. I didn't bounce, either.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[mjosparky 4]

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The sport isn't discriminatory in the way of not liking people who look overweight. It's the fact that all canopies and harnesses are TSO rated to specific weights and those cannot be exceeded.

They not only can be but they are exceeded all the time. If you gain 2 pounds you will be exceeding the max. suspended weight of you reserve. That doesn't make it right but it is still done.
Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals