Get your landing videoed

[j3zz 0]

At the risk of having myself flamed beyond believe I would like to offer something I think is valuable that I leaned first hand this weekend.

last load if the day I do my now standard, double front to 90 degree to double front approach.

I was what I thought was just a little bit low and braked a bit firmly.

Just skimming firmly the top of the grass with the top of my foot folded tightly underneath me. I do a right leg forward left leg tucked under landing configuration.

I popped up a bit due to the over aggressive flaring.

Now I thought I had got it just a little bit wrong and had had to flare just a little bit earlier than acceptable and the only reason I popped up was because I flared to hard.

Then I saw the video, and it told a different story.

I was more the a little low, and the flare was not a little early rather a big dig,

The reason I am posting is this. Get someone to video your landings, you might think ok it was a little low, don't do it again but the truth may be that you were a lot low and did not ever realise.

So flame if you must but to those learning to swoop get someone to video you so that you can really understand what you are doing.

What it feels like is not always what it is

Jezz

"Now I know why the birds fly"
Hinton Skydivers

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

Why would you get flamed for posting something like that. Video is a fantastic tool for evaluating landings.

[rsibbald 0]

Video taught me that I was flaring too late and bypassing the sweet-spot on my Safire. At the time, I doubt I'd have figured that out quickly without seeing it from an external point-of-view.

[YISkyDive 0]

I use video to a huge extent of learning my "bump", "sweet spot" and flare heights.

I thought i was doing Exactly what my coach was telling me. I knew i was. And then i saw the video, and was like damn, more practice. When your doing an approch, theres a lot going on, and what ya think.. may not be what ya ment. So i know i have to practice my technique cleaner up high, so i can get more distance out of my surf.

The only thing to be careful of with video is show boating. I have to really calm myself down durring an approach and forget the video until after im done my approach complety.

But ya, i have like 50 jumps on video, all from POV to my father taping. It helps a lot

[AggieDave 6]

Nothing to get flamed for there. Everyone has a learning curve and everyone gets low at some point; its how you learn from it is the difference. Video is an incredible learning tool, it does not lie and does not have an agenda, it just is. Getting landings videoed has helped me beyond belief.

That's also why coaches of the caliber like Scott Miller videos the landings of his students so the debrief can be more complete.

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

[yoink 321]

It maybe worth adding that 'going big' just because there's a video on the landing area has been a contributing factor in more than a couple of incidents...



Use it as a learning tool by all means, but don't do anything differently just to impress a camera - it's only a bit of kit and doesn't care how big your swoop is...