blazingcannon

For our last jump of the record attempts, we decided to huck the entire formation as one piece off the side of the jungle and into the cave of swallows. picture included. It was a short jump, but definitely worth it. Great job, everyone! Glen (haha)

Thanks to Dave Brown and all the record participants for making this happen once again. Thanks also goes to Steve Curtis, whose excellent head down skills camp helped make it possible to include some new talent into the record formation. The flyers on the 12 way were: Base: Simon Chambers Mike Smith Dave Brown Mike Fenton First Stingers: Marcel Thimot Philippe Thibodeau Glen Cannon Pauly Farrell Second Stingers: Mario Richard Goran Lazarovski Dan Labelle Brent Henderson Video and Stills: Brian Buckland Outside Video: Bill Ackford I have included a picture of the formation that appeared in an article in Skydive Burnaby's regional newspaper. It seems the reporter wanted to try out every alliteration he could come up with, as well as creative spellings of the dropzone's name.. ie. Skydrive Burnaby and Skydive Burnady. He also took creative licence with cobbling together out-of-context quotes in the interview parts of the article. Anyway, it was good to get some publicity, however cheesy. Here's to bigger and better next year. Glen.

Let it be known that I have unfortunately spelled Goran's last name incorrectly : he tells me it's Lazarovski with an "i" at the end. I'm unable to edit the original post so I thought I'd put this here. Sorry Goran-dude! Btw, for those of you who don't know, Goran's been doing some wickid organizing at Skydive Burnaby as of late, including a tracking race (Simon Chambers was the winner) and a freefly scrambles, which was really fun. Cya, G. "Spread your legs and fly"

I don't but Burnaby will have it. 1-800-693-JUMP Cheers, Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

After 16 attempts at a 10way, we finally completed an official 8way freefly record formation yesterday, holding it for 7.43 seconds. This broke last year's unofficial 6way record by 2. The record head down formation had a rock solid 4-way base with 4 stingers and a talented video flyer catching the action. A whopping heap of thanks goes to Dave Brown! His group coaching showcased our strengths, while teaching us what we all had to do as individuals to work well together as a team. His encouragement and positive attitude helped us stick it through to a successful conclusion. It was cool to find out that when he said " We WILL set a record today", he meant it! A special thanks to Mike and Tara Pitt of Skydive Burnaby for their support, to Peter Dedonatis for his generosity in helping to fill the loads, and of course to our amazing pilots who got us 14grand on almost every load, sometimes even bending the rules to do so!! Congratulations to all flyers who participated in the record camp. We all learned a ton from Dave Brown, and most importantly, we all survived the "growing pains" jumps to be able to put our new-found knowledge to use! We're getting bigger and better every year - next year let's nail that 10 way! The record-holding flyers are: VIDEO: AD-A310 Alain Nadeau BASE: AD-C12 David Brown AD-A157 Goran Lazarovsky AD-A324 Glen Cannon AD-A293 Paul Rademacher STINGERS: AD-A309 Dan Labelle AD-A235 Paul Farrell AD-A326 John Zuliani AD-A342 Philippe Thibodeau {edited to add some praise for Monsieur Davide LeBrun haha} "Spread your legs and fly"

Lately I've had so many people asking me for copies of my "gettin down the tube for beginners" doc that's recently been dredged from a post from long ago, that I've decided to post this new revised, edited-down version as a new thread. It's less colloquial and "feel-good" as the last version, but I think it describes the head down neutral position's parts better than the last doc. Unfortunately there's only one pic in this version. Anyway, feedback is, of course, welcome. http://webhome.idirect.com/~blazingcannon/headdown/headdown030908revised.doc Sorry, I dunno how to make it clicky. Cheers, Glen. edited to add: I'll keep the dock on my server for as long as I can. Feel free to pass it around. "Spread your legs and fly"

just look at the top of this page...it's there as an attachment without pics. Cheers! G. "Spread your legs and fly"

siiickkkk! Cya soon Dave! Glen "Spread your legs and fly"

Actually, just to clarify, I got it on jump 310. John Z got it around jump 250. Not that it really matters. Anyway, speaking of tests, I recently did a mock B test with Dave Brown and didn't do too badly. That test really underlines the need for balanced overall training on your left and right sides. He said that to train for the B test, you should basically be able to do 12 transitions with grips in between. *whew!... busy dive!* Cheers! G. p.s. Hi freeflyanvil. thx fer the fun jumps up there in good ol' GBSPC! "Spread your legs and fly"

In my opinion, yes. Balance training of any sort will improve your body's coordination and your unconscious awareness of body position and the proper placement of your center of gravity. (In other words, practicing balance will make you get better at any physical sport, including freeflying, without even having to try) Doing head stands using good, symmetrical, straight head down body position has its advantages and disadvantages. Advantages: -- proper head down visuals -- once you get used to it, and as long as you're not using your arms forcefully to tripod your body into the position, the balancing principle is exactly the same as in the air: your center of gravity balanced over your head. Disadvantages: -- uncomfortable blood head rush -- actually being upside down on the ground will mess with your inner ear's sense of balance; as far as the actual sensation of being head down, standing up feels closer to the real thing then doing head stands. Hope this helps, Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

What I meant about the coach and a mirror trick is: Check out zennie's post above -- he talks about using a mirror to get your body straight and learn muscle memory of a straight body position on the ground. I highly recommend this idea. The coach part of it is simply working with the coach, which is an obviously helpful thing to do. Cheers, Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

I highly recommend the mirror and coach trick. (edited to add: .."the mirror and coach trick zennie talks about above") Along with that, try this: Go slowly toward the pressure. If you feel pressure on your back, you are going forwards. If you feel pressure on your chest and face, you are moving backward. For a few dives, SLOWLY move your head and shoulders forward and back until you can feel pressure going from your back to your front. Again, -- -- slowly -- -- is the key. This will feel very fish-floppy but you need to do this to learn where the walls of the tube are. (I call this "tuning" - like tuning a guitar, only with your body) Then concentrate on keeping your pelvis rolled forward in the air for a few dives to get rid of any arch. Next, do the pelvis thing along with the head and shoulders moving thing. Somewhere in the middle of the two pressures there will be a place where you feel no pressure. That's the tube, or somewhere very close to it. E-mail me and let me know how it works. glen@niagaraskydive.com Cheers, and good luck! Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

have fun and remember to practise facing 90degrees from jumprun! cheers, Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

Widen your legs all the way to the sides like straddling a big horse, with legs still at 90degrees. Push legs down gradually to a wide-legged stand to go even faster. Think feetflying instead of assflying Feet have less surface area than ass. With less ass grabbing air, fallrate should increase. Like Brian Germain says: "sitflying should look like headdown, only it's upright. Hope this helps. Cheers, Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

Here are some I came up with for working with headdown beginners aware enough to handle freefall signals: hand to chin: " tuck your chin in a bit" flat hands motioning up and down along sides of head: "head straight on shoulders" fingers pointing forward beside head " head forward a bit." hands on shoulders" relax your shoulders, don't arch" hands motioning around waist: "tuck in your pelvis " Probably too specific for someone still at the "zooming all around" stage, but they may be useful as reminders for people refining upper body symmetry to get down the tube. "Spread your legs and fly"

My theory is that if you fly headup and headdown at around the same speed, you could transition from one to the other without yo-yo'ing too much. There's gotta be an ideal compromise speed where it means you're not too maxed out headdown that you can't use your arms to dock, and not too maxed out upright that you can't do anything cause you're going so fast. It just seems that people (including me when I get sloppy) tend to fly a sit with lots of bum and arms instead of with the legs and feet, which is a more upright position, and thus faster. Take a look at the March2003 Parachutist pic of alchemy...alaska jon and swanson are doing headdown ...Rook's upright. take a look at Rook's legs..they're extended and not in your typical "chair" Cheers! Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

I got mine on jump 314, my homie JohnZ got his around 260 or something. "Spread your legs and fly"

I'd warn against using speed in headdown to "increase efficiency at getting where you want to be faster".- that could be very dangerous. I know if I was rippin along at 185, I sure wouldn't trust anyone zooming in at me for a dock as fast as they could for efficiency's sake, even if they assured me "they could control it". No way. At higher speed, things become more touchy, giving you less control, as you said...control of important safety issues like fallrate. If you crank out a steep body position to get somewhere fast while going 185, you'll pretty much cork on your partner, making highspeed collision a possibility ...Although you'd be going really fast horizontally, you might end up right above them. (which would kill if they had a preemie) As far as that being efficient, you'd be spending the whole dive trying to match fallrates with your partner, and if you define efficiency as "doing something as smooth as possible with the least effort", then going faster in this case doesn't necessarily equal efficiency. Just my 100cents : ) -edited to add my frickin name..haha - Cheers, Glen : ) "Spread your legs and fly"

one thing to watch for... my girlfriend's Gath started getting cracks in the plastic along the seams and elsewhere, and that was happening without a camera, from normal use. I know other people are using gaths, I just don't think the plastic is made to hold up to that kind of weight. Pretty expensive mistake if your helmet cracks and falls off in freefall. Just my 2c : ) "Spread your legs and fly"

Having not seen your flying, of course it's hard to know exactly what's happening, but I can make a few guesses based on what's typical in new headdown flyers: First of all, go out with a qualified coach with video to see what you need to improve on. That'll be worth its weight in gold as far as dealing with frustration. New HDflyers tend to fall fast at first- lack of body awareness making it so that you may be upside down, but presenting very little surface area. (edited to add:) Get your legs out there, not bent at the knees, you can hook your feet into the wind too. You may have your legs out to the sides, but you may not be actively holding them there with your muscles. If you've got them way out there, you should feel a burning in your hips. This is why I find daffy way more comfy. ouch! It could be your jumpsuit- is it giving you enough drag appropriate to your size? Are you sure you're flying straight down the tube with no movement? It could be you're backsliding and so the people in stand are having to lean into the wind to move toward you, causing them to catch more air and float, making it seem like you're flying real fast relative to them. : ) If you're having stability problems when you pizza-pie your arms, I'm guessing you're probably arching. Practise with a mirror on the ground to get your upper body straight while your hands are out to the sides (arms straight out, not bent at the elbows) With the delta wing thing (if I'm understanding you correctly as to what you mean by that,), get your arms out even farther to the sides, making sure to bring your shoulders only out to the sides, not back or up. As far as daffy, don't let your frustrations make you give up on it - it will come with time. Daffy is great for going really slow headdown- your legs can present a shitload of surface area front and back, and all your "flying surfaces" get nice clean air to push against. With the "x-man", your arms can burble your legs, making their surface area less effective. Again, get video to see what you need to improve on. It's probably a mix of arching and asymmetical body position while you're doing it. Otherwise, search this forum for "headdown" or "beginner" or what have you. There's plenty of info in here that can be helpful. Cheers, Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

Great to hear you're improving! I learned to fly a daffy kind of by fluke. the first step was me looking quite silly, flying around with one leg bent at the knee 90degrees backward, kind of teetering sideways and always somehow flying forward... haha and then I kept coming forward and was going to hit my jump buddy, so I stuck my other leg forward to block his body from hitting mine (haha) and there I was, very wobbly, and very daffy. Use a mirror, stick yer legs out front and back and make sure you're moving just your legs, not torquing yer hips so you end up turning. otherwise, do a search in here for "daffy"..I"m sure you'll find lots of tips. Cheers and good luck, Glen. "Spread your legs and fly"

Dave, my friend, alas, I have received no PM... perhaps send again or something : ) Cheers! Glen "Spread your legs and fly"

I agree- that's how I did it too. one step at a time. : ) G. "Spread your legs and fly"

I think it totally could be pulling your shoulders back. Another possibility is because of the tight fit, you might be pulling your shoulders back unconsciously to attempt to make your body fit your rig better. Just a thought. Cheers, G. "Spread your legs and fly"

Hey Andrea that's awesome! You should see the smile on my face! Glad I could help. edited to add: Ya...the hands down thing screwed me up at first too- I felt out of control cause i didn't have the wind "in my hands", I guess. So maybe that idea may not work for everyone at the start... What I found was really useful about the hands-down in the end was that when transitioning from sit to HD, my hands stayed in the same configuration...which made my flying more smooth, I guess. Anyway, cheers and free beers! G. "Spread your legs and fly"