neiliss

I had my first really hard opening a week ago. I remember swearing alot very loudly and then chasing down my mate who is my packer while still under canopy as he was on the same load and jump as me. I think he was surprised as I was by my enthusiasm under canopy, until we both landed and I said to him, "Man that canopy opened hard". Then he realised why I was chasing him down. Cheers Neil

Another site that is quite good is http://www.howstuffworks.com/skydiving.htm . Cheers Neil

I was really nervous for my level 4. It is quite a shock to know that you will only have 1 instructor, and he will probably let go of you to let you turn on your own. So we exit the plane. I am stable so he lets go of me. Now this guy has done my level 1 with me (not 2 and 3) and is a fairly new AFF instructor. I do my turn on my own to face him only to find that he is not there. I look down and see that he is falling way faster than me into the distance. I decide that now is not the time to panic, I know my drills, I know when to pull, just do it. I then do a 360 the other way which was not part of the dive plan, but stopped it straight away. All the time I see this guy dissapearing. At pull time I reach and pull and there are no problems. Not sure how well I actually did on the dive but the AFF instructor was much too embarassed to fail me no matter what I guess. Pity I did not do video on that jump (the only one). Now level 5, that was a different story

You can also use logging applications on the net like qlogger.com. I log all of my jumps there so that my family and friends can take a look, but it also makes for a really good backup. Cheers Neil

My mom has kind of accepted it now. Took her a while but I took her down to the DZ and jumped while I was still a student. I think that she was really proud to see me land (safely

I have done 2 hop n pop's since graduating a few weeks ago from AFF. Both of them were terrible imho. I was pretty unstable on exit and pull on both of them. I am planning on doing alot more of them in the future to get myself stable on exit as soon as possible and deploy. It seems like a weakness from my AFF training. Anything lower than 10K is really scary. Cheers Neil

My first jump was a Tandem. Wanted to be sure that this was the sport for me. After that it was straight AFF. I am really terrible at hop n pop's though, but the rest is going well. I am now on jump 23 with my own gear and my A license after about 2 and half months. Cheers Neil

I had a similar experience about 3 months ago. I went to the doc because I was feeling really down. They decided to take blood for a blood test. I blacked out during the procedure for 1 minute. When I woke up I was covered in sweat and thought I was dreaming. The nurse and doctor were visibly concerned. After about half an hour once I recovered I went in to see the doc. He was quite concerned and told me that the reason he suspects was that I was overworked and waaaay too stressed. I mentioned to him at that time that in 5 days time I was off to swakopmund (namibia) to do my first tandem skydive. I asked him if this would be a problem. He answered that the best thing I could do was de-stress, and if that is what I had chosen then he saw no issues. That was 3 months ago and I have now done my AFF, A License and skydived every weekend since. I cannot change my work situation, but now I have something to look forward to on the weekends. And the stress has miraculously disappeared, or at least it does every weekend at 10000 feet. Cheers and hope you get well soon enough to skydive. Blue Skies Neil

My first jump at Witbank I was on the first load of the new C210T. I was also the only person going to altitude which was a real bonus. And to top it off it was my first freefall with my new rig. The people are friendly, the food is good and cheap and the DZ is huge and safe. Needless to say I had a great time there and will be back. Cheers Neil

I did my first AFF jump and then went on to complete my AFF course and A license at SkydiveXtreme with Francois. Excellent DZ, very friendly. I have been back about 10 times now and will continue to go there. The equipment is excellent and the level of instruction also really good. Cheers Neil