darrenspooner

UK is taking a while to catch up with sushi, but we just got a very fine restaurant in Norwich. The best things I've tasted are soy-basted grilled eel and english sea bass. Sure, the usual stuff is good, and I made sone great mackrel sushi, but these things are sublime. As for salmon eggs, well, good texture and experience, but average taste. More and more I'm making my own. Its surprisingly easy, and trick is getting fresh good quality ingredients. Most fish are sublime raw...but not all!

Hey, everything in the UK is expensive, but so is the average wage. Its all relative. If you come here from overseas it makes it real tough.

Do you have any idea what irony is Baldrick? Yes master, its like goldy and silvery. I hate nose whistles

You got 50% of your Mother's genes and 50% of your Father's. Genes are implicated in almost everything. You got 15-30% chance of being depressed if either of your parents have bee, 50% chance of getting OCD, 100% chance of getting some other things. And you have a reasonable chance of getting the same personality traits, even if you were raised by wolves. Sorry to break it to you pal, but genes are determining some aspects of your present and your future.

One thing worth doing is to fly your reserve. Not in unsafe conditions, but if you can get a chance to demo a reserve like yours you'll learn a lot. I flew mine recently. Its smaller than my main but is smooth, slow, rock solid and feels extermely safe and docile. I'd rather be hangin unconscious under that than no canopy. Unless something was in the way I would have been fine.

I bought a new rig last year and was told that my red handle and red jump suit were a problem. No colour discrimination. So I stitched a yellow square on my jumpsuit where the handle is. But then I had a mal and cutaway, and didn't look. Your hands will know where they need to go, and if they don't you haven't done enough safety drills.

Obviously you need to talk to your instructors, but when I did AFF I was all over the place. Then my instructor, on about my 3rd level 5, told me to go straight into a track soon as I was stable, and then continue with the skydive. It sorted the problem instantly. Something about taking control and relaxing and adopting an easier position. Once I stopped the track after 5 seconds I was stable and on heading and getting on with it.

Well, I understand your dilemma my friend. Let's not forget, our wives and our children are why we're here. But, don't waste a breath. Take your wife along to a DZ for the day and let her see the tiptoe landings, the videos, the swooping. Get her to watch it over and over, and she'll come to terms with it. Best of all, get someone to show her a canopy. Show her how it wants to open, how it flies, how the risk is actually pretty small. Just get her around the sport, sh'll relax a little. Best of all, buy her a tandem.

Well don't keep us hanging on, whadya get?

The reason you can't think is because your brain doesn't want you to. You've activated the fight or flight response because your brain perceives danger. When confronted witha danger situation it becomes more dangerous if you take time before responding. Your brain wants you to act, not think. A bit like the pain response - you lean on a hot stove. If you stand there thinking "erm, that hurts, yep, can smell my skin burning, yep, not good, better think about moving soon" then you damage yourself. So pain hurts like hell, and this makes you act, not think. Once you activate the fight or flight response a whole load of physiological things happen. One of them includes the amygdala (a part of the brain) making you aware of how bad you feel, then sending a message to the prefrontal cortex (another part of the brain, responsible for complex thinking, reasoning, problem solving, and so on) to shut it down. In simple terms, what this means is the more danger your brain perceives, the more anxious you get. The more anxious you feel the worse your thinking gets. Solutions - do AFF (if you're not already), or perhaps even shell out the cash and do a tandem, or, carry on jumping. Over time your brain with learn that its not really so dangerous after all, and therefore it won't trigger off anxiety.

By the way, your rig should be on your back.

Man, you Aussie's haven't got a clue. Deal with the shirt man, its undermining any coolness that your rig might give you

But I had very positive experiences in Pakenham just outside Melbourne, and Toowoomba, outside Brisbane. Very professional laid back easy to get along with. Good experiences.

Insulted and abused in front of my wife (called a fucking girl because demonstrated my safety drills using both hands on each handle, something I happening to be doing for a short while back then), had some guy an inch from my face when he asked a very vague and ambiguous question that I didn't answer correctly. He yelled at me "there are fucking brick walls like me all over australia, if you think you can come here and think you know it all then think again". Then he said "right, show me what you are going to do from the instant you leave the plane?" Didn't really understand what he was asking me so just demonstrated a boxman. More yelling about reserve drills. I left there after two jumps wondering what the hell had jus happened. One of the instructors put a tandem harness on his 5 year old boy and took him to altitude in the plane, wailing and crying "daddy, I don't want to do a tandem" just to discipline him. Man, that was a bad experience, and I still don't understand what happened. I'm the most laid back guy out, I never raj people up and, being a psychologist, I can pretty much relate to anyone no matter what mood they're in. But this place was unbelievable. That's what I mean by being treated like a piece of shit.

Well, Milko told me during my aff that there's only two types of skydivers - those that have had a mal, and those that are going to. Practice those drills my friend!

I was treated like a dog turd at Byron Bay three years ago

I think you are partly right. I was taught one hand on each handle and I practiced that over and over, but did it dfferent. In high stress/panic situations the amygdala sends a message to the pre-frontal cortex (parts of the brain) and we lose the ability for rational thought, clear reasoning and good decision making. I think it is under panic situations that we do what we're taught, automatically. However, if we're not panicking we can think more clearly and evaluate the situation, and then respond, rather than doing it automatically. In my situation I was pretty calm and clear headed and I knew I needed some strength to get to the handles because I was spinning so wildly. So I must have consciously decided to go both hands on the cutaway to be sure and to have more strength or something. There, answered my own question! Interesting to hear that someone else did the same. Moral of the story - don't panic

good point, how to I move the post?

I was just reflecting on a mal I had a few months ago, and realised that my reserve drill was not what I had practiced 1000s of times. I was trained to grab one handle in each hand, peel, punch then pull. I've practiced it over and over and over and thought I'd trained my body to do it without thinking about it. Then I had a high speed spinning mal and both hands went, without thinking, to my cutaway. I cutaway and my rsl did the rest. This seems to be contrary to what I would have expected. Any comments, because now I'm at a point of thinking about training myself to do the two hands on each handle approach.

PD finsihed testing the canopy and its fine. Many thanks to PD. This kind of looks like it must be me. I jumped again yesterday and had a 270 degree turn, yet I practice pulled all the way down and was dead on heading and dead stable on deployment, and I focussed on the horizon without looking up. I guess now I need to try to learn how to fly the opening as a few people have suggested. Thanks for all the input.

Well, I guess I should know how to relax, I'm a psychologist! I tried just that this weekend. I relaxed, focussed real hard on being symetrical and relaxed, and it still had a couple of twists and an off-heading opening. The deployment goes normally, with a nice lift off, sensible snivel, and nice symetrical opening. Its when the slider comes down it all wobbles. And its been packed by a few others, including a master rigger, with the same problem. Its interesting that out of the 33 reviews on here for the S2, 17 had opening problems, some severe, and some resulting in getting rid of the canopy in favour of other models. Sure, this might not be a representative sample, but this is far from an isolated incident and for a canopy who's manufacturer states "From the moment you release the pilot chute, the Sabre2’s consistent, soft, on-heading openings will please you" this comes as somewhat of a surprise. The openings are anything but consistent for numerous S2 owners. I find it hard to believe they are all to do with body position. I will hold my conclusion about this until I have heard back from PD (who, again, I have nothing but praise for), had someone else jump it, and get myself videod.

Yeah, for me that's what its like. I now pull higher, feel apprehensive when I do, and I've lost faith in my gear. I guess it must be me causing the problem, but it never happened on 110 previous jumps on 5 or 6 different canopies. Maybe its just me and the S2 that don't get on. I decided to take up some advice on here and get someone else to jump it a few times, then get myself videod. If the problem is still there I'll replace it.

Thanks, but yes, checked that. Its a brand new Odyssey, and its as tight and even when I land as when I get in the plane.

I done 130 jumps. My last 60 have been on a 150 canopy, loaded at about 1.3 or so. I did 40 on a Hornet 150, and then 20 on a Sabre 2 150. My S2 was brand new, but I had opening problems (diving to the right as the slider comes down). On about my 15th jump it dived so hard to the right that it twisted up and put me in a high speed spinning mal, and I had to cut away. So, after reading everything on here about some (especially early) S2s doing this twitchy opening thing, I sent it back to PD, and its still there. They checked it out and the trim and eveything is fine. They are jumping it now, but I don't know the result yet. Meanwhile, I borrowed another S2 150 (PD arranged this in the UK, from USA). I did 7 or 8 jumps and its very twitchy, leaving me to only assume that my body position on opening must be a problem. Yet I've obsessively concentrated on this throughout most of my recent S2 jumps, and it still happens, and I never had this on any other canopy. Can't be packing because its happened with 3 different packers (including 2 senior riggers), plus me, and I packed my Hornet everytime with no problems, plus 40 pack jobs on my previous canopy (ZP170). I'm now at a point where it feels like my wife had an affair and I can never trust her again. I know it might help to get some more coaching and get videoed, but in my heart (and especially because a number of people PM'd me and told me to not fall for the "its your body position" excuse) I feel its the canopy. I might mention that the loaner S2 had been mothballed and was made in the first year of S2 production (surely a S2 150 demo canpopy would be hot property, but this one was a block in a bag, and had clearly not been used in months/years). I don't know what to do. PD are great. They have been very professional. So I'm considering selling it and buying something else. I lost confidence. So I want to consider something else. But what? Some one has had bad experiences with every canopy somewhere along the line. My choices seem to be, in the same class - silouette, pilot, safire or faqtor. Any ideas, please?

attach your main back to front