AFFI

Jeez, thanks Bill, that was better than situps!

YOU? I believe what you meant to say was “I” or perhaps “Some of us”... Learn to speak for yourself... I personally, do not... If someone jumps toward certain death with only a piece of fabric to prevent their suicide dies in the process, how in the hell am I suppose to feel sorry for them? WTF??? Jeez people, take responsibility! Death is a certainty in life, and death from jumping from un-survivable altitudes is just downright irresponsible, to the "tree hugging save the planet libos" of this world, and to me - not a reason to feel sorry for someone, especially if they were jumping in poor weather conditions as I love to do (adds to the rush). A kid with Leukemia? Certainly, but not some dumbass (like me) in a parachuting (racing, climbing, - hell, fill in your fav extreme sport!) accident... Darwin award? Definitely... They have children? Send me an address to mail some money for the kids, as I have done for many fallen friends... I’m with Nick, better him than me… BSBD - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

Some things to consider: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2755246#2755246 - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

Some things for anyone wishing to create training material to consider: DO NOT show incorrect procedures, especially without supporting dialogue that explains the situation. I cannot stress that enough. For example: Showing a BiPlane being cutaway that nearly created an entanglement. If a student sees this and gets into their head it is okay to cut this 2-out situation away it could kill them! As in a dead person, a child without a parent - all because they were taught incorrect information... Another example: Teaching Line Twists incorrectly. Imagine a student trying to deal with this malfunction (BTW - there is no such thing as an "Unusual Situation", it is either a Total, Partial or a Good canopy) and does not pay attention to their altitude and flies the Line Twists right into power lines. What you now have is a DEAD person and now you, as the creator of this training material will have to sit in a courtroom and explain to a Judge and Jury while looking the surviving members of that persons family in the eye, why you supplied incorrect training information that resulted in someone's death... That is the potential ramification of developing training material for this sport, if you deliver incorrect information, even in the slightest, it can result in someone’s death. That is a heavy responsibility to take on, consider that before you decide to burden yourself with such a heavy responsibility! Even if you create a good piece of training material, lawyers can still tear your ass up in a courtroom, so you better hire a lawyer beforehand and learn how to protect yourself. Even an AFFI with years of experience may not have sufficient knowledge or ability to teach at a level that is sufficient to hold up under the scrutiny of a courtroom, so you had better get your source material from more than one source, hell, more than 10 sources. Always think to yourself – How will this hold up in court? And Will I be able to sleep at night if I cause someone’s death? Just some things to think about… - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

Then do not post your work in progress on a public site... BUT Getting other experts (plural) to look at your WIP is very important to producing the best material you possibly can. - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

You might be the next, and there will be another jerkoff who will write this about you that jerkoff will likely be me... Why people are so senstve is totally beyond me, them basketball chicks did look like prostitutes!

I'll take that advice...

pretty decent camera flying there... Nice mouth for, ummmm, things - excuse me, I gotta go wash, ummmm, things...

You are correct, utiliing multimedia is a great tool to teach ANYTHING... My intention was not to imply that utilizing video was not a good teaching tool (for many years, I constructed educational multimedia with teams of highly educated individuals as a profession as an animator, interactive authoring and post production specialist). I have provided the skydiving center I work at with intensely productive and valuable learning media that required literally hundreds hours of pre-preparation prior to sitting down at an editing station. So trust me when I say that I understand fully the value of well thought out, planned media in which to utilize for training purposes. What I meant to imply, or rather straightforwardly state, is that particular production is not an effective piece of video in which to support teaching blocks of instruction concerning malfunctions to skydiving students. Far from it… It is just a collection of poorly edited footage that has gone less than perfect for a bunch of skydivers who posted their videotaped mishaps online. There is virtually no significant and effective learning that can take place from watching that collection of malfunctions for a skydiving student. There is no structure; there is no effective teaching of the necessary protocols that a student can utilize in their toolboxes of survival. I would not want none of my loved ones attending a skydiving school that wastes valuable ground training time on such poorly produced material that has a total lack of valuable teaching structure… That being said, I admire and respect what you are attempting to do and the fact that you wish to contribute to the development of our sport. If I may offer some advice, and it is from someone well qualified to give it, so you an either take it to heart or take offense. You state that – “Well this is one of my fears in posting it . Getting critics.” First lesson of production: Hang your ego at the door, learn to embrace criticism. What you need to do is to develop an outline of what is important for the students to learn, and this will require a tremendous amount of effort on your part to research and obtain the information, that being information that is correct tried and true. Then edit and re-write the outline (storyboard) over and over until you have a good bit of information on which to guide your efforts (for example, it too me 2 years and hundreds of hours of research to develop an outline for teaching malfunctions to skydiving students). It is no trivial endeavor. Furthermore, one aspect of the conveyance of this information you may want to consider getting out of your head is the illustrations of negatives. Showing someone what not to do is not an effective teaching method. In your statement: “I want to teach my students when and when not to chop. You have many chop-worthy shots, some get chopped, some don't. Some they wait a long time, some they don't....” What you are doing is asking valuable questions that require much thought and consideration – you are pondering the how’s and why’s, the first task is to get yourself to a level that leaves you with a innate understanding of the intricate (and correct) details, it is only after your acquisition of obtaining that correct knowledge that you can then finally begin to ask yourself how conveying this to students in a manner that will benefit the learning process to occur and how that can adequately be attained. Perhaps the most important thing I am attempting to communicate to you, is not to get into a hurry and put out developmental material that may be counterproductive to the very best training material you have the ability to produce, it takes time, so don’t rush it. Finally your usage of the words “my students” implies that you have a desire to one day be a teacher of skydiving, which was my primary goal from the time I made my very first jump so I understand completely your desire to acquire all the knowledge you can during your journey to that end, in fact, I too began to research such information long before I acquired my AFF rating, as you are. A very important aspect of that is to ensure that the knowledge you do obtain is absolutely as correct as you can possibly make it for yourself, by that I am referring to the many hours of research from a multitude of sources I mentioned earlier that will be required by you in your endeavors. Sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to ensure that I left no ambigious aspects of my reply to you, or my hope that one day you will acieve the plateaus you seem to be aspiring to achieve. This is evident by my taking the time to compose a well thought out and inclusive message. Good luck (actually, luck has nothing to do with it, what I meant to say is, Get to work!)… _ Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

You discuss reserve LT's in a FJC? Showing this video (music or not) to skydiving students is not beneficial to teaching how to deal with malfunctions, it is a poorly constructed production and a waste of valuable FJC time. Teaching is not showing cool footage, or telling someone about things that can go wrong; it is the transferring of knowledge from one brain to another from someone who knows, to someone who does not. After a well taught class, students will have a new body of knowledge they did not have before, they possess common knowledge about a subject that was uncommon to them prior to the block of instruction. Showing students a video like this is not teaching anymore than sitting a child in front of the television to watch the Simpsons is. - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

Let us know how long it takes for a student to hold it and not release it right away. - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

Lot’s of advice you will receive for asking, some good, some applies… The common denominator is that it takes everyone X amount of landings before they begin to get it dialed in. For me, I was slow to learn how to pilot a canopy and it took me hundreds of landings before reaching a level of proficiency. So don’t be hard on yourself, learning to land safely in varying conditions is one of the more difficult aspects of this sport. The trick is, while you are getting it “dialed in”, you do not want to injure yourself. If you are “sliding” in you are most definitely increasing the possibility of injuring your tailbone. Have an instructor go over what is commonly referred to as the PLF landing. Sure there are arguments over the semantics, but the idea is to take a landing that you are not going to standup and distribute the force of the impact to your body in a manner that will lessen the chance of an injury First point of contact should be your feet. Then the idea is to keep your extremities close to the body as your roll out the force of the impact. I was fortunate to have instructors that encouraged me to practice the PLF technique off of a training platform, so practice I did – a lot. Learning how to PLF is most definitely the only reason I have not sustained any serious injuries so far with a botched landing and I still incorporate them to this day. Learn it, and keep it fundamental. - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

You might feel differently if you were an instructor fulltime... Ed (bodypilot) said it perfectly. Ditto... - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

Were people wanting to "Ban" gloves at the time? No, but I guess we should have banned 3600 degree turns, since he did at least that many spirals before hitting the ground.

Were people wanting to "Ban" gloves at the time? Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

Tthe MOST important? EP's Landing safely (see my sig line) If you learn to stay safe, the freefall stuff will work itself out with practice... Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

I do not understand how more can be expected without any expectation to pay for additional services. I do not understand how more can be expected from those who make skydiving their livelihood to train and teach for nothing by those who make their livings outside of skydiving. For fulltime skydivers, that is how they pay to feed their families, to pay for their children’s doctor bills, to house and clothe themselves and their families. Yet they should work for free? To earn my AFF rating, when you calculate the expense of training and preparation, then the actual cost of the course and the time off work during the busy season it came to over $3,000 – that was out of an already meager annual salary as a full time skydiver, yet those of us who make skydiving their livelihood are expected by those who do not skydive as a sole vocation to perform services for free? I just do not think that the demands to work for free by those who do not make their living this way is fully understood by the weekend warriors. I have been going through some serious health issues and have not been able to work hardly at all in over a year, my payable taxes in 2006 was $397, yet when I went to see my doctor last week I still had to pay him, and did not expect him even for a moment to provide his services to me for free simply because I have respect for him and his choice to do what he does for a living. We should have the best, highest trained instructors yet we are not going to pay them anything? We should have canopy piloting guidelines and courses but they should be free? I just do not understand this mindset… - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

I can’t think of my people “pulling down the $’s” in this sport. The way this sport pulls in money kind of reminds me of the drug cartel: 1) At the very top you have the drug lords (DZO), not all of em, but some rake it in. 2) Then you have the pushers/middle man (Instructors) who push and move the product mostly because they are hooked on it as well. 3) Then at the bottom you have the junkies (jumpers/students) who pay all the money for their fix, many of whom will sacrifice just about anything to get more of. Meanwhile, back at the farm: To the OP - sorry for misreading your post. I probably got a little agitated at first because it sounded to me that you were saying that all the instructors are mediocre - even those of us who sacrifice everything and try our best to be good teachers an mentors. On my sig line, freefall is not even one of the priorities; I spend the bulk of my training on EP’s and Canopy control. All the bad ass shit a jumper can do in the air is pretty worthless if they cannot get back in the hanger safely so they can make the next jump. I have never seen a jumper on the airplane riding to altitude with a femur stickng out. So I agree with much of what you were saying, misunderstood some and thought you were just talking down to those out there in the teaching end of our sport trying their hardest to be quality instructors. - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

You see, I just don't listen... All my life I fail terribly at communication. Sorry...

Your words ... not mine. Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

But say there are 3 or 4 groups between yours and theirs, it is likely that the jumpers in that first group will be landing long before you. So I do not understand where you are comming from... Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

So you are suggesting changing exit order based on canopy piloting/type/WL's. I know belly guys on the 8 way team I was thinking about when I composed that fly really hot canopies, their camera flyer too. What makes you think that FF'ers automically fly hotter canopies? We still have exit order reccomendations based on freefall orientations and sizes of groups. Before you go changing the world there are other things to consider that you may not be thinking of right now. Slow down there bigguy... And they're belly flyers, it is likely that they will be deploying in what most FF'ers consider the "basement". - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

Say an 8 way team is getting out first and they have 2 swoopers, then a few groups later a FF team with 1 swooper. What are we suggesting here? That exit order is based on canopy piloting? - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

That is correct, but that does not mean that there are no skydiving centers in existence that do have good canopy curriculums as part of their student training progressions as well as qualified instructors able to guide students through said courses proficiently. - Mykel AFF-I10 Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…