my first one was static line. It was in 1995, I was in the first plane load. My chute came out and I had a line over. I cut away and opened a round reserve(at that time the dz I jumped at were currently switching all of the reserves to square but I got lucky) landed it safely and on target and couldn't wait to do another one. the reason why I chose static line was the fact that I just didn't want to do a skydive, I wanted to learn how to skydive.