I’ve hesitated to weigh in on this because I am only an AFF-1 (although I did a tandem the day before that jump, and many (many!) years ago had 10 jumps in a static line/hop-n-pop progression), and if your instructors or the other experts here say to ignore this, then ignore this.
But this is how I approached my AFF-1 jump, and how I intend to approach my subsequent ones, and maybe it will give you another student’s perspective.
Going into my AFF-1, I absolutely did memorize the routine, and tried to remember all the little details / weaknesses/ errors I made in practices for the whole routine (and then all the EPs, and images of scary mals!). And my goal was to do the whole “performance” as flawlessly as I could. But I also had a plan B, which was that if things didn’t go well, then at the very least I would execute a good, hard, heads-up arch. And if that was all I did, I would be happy. Obviously, if I got the arch down early and I felt comfortable and had time, I would try to add one thing at a time (COA, practice touches, self-deploy). I figured (after watching a gagillion “AFF-1 goes wrong” videos on YouTube) that if I could at least do a decent arch and be reasonably stable, at least it would be a safe ride, and I’d get a 1 minute free fall before my instructor pulled me at 5500. Then if I had to do an AFF-1 again, I would at least have the confidence that I can arch well, and so the next plan B would be to build onto that. As it turned out, I did okay on everything.
You indicate that stability is a problem (and that you might have particular circumstances that make stability a challenge for you). Perhaps it might help to view the jump not as an attempt to “do an AFF-3 routine”, but as an opportunity for you to practice and demonstrate up to 3 (4?) things, with stability being the first and the most important. So if you have to spend the whole ride working on stability and body position, do that. Don’t even think of the next item on the list if you aren’t comfortable with item 1, instead, keep working on that. IOW, the goal for the jump is not to “do an AFF-3 routine”, it is to do item 1, and if you do that and there is time, then add item 2, and if you do that and there is time, then add item 3. If in the end you actually did an “AFF-3 routine”, then great. But otherwise hopefully at least you have progressed, getting more experience and more confidence. (I hope this makes sense.) Good luck!
[edited to add that I just looked at the AFF-3 routine, and stability without the instructors holding on seems to be the only new thing. Which means none of what I said above is really helpful. :( Oh well. (shouldn't listen to noobs anyway) ]
