Some fine tunnel and jumping
It had been a couple weeks since the tunnel adventure with Mom and Dad, so Sean and I decided to go again on Thursday. I invited Karl to join us so I could get some (always-helpful) coaching, and he was happy to join in. Sean worked with the tunnel rat, Kris, on backflying skills, while I continued to work on some breaking some bad habits and learning to fly a bit differently with less weight on me.
It was a good session and definitely helped me to identify some places where I need to focus. I was happy with my ability to learn and change; now it’s just a matter of reinforcing the new habits and banishing the old ones. I noticed both in the tunnel and on my jumps Saturday that the more tired I get the less likely I am to be able to put everything together, but that makes sense.
Saturday morning Sean and I headed up to Skydance - it had been a while since we were at the same dropzone at the same time - different events had sent us in different directions. He even put on his belly suit (instead of his wingsuit) for the first two jumps of the day. Although a scrambles competition was planned, only a few folks showed up, so instead we did 5-way and 4-way all day. It really wasn’t that different from what we’d do in scrambles; we just had no one else to compete with.
So, five really nice jumps on what turned out to be a gorgeous day (I suspect part of the reason for the lack of crowds was that the forecast was iffy). It was unseasonably cool (I don’t think it broke 75 all day), with nice light winds till the end of the day. On the 5th jump the winds were moderately high and gusty and they went up from there. I’d already decided that would be my last jump, and the winds were the icing on that cake.
I picked up an Instructional Rating Manual at the DZ yesterday and talked with some of the instructors about working towards my coach rating, which is the first step in the USPA instructional rating progression. If I get that, I’ll be able to jump with students who don’t yet have their A license, but who are cleared by the AFF instructors to self-supervise. It looks like there will likely be a coach rating class in mid-July, so I just have to make sure to knock out my prerequisites before then, which shouldn’t be a problem at all.