Organic skydiving

Organic Video Review

For most folks in skydiving today, video is an absolute part of the learning process.  Cameras mounted on helmets seem to be as much a part of the freefly movement as the parachute.   I’ve seen many a novice freeflyer decked out in the latest video technology while just learning the basics of sitting. RW competitors wouldn’t’ even think of practicing without a camera recording their every twitch.  Skydiving has become, in some aspects, a video game.

A typical day at the DZ has folks landing, dropping off their rigs with the packers and heading straight for video review. †More than once I have asked the question: ”How was your jump?” and had the response “We’re not sure, the video didn’t work”.  That answer always gives me pause.

Could this be a shortcoming of technology and the way we use it? This is where I can see that technology could be slowing down our learning progression. If we are using a technology in our skydiving progression, that if taken away the learning stops, then perhaps learning can be enhanced just by using it in a different manner. Let me just share a few thoughts about the technology we use and perhaps a little evaluation on how we use it too.

The history of video review in skydiving goes back almost 30 years. †An 8 way team by the name of Mirror Image was training down in Zephyrhills Florida and a guy by the name of Jim Baker was the camera flier. †The camera equipment he wore was about the size of a regular sized video camera but he also had to wear a recording deck about as big as a full sized DVD player. His exit position was rear float, one time when he exited the DC-3 he was picked up by air traffic control radar in Tampa. This use of technology was the beginning of a new age when there were no guidelines, which is what is so nice about new beginnings. But as with most new beginnings, if left to it’s own devices it may go in any direction. I’m one of the few who can look back on the entire 30 years and see the direction it has taken.

One of my core beliefs with technology in skydiving is this: Technology should confirm and reinforce what you already know. Be it an audible altimeter to tell you your altitude, or video to show you what happened, or a GPS to tell you where to exit. In my opinion, there should be more dependence on self and less on technology. Technology is fine, how we use it is what needs to be evaluated.

From the moment you commit yourself to making a skydive your body starts taking in information towards that jump. As soon as you know what load you’re on, you’re then pretty sure what plane you’re going to use.    Now your mind/body connection is activated and you start pulling from your earlier experiences on how the dive might be approached. If it’s RW then you might be thinking of your job on exit. You go to the creepers and dirt dive each movement, optimum grips, eye contact and keys.  With VRW it’s similar (only they haven’t figured out a creeper for that yet). Freestyle would be the exit body position and movement out the door.  So the skydive begins in your mind/body before you have even put on your gear. Eventually, your load is called, you put on your gear, load the plane, make a skydive, become a parachutist, drop off your gear with a packer [unless you pack for yourself but who does that anymore] and are eager to see the video.

Now take a moment and think, what did primitive skydivers do back in the round age with all their ripcords and Sears coveralls (complete with hammer pocket)? Well, they had to rely on their own awareness and recollection. There was no video.  When eventually they started jumping together, they could share experiences and that would allow them to confirm what they thought they already knew. It was a long time before movie cameras came onto the scene but they finally did. But by the time the movie got sent away to be developed and then sent back, a week had gone by and it would truly only confirm that what they thought had happened actually did happen. So primitive skydivers needed to raise their awareness and become more connected to the element of freefall not only to survive but also to advance their flying skills.

(OK, OK, Dude!  Move on.  What does this have to do with how we use video?  Yeah, Yeah, Sorry!)

Let me put some thoughts in play on how to use video in a more Organic, self-reliant way.
Picture the end of a jump going something like this: You land and take your rig to the packer like always, but then you go off by yourself for a couple of minutes and debrief yourself. Visualize everything from the climb out, the exit, all the way to deployment and becoming a parachutist; certain highlights will stand out. †Run it through your mind one or two more times, then meet up with the team for a casual run through of the dive together. Casually debrief as a group, not really hammering any particular point, and a few more things may come to light because of something you didn’t or couldn’t have known. Now go watch the video.  This is where you will get to see if what you are recalling is close to what actually happened.

Video should confirm what your mind/body has been telling you. With thoughtful introspection and visualization, you will become more conscious of feeling the freefall environment and in this way your body will learn to react to what it feels instantly. With so much dependence on video, your mind/body is taught to learn and react more from what you have seen on the video than what you feel in freefall. That adds a whole other step before you start reacting to a situation in freefall. I am of the opinion that this is why there appears to be a need to make so many jumps to advance. Practice and repetition will get you there but so will a more complete use of all the information available.

So now 30 years later video review is still being used in the same way as when we started using it so long ago.
Do we watch and review video like we watch TV?  It seems a re-run is a re-run and a bad re-run gets erased.
But actually, a bad re-run is gold because that is where the learning really takes place.  How are we using technology? Could there be more knowledge gleaned from each jump if we just slowed down a beat and looked at our jump more Organically?

An Organic way of thinking sends you down a path toward being more dependent on self than technology by enhancing awareness.   There is no reason not to use technology but remember, all man made things break or fail. When they do, it shouldn’t take anything away from your jump.

The idea of Organic Skydiving is built on this awareness of self in a very unique environment.  It is unique to the human animal.  You are exploring an environment that has only been dreamed of by past generations of human beings.  Their dreams over thousands of years have brought us here and we get to become the first generation of human beings to become  creatures of the air because of those dreams.  There are no primal instincts to fall back on here.  We are the first.  There may become instincts in the future because of what we learn here and now but we are the beginning of the gene pool of human flight.   In a way, I guess, procreating with other skydivers could be seen as a good thing.  But no matter where it goes from here, enjoy this unique privilege. Skydiving is what it is today because there have always been people who tried new things.  Organic Skydiving is you in control of yourself in Freefall.  It doesn’t have to be anything like what anybody else does in this environment.

Make it yours.

An Organic Skydiving philosophy would have to have some basic truths.  Skydiving isn’t Relative work or Freestyle or Style or Freeflying.  Those are all things that you do while skydiving.  The basic truth is: Skydiving is you in control of your body while falling through the air in freefall.  And while that may seem to be over simplified, well, it is.  We have a tendency to make skydiving more complicated in our minds than it need be.  Being in control in freefall  has many aspects that we build on as we move forward in our skydiving pursuits.  If you are going to try and be the best at any one of the skills that I listed, then you need to focus on that skill.  But what about cross training?  Do some of the skills cross over?  Yes they can.  But before we get into how that can happen lets make it even simpler in our minds.  On a jump, once we have left the craft we are using to get us to altitude, we start to accelerate to terminal velocity.  Depending on how much surface area we are exposing to the air will dictate, more or less, what that speed will be.  To fall straight down we seek a balance of all the surface areas that are exposed to the air rushing by.  A truth: IF there is balance of drag\deflection of this air as we fall through it, we fall straight down.
If there is an imbalance on these surfaces then there is movement.
So whether you are on your head, standing up, laying flat or in a Daffy, if there is balance then there isn’t any movement.  So suppose we are laying flat and wanted to turn.  Then by deflecting the air with your arms, chest and legs you can go out of balance and create a turn.  Simple?  Well we didn’t think so at first but now we hardly think about it.     Not a Truth: Turn your head and your body will follow.  Unless you are deflecting a lot of air with the side of your face, this is not physically true.  You may turn your head and your body turns but it isn’t because of your head.  It is because of what you are doing with the rest of your body.  Being aware of this simple premise of deflection of air will get you where you want to go much more efficiently than by just turning your head and expecting everything else will come automatically.
So here is where I would like to bring in the concept of the vertical line.  The vertical line is that line that you can feel as you are falling straight down.  Where the air is coming from is down and where it is going is up.  This is one of those tactile inputs that you get from free fall.  The more aware of it you become the less you have to depend on what you see and the more you can depend on what you feel.  There are times in Freestyle when you will be flipping.  Sometimes so fast that your eyes aren’t a dependable way to tell where you are.  But you will feel the vertical line.  Where the air is coming from is always down and where it is going is always up.  You can depend on that for sure.  This awareness will allow you to anticipate where you are about to be so you can initiate a combination of deflections that will bring you to a stop where you want to stop.  I will write a separate article about the inner ear but for right now,  I would like to add this about the inner ear.  You can tumble your inner ear [the vestibular system] so violently that even if you were to be able to see the face of an altimeter clearly and see the hand and numbers, the information just doesn’t go into your head in a way that you can understand.  I have pulled way high because of this a few times.  I learned a few tricks to take care of this and we will discuss that later.  Even though I couldn’t read the altimeter I could feel the vertical line clearly and maintain control of where I was.  So no matter what you are doing in Freefall, become aware of the vertical line.  If you are sitting and you are totally still with no movement, close your eyes for 2-3 seconds and you will feel the vertical line easily.  If you are on your head or just laying flat, close your eyes for a second or two and you will feel it.  On that same Idea, if you find yourself moving and can’t figure out why, then try closing your eyes for a second or two and you will be able to feel where the imbalance of deflection\drag is.  It will become much more apparent than trying to see where it is with your eye’s.  Remember your whole body is a sensor.  The information is always coming in even if you aren’t conscious of it.  In the beginning of any new skill you are learning, start to take inventory regularly. Where’s my legs? Where’s my arms?.  Am I arched?, Am I flat?.  And I don’t mean just when things aren’t going right. You especially want to do it when you are doing it right.  Think legs and you will feel legs, think arms and you will feel arms.  The information is there for you to become aware of.

I do this to this day.  It’s a routine.

Alright then, I will always be harping on awareness in Freefall. The cool thing about our sport is that it is an extremely tactile sport. Remember when you made your first jump? There was some time right at the beginning when you let go of the plane and you don’t have a clue what was going on? That is what we call “Sensory overload”. That’s because we just put our body in a situation that is absolutely, positively was not designed to do. All your neural pathways get overloaded with so much new information that they had never experienced before that they just went into “What the F…” mode or as is commonly known as fight or flight (a different kind of flight). But the human body is so adaptable that it only took a few seconds for your body to start to create new or modify old pathways to deal with this insane new situation you were putting it through. Now, lots of jumps later, your body understands that this wasn’t a onetime deal and it has created independent pathways for just this purpose. The human body is cool because on every square inch of the human body there is a hair and this hair acts like a sensor. In freefall, because of the air we are falling through, these sensors send a ton of information to body to evaluate and react too. And I don’t just mean your brain. It sends information to your muscles, the fascia around the muscles, your ears, your eyes, and the whole body. Unfortunately we tend to shut a lot of that information out and react mostly to what our eyes are telling us and that is limiting your awareness by a whole lot. Here’s something to try next time you go skydive and are doing a no-contact exit. Looking at the door from the inside of the plane. The angle from the top front corner of the door and the rear lower corner of the door is more or less the angle of the relative wind (I will be referring to it as the Relative plane from now on. There is no hill except for Ron but I will get into that a bunch more later). This doesn’t work if you are jumping a tailgate. You are going to use that reference on how you push your shoulders through the door. So if the door is on the left hand side of the plane, your right shoulder is up and your left shoulder is down. Now as your head goes out the door (very important it is outside the door) close your eyes and count to 5. What will happen is you will fly the air you feel on the relative plane. The ground won’t influence how you position your body, the feel of the air will. Welcome to Organic Skydiving. This is the pure skydiving feeling that we are seeking. This is where you will become aware of the vertical line.

All of a sudden…..Mike

Hey folks, Kelly asked me about what to be considering when moving from “Belly Flying” (I hate that term) to Freestyle. So I thought I would include everybody that was interested from the beginning of this thread. This will take a few different messages to get there because I want to start with some philosophy first: First, Freestyle can get away from you in a few different ways. Loss of control is usually where folks have a lot of concern but Loss of altitude awareness is first and foremost. Loss of altitude awareness There will come a time where you are working on some inverted posture and time just flies by. There you are concentrating on pointing your toe and keeping your leg straight up, you roll over and there is the ground big as ever. So here are the guidelines that I try and follow. First: Any position that takes the ground out of your peripheral vision should be done above 5000ft. This would be flying on your back or looping of any kind. From there down practice things like T’s. Daffy’s. Flip thru’s etc…. These are things that put the ground front and center. Audible altimeters, altimeters and even your Cypres are all man made and should be used as back up confirmation of what you already know. They should never be used as a fail safe system that makes you aware when you are supposed to be. They are man made and break from time to time so don’t depend on them. Your eyes are way more reliable. On the way to altitude make yourself aware of the altitude of the bottom of the clouds (if there are any). That way you can glance at them during your routine and feel confident of where you are. When you use your altimeter look at the ground first and then your altimeter. This is a good practice no matter what you are doing in freefall. Calibrating your eyes is a good thing. In freestyle you put your body in a lot of different attitudes which put your altitude reading device in your burble. This can cause your readings be as much as 1000ft higher than you actually are. There’s nothing more exciting than looking at your altimeter while you are on your back and seeing it read 4000ft, then when you roll over watch it suddenly read 3000ft. A good practice is to get a hand mount thus keeping it of the burble more. In this day and age we depend on batteries a lot. What are the chance of them going dead? OK I know that is a lot about altitude awareness but it truly is the most important aspect of our sport. Remember: This is an extremely dangerous sport but it can be done very safely. Don’t ever loose sight of that. OK, why don’t you chew on that for a bit. I have to go finish cutting a couple of suits and I will get back with you and we will learn about the vertical line. All of a sudden…..Mike