Most people agree that, once you get your Category 8, you can then be at a bit of a loss. It’s great to have qualified but you miss the structure of the category system. Cat 10 seems to be your next goal but you don’t know the best way to get there, who to jump with and advice seems to be a mass of contradictions.
 

Well, help is at hand... VMax, the British ladies 4-way team, have written a series of articles that will take you from Category 8 through FS to 4-way FS. Save yourself time and frustration by harnessing all the skills that are available. The journey is endless learning and a lot of fun... enjoy!
 

BODY POSITION
A good body position is really important. If you don’t hold the tennis racquet properly, you will never reach your full potential as a tennis player. Skydiving is the same. Spend some time with a coach getting this right. Don’t limit yourself by having a bad body position. You need to be able to stay still and fall straight ‘down the tube’. This is a little more difficult than it sounds! You need to be able to move three dimensionally in all directions and turn in place – or thereabouts!

The ‘Mantis’ is the name that people refer to the modern flying position. To achieve this, lie on the floor on your stomach like a young kid would watching the TV. They have their elbows resting on the floor with their hands under their chin and their head high. Their knees are on the floor with their legs crossed.

Simply uncross your legs and lower your forearms and that’s pretty much the Mantis position.

• Your head is high
  You need to be able to see across formations over your team mates’ backpacks
  
• Your arms are lower than your shoulders
  This makes it easy to take grips. If you have your arms high in a traditional ‘box’ position you will have to bring your arms down to take a grip, and this will affect your fall rate.
  
• You have a slight arch from your hip
  This gives you a low centre of gravity which gives you stability and makes you solid in the air
  
• Your knees should be on or slightly above the level of your hips
  This is where you use the least input to achieve the maximum effect when you learn to fly engaging your knees – which you will.

The top teams use this body position, because it allows them to move fast and dynamically with the least input. The body position should be learned straight off Category 8. Learn to fly with it from day one. It is not more difficult to achieve than older style body positions and will avoid you spending time later on re-learning when you can not move around the sky as you would like. It is more difficult to break old habits than to learn correctly in the first place.
 

WEIGHT
You should be able to fall in the mantis position comfortably and be able to easily move both up and down relative to others. Put another way, you should be in the middle of your fall rate range. You will only need to wear lead to put you in the middle of your fall rate range. On level video will be useful to indicate if you are struggling in either direction. Be patient whilst you get this body position right.

When jumping with people who do not fly in the mantis, you may notice that they fall faster as they are creating less air pressure, particularly on their upper body. You do not need to wear more lead. They need to learn to fly more efficiently.

If you do need to wear weight,  you can put lead in one of three places or a mixture:

In your rig
You can add a panel on the back of your container, it’s worth asking the question. If you are light, you are likely to be wearing lead for most of your FS jumping, so this is probably a good idea. You may want to alter the amount of lead you wear when fun jumping with different size people so make it adjustable. Lise Aune of DeLand Norgies wears lead in her rig

Around your shoulders
There are a number of different style waistcoat weight vests available, choose the most comfortable. If one is being sold second hand, it is normally because it’s not very comfortable!

Around your waist
Either inside or outside your jumpsuit, these have become more popular relatively recently. Dawn English of Generation FX wears one.

A lot is talked about weight and where to wear it... I don’t think it makes a huge difference, go for the most comfortable. Think of safety issues such as making sure the lead cannot fall out if you are upside down and that it doesn’t hinder access to your cutaway and reserve handles. If you’re going to ask advice, choose someone who has some experience of wearing lead.
 

WARP and Skydive U are two systems designed to teach basic freefall skills through one-on-one coaching. Choice of coach is more important than the system. Try to keep the same coach for all your jumps. Continuity is important.

What to look for in a coach
Take some time to pick a coach. Ask people whose opinion you trust. Find a coach who’s company you enjoy. If you’re having fun and are relaxed you are more likely to skydive well and reach your full potential.

Find out what their freefall skills are like. This is about currency and has very little to do with jump numbers or time in the sport. Make sure they can teach as well as skydive. Ask your potential coach about something, see what you think of their explanation, if it resembles an astrophysics lesson, you’re probably better looking elsewhere. Ask someone who’s been taught by him or her. How much time can they give you? Ideally you want to have a concentrated learning phase with continuity.

Size does matter! Try to find someone who is likely to have a similar fall rate.

LOCATION
If you can’t find a suitable coach at your home DZ, maybe go elsewhere, returning to your home DZ with a bunch of new skills. The choice of where to go is endless. Get advice. Look for skills camps, a good place to meet like-minded people, be coached by top skydivers in the world and are relatively economical.

Talk to your CCI beforehand, as the BPA only recognises WARP and Skydive U systems as Cat 10 qualifiers in FS. Your goal should be learning to fly, not getting a sticker!

A wind tunnel is a great training tool and well worth a go. It is not a magic trick, you won't start instantly skydiving like Airspeed! Use a tunnel where you wear your regular jumpsuit as opposed to one where you must wear a baggy suit. We use SkyVenture in Orlando.

HELP YOURSELF
Give 100% of your attention and effort to your coach. Trust the information they are giving you is right and be receptive to it. If you hear someone else saying something contradictory, ask your coach.

Give yourself plenty of time to prepare on the ground, including your gear. If your approach is calm, you’re more likely to have this mindset in the skydive.

"If your approach on the ground is calm, you’re more likely to have this mindset in the skydive"

BE PATIENT
You will not get everything right first time. Don’t whip yourself into submission if you do not do a perfect in-place turn (unless you’re into that kind of thing of course!). To learn, we need to make mistakes. Don’t get hung up on them.

Understand there are different schools of thought on things and try to buy into the most recent. Competitive skydivers are always looking for ways to move faster, stop harder and being more efficient. So flying techniques are constantly modified. We need to keep watching those at the top and learning from them. We’re in a rapidly evolving discipline – that’s what makes it so much fun. Enjoy!

Photos by: Brian Vacher 

Article by: Kate Stephens
kate.stephens@smith-nephew.com
www.vmax.org.uk

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