For Starters
February 2004
Turns
We’ve all demonstrated our ability to start and stop a turn or we wouldn’t have our category 8. Turning is easy, just adopt any asymmetric body position.

But what’s the most efficient way to turn perfectly around our centrepoint? This is what we need to do when jumping with other people.

Here, Steve Hamilton goes though the exact science. He should know – 7,000 jumps, National Champion and Sebastian XL team member – take it from the top...
Much has been written and talked about techniques of FS (Formation Skydiving). As coaches, XL are constantly learning, revising and adapting our approaches to the personal skills involved in our sport. This process has been greatly helped by our extensive use of the wind tunnel. It has allowed us to observe and experiment to a degree that was never possible in the past, to get many repetitions of the same move and to see first hand what works and what doesn’t.

The tunnel has enabled us to more clearly define the exact inputs needed to perform a certain manoeuvre in the most efficient way possible.

This is not to say that the techniques here are the only way to do it, nor am I suggesting that we know better than other coaches who may have shown you different techniques... but the following is information that our team has learned and observed for itself during a considerable experience of coaching, watching and listening.

When it comes to making turns in FS, I’ve found it quite confusing to hear so many different ideas; just the amount of information can be a little overwhelming and it can leave skydivers with no clear idea of the best approach.
Keep It Simple
Turning shouldn’t be rocket science, so I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible. First, let’s take a model of something that we can aspire to be like, something that turns around a centre-point very efficiently. How about an aircraft propeller? I think we’d all agree that a prop is pretty good at spinning around, essentially performing an in-place turn over and over again (I wish I could be that consistent!). The prop has to be well balanced with an equal amount of input from all its blades. If not, it will quickly wear out and cause some damage.

For our purposes let’s think about a two-bladed propeller. Imagine one blade is your upper body and the other your lower body. The fixed point where it’s attached to the engine is your body’s centre of mass, around your belly or your pelvis. See Figure 1.

Now all we need to do is to feather both blades of the prop evenly, displacing equal amounts of air and hence pushing us around, creating a turn. Let’s break down the technique into our upper and lower body input, then combine the two for the full move.

Upper Body
From your neutral position, lower one elbow whilst lifting the other to the same degree. At the same time allow your torso to bank over slightly to the same side as the lower elbow. See Figure 2.
Figure 1
Figure 2

Keep your head neutral and relaxed, looking straight ahead. By far the most important thing here is keeping your spine straight throughout the turn. Imagine a T-shape being formed between your spine and shoulders.

Any twisting or turning of your back, or if one elbow gets closer to the side of your body, will almost certainly compromise your turn and put you off balance.
See Figures 3 & 4.

Remember the propeller? Think of a straight line from the tip of one blade through the centrepoint to the tip of the other. This should always remain a straight line so we should be aware to not allow our bodies to deviate from this.

Figure 3
Figure 4
Head-switch
This brings me onto another hot topic; whether to head-switch or not (head-switching is looking back at your target during the first half of the turn, then looking over the opposite shoulder to regain eye contact). There is no right or wrong answer. A head-switch is not an inherently good or bad thing to do – provided we don’t deviate from the T-shape. Where problems are caused by head-switching is at the point where you try so hard to see over your shoulder that the spine starts to twist and the blades of our prop become unbalanced. An argument I’ve heard says that a head-switch is necessary to keep your eyes on your target (say, another skydiver opposite you in a formation). Well, that’s great if your target is not moving! But what if that person’s centrepoint is not staying still during your turn? Perhaps they are not turning in place, and now your visual reference is telling you that you’re screwing up your turn... so then you try to adjust your input mid-turn, you lose confidence in your ability and, almost certainly, you won’t turn in place either.

The bottom line is, if whatever you are doing works well for you and you’re happy that your turns are pretty good, then stick with it and keep refining what you’ve got. If, on the other hand, you feel that there could be a better way for you to do it, ask a coach for some help, and experiment.
Lower Body
To displace the air with our lower body we need to lay our lower legs over to one side and allow one knee to push down slightly on the air whilst the other lifts up. See Figure 5.

This combination of the knee dropping and the drive you get from your booties pushing on the air will create the propeller shape we need. We see a lot of people using their knees very well but by just pushing them straight down you lose the input available from your booties. You should notice that by just thinking about laying your legs over, the knee will drop automatically thanks to the bio-mechanics of the hip and knee joints. Try to make sure the angle between your thighs and lower legs remains the same, the action of laying them over from one side to the other should resemble windscreen wipers. The centre of our prop remains fixed so think of your hip bones staying level through the whole process and not rolling to the side.

Figure 5
It’s pretty rare these days to see FS jumpers without booties on their suits and that’s because they work very efficiently by acting as paddles to push the air around. If you use booties it makes sense that they work well so try to get your suit fitted with some degree of tension between your toes and knees. The exact size and tightness of them is somewhat down to personal preference but if they are loose the wind just blows them flat and they become expensive shoe covers!

Putting it all Together
Now we’ve isolated the physical movements involved in making a turn we need to combine these inputs smoothly and evenly for a nice, balanced move. As one elbow drops so should the opposite knee to form the basic prop shape. Lifting the other elbow and knee will displace the air you’ve just pushed and will keep you arching throughout the turn.

The most important part of the turn is to stop on the desired heading. If I just spin around as fast as I can but can’t stop the turn in the right place, then I need to slow down and emphasise the ‘stop’ portion of the move. A good analogy is driving your car fast and trying to stop in front of a wall. If you just keep your foot on the gas and slam the brakes on a few feet from the wall, chances are you’ll be disappointed with the result! So how about taking your foot off the gas earlier, allowing the car to coast for a while then smoothly applying the brakes as you assess the distance and speed? Much more in control and cheaper on your garage bills! The input you would use for a turn in the opposite direction provides the brakes you need to stop.

Precision First
In his book The Inner Athlete, Dan Millman advocates using the formula of P-S-P when learning a new physical skill. This stands for ‘Precision’, then ‘Speed’, followed by ‘Power’. For us this means learning how to consistently turn in place and stop on heading before we try to turn faster and with more power. It’s tempting to leapfrog the ‘precision’ part of the process because turning faster is more fun than just plodding around but, believe me, it’s well worth building the foundation of good technique before trying to rev it up, the speed will naturally develop later.

It’s All in the Mind

Techniques of mental training fill whole books so we’ll just skim the surface here... I believe they are amongst the most powerful tools at your disposal to improve your sporting performance, your work, in fact every aspect of your life. Our sport of skydiving can get quite expensive, what with jump tickets, equipment, tunnel time, coaching, etc, so why not use something that is:
1 Free!
2 Not dependent on weather
3 Available anywhere any time.

In freefall you might only get the opportunity to perform a handful of turns but you can visualise as many as you like on the ground. Research with athletes has shown that proper visualisation of a physical action actually stimulates the neurons and muscle fibres that you would use to perform the task itself. Essentially you are creating physiological changes just by thinking about doing a turn.
Remember though, that ‘only perfect practice makes perfect’ so, if you find yourself visualising turns you’re not happy with, you’re just training bad habits!

Mental training is great for staying ‘current’ during the winter months when you’re not jumping much or during a break from team training. We often experience the phenomenon of an improvement in performance after a long lay-off and this is a combination of a ‘physical forgetting’ of bad muscle-memory along with a commitment to a programme of mental training.

Side-slide
The inputs for a turn are the same as those used to produce sideways movement (side-slide). The only difference is that, instead of the inputs being from opposite sides of the body, they are now on the same side.

So, to generate a slide, pitch the body towards that side, using the same upper and lower body movements as for a turn.
See Figure 6.
Figure 6
Hot Tips
Practice on the ground to build muscle memory. Make sure it’s correct, get a coach to watch or practice in front of a mirror.

Doing it eyes-closed can enhance the experience and build up your kinaesthetic awareness.

Try turning in freefall eyes-closed to get the feel of an in-place turn.

Feel your centrepoint before you start, to help you turn around it.

Practice in a wind tunnel, if possible.
Keep your Sense of Humour
Trying to improve your skydiving skills can be a confusing, frustrating process and it’s one we’ve all been through at some point. Try to learn the correct technique and get some coaching, stick with it and try to approach your learning with a good sense of humour. As kids we would consistently wobble and fall over when we were learning to walk but we didn’t give ourselves a hard time about it. We had a beginner’s mind and were open to the whole learning process; we simply got back up, wobbled some more and maybe took a few more steps next time. Allow your improvements to come at their own pace, enjoy the journey and have fun!