From: dbriggs@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Daniel Briggs)
Subject: Re: freestyle stuff
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 92 04:44:14 GMT

In article <1992Sep5.011609.23782@mercury.cair.du.edu>
  tjreynol@zephyr.cair.du.edu (The Jumpin Dude) writes:
>has anyone seen 'A Video Guide to Freestyle" yet? (Daniel?)
>does anyone know how much it costs?

I have no idea how much this costs.  I'd like to know!  I've seen a few ads
for it, but so far no price!  It's a big secret?  I must admit, though,
that I wasn't all that impressed with her "books".  They were OK, but worth
about 1/2 the price.  ($10 each, and they were very short.  Maybe 30 pages
each?)  A lot of movement philosophy, without much specifics.  The first
one came with something like 5 blanks pages for "notes".  For a booklet
this short, this is ridiculous!  From the review of the video in the last
_Parachutist_, I'm not just dying to run out and buy it.  Sounds like I
might pop $30 for it, but not the $50 or $60 that most skydiving videos
tend to run.

If you want a good source of video freestyle, allow me once again to
promote the video of the 2nd world freestyle competition.  It's got some
really good stuff in there!  In addition, they toss in a tape of the first
competition, as aired by ESPN.  It's all of $26, I think, and worth every
cent.  It has enough stuff to keep you experimenting for a long time.  I
don't have the address handy, but it'll be in any of the _Parachutist_s
from a few months back.

If you haven't seen Travelling II, do so!  The two sections on Mike
Michigan and Patrick deG are about the best 15 minutes of skydiving I've
seen.  Really tasty stuff.  Only problem is, the whole 22 minute video is
in the price range I just mentioned.  Way expensive.  Even so, it's almost
worth it.

>i've been doing freestyle almost exclusively since Lost Prairie
>and i'm having a lot more fun with it than with RW; i've been 
>doing LOTS of layouts :-) as well as pinwheels, flip throughs,
>and arabians, and flipping daffies too, but i haven't got any 
>of it on tape yet, so i don't really know if it's any good.

Outstanding!  How are your arabians doing?  I've never done one that I was
happy with.  (But then I know that I'm naturally a klutz!  Takes me twice
the jumps of my more athletic buddies to get anything right. ;) It took me
about 6 jumps or more of just daffys to really learn to fly them smoothly.
(Hint: Fly them with your feet, not your hands.  If you fall out of the
daffy, your back foot is probably too far out to the side.)  And even so,
when I had a jump videoed, I discovered that my daffys and my Ts look an
awful lot the same.  Almost indistinguishable on video, though they feel
way different from the inside.  One of the gazillion things I need to work
on is getting the torso straight up and down in the daffy.  In general,
freestyle *feels* wonderful, but getting it to look pretty takes some time.
When we jump together, there's all kinds of things we can try!

Me, I've gone back to basic RW school.  I *really* need to get my act
together here.  It's not like this is unpleasant, but I've done only one or
two freestyle jumps since I've been back.  :(

>If I look anywhere near as good on tape as i feel in the air, i'd
>semi-seriously consider competitive freestyle as a goal.

It sounds like you might have a gift for it.  Go for it.  And even if you
don't get competitive about it, just enjoy it.  I'm going to be in Eloy
for the freestyle competition.  (Sad to say, as a spectator.)  Want to
show up and play together?  Of course, the week before that is the Halloween
boogie, which also should be great.  Dunno if I can make both, but I might
try.

>also any ideas for trick exits is welcome.

As I said a while back, I've had a lot of fun with exits from our Beech
where I get my feet way far forward of the door.  My feet are where the
front floater would stand.  I support myself with one hand in the door and
the other one on a handle.  The body is at about a 45 degree angle leaning
backwards.  Just let go with the arms, and fall off, while trying to keep
contact with your feet as long as possible.  You'll leave the plane in a
back layout.

Blue skies!

-- 
| Daniel Briggs  (dbriggs@nrao.edu)                      |        USPA B-14993
| New Mexico Tech / National Radio Astronomy Observatory |            DoD #387
| P.O. Box O / Socorro, NM 87801   (505) 835-7391        |
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