Five Reasons Your Coach Makes You Look Across the Formation
Thursday, October 3, 2019
- Christy Frikken
- 10/03/19
- 0
- Basic Flying Skills
Curious as to why all the local coaches insist you stare into a stranger’s eyes in a socially awkward manner? There are a bunch of reasons to develop this FS habit!
Become a Fall Rate Prediction Machine
The first and most prominent reason is to match the fall rate of the formation through the center. If you are only looking locally, you will have less time to react to fall rate changes and are less likely to be able to maintain levels.
Slot Fly Like a Boss
Slot flying, or choosing your position based on someone across the formation, creates a faster and more accurate formation. The concept is that if everyone waits in their spot based on your opposite, the formation builds off the perfect center. This is how teams get that cool clockwork effect.
If you are only looking at your grips, you are not setting up with your clone.
See and React Quicker
I’m not sure about your jumps, but mine don’t always go perfectly. Brainlocks, fall rate changes, people landing on each other – you name it, it happens. You can respond and fix these setbacks much faster if you see them happening. If you are in your own little world though, they will sneak up on you and suck you in.
Don’t get left behind
Another simple reason to look is to see the key. If the signal is given to go on to the next point, you need to be looking and aware so you can keep up. I enjoy the ‘I didn’t see the key!’ excuse – because the person saying it usually doesn’t realize they just admitted to not looking where they should have been looking!
Get Great Faster
The final reason looking matters is that it helps you learn faster! Skydiving is a series of scenarios that you need to make real-time decisions. An experienced skydiver has a library of situations to draw from and can quickly execute the best possible action because they remember a similar circumstance.
You will only build your library if you are looking to gather the information. If you don’t see the bigger picture, you won’t learn what choice you might make next time.
Look in the dirt dive. Look in the mockup. Look in the sky. Look now. Look always. You’ll see more stuff coming, react better, and learn much faster!
Want to practice all this stuff with Fury Coaching? Grab some tunnel with Christy!
