Aussie Bigway Record: Training Camp 1
May 20, 2015: Camp 1 Day 1
Morning briefing: Greg Jack is up welcoming us to the Aussie big way training camps and kicked off with some thanks, we have around 103 or so Aussies here at the moment – thanks for showing up and getting involved! Big thanks to the state mentors and coaches as well as all those people who are involved at all different levels of organizing this event and sponsors, especially the donations for our goodie bags (everyone is loving the Aussie flag Headsox and wearing them with pride thanks Richard!). We were also introduced to the rest of the P3 coaching team: Dan, Doug, Tom, Josh, Mark, Larry and Tony as well as the camera team led by Craig O’Brien: Luciano, Juan and George, incidentally it was Craig’s birthday today so in the Aussie spirit we gave him a loud and proud rendition of a happy birthday. Hopefully the presents from the wife and kids were awesome!
No briefing is complete without discussing safety and how as individuals and as a team we are going to stay safe and look out for each other. Many of my work colleagues have a laugh at the irony of a Health and Safety Manager being a skydiver… it’s a risky sport, but like all fun activities there are many things we do to keep ourselves in the air so we can jump over and over and over again. And over again. Did I mention that we like to jump?
Briefing done and we break into groups, for today we have 6 groups of about 18-20 people per group. I am in a group with Josh Hall as our coach and some other familiar faces from the west Shirley, Dixie and Peta. Apparently it’s the first time in 7 years that Shirley and Dixie have been put together in one of these small teams together, I’m pretty sure that’s beer!
We’re loaded up into the two Twin Otters for our 19-way formation load and the weather decides that it’s not yet time to play as a bank of cloud rolls in across the dz. Not to worry, the luck of the Irish and a little touch of magic from our Estonian friend Merlin blows the cloud away and we give it another shot.
The jumps today are all about practicing our approach to the formation and getting a feel for the planes flying in formation: lead plane with a right trail plane. On the way up to height in the plane I look across from me and Shirley is grinning at me with the kind of grin that says “I’m up to something” and kindly reminds me of all the firsts that I am doing over here in Perris and how much beer I’ll be buying which gets cheers from all within earshot. Luckily for me I’m not the only person who has plenty of firsts to celebrate so the beer should flow freely every night we are here.
A couple of highlights from our group today:
- Our fifth jump for the day was our best jump of the day. We are all flat flyers here, but there is nothing wrong with taking out a 4-way linked base when one person decided to attempt some head down before being muscled back into a flat solid base. Seeing an upside down version of the plane we just jumped out of is not the picture we had in mind. We didn’t quite complete the formation, but the skill progression and discipline by every jumper was something to be proud of and we finished the day on a high.
- Josh Hall owes beer… Our coach! He gave the ok to start climbing out of the plane on the red light, hosing himself, front float and rear float by having to stand outside in the cold for just a little longer to give our teammates in the trail plane enough time to setup. He sold himself into that one, so we’ll make him pay up.
Kate Cooper-Jenson (another one of the great P3 coaches) rolled into the dropzone this afternoon and we immediately reaped the benefit of her years of experience in the jump debriefs today. Unfortunately Kate won’t be able to jump with us, but is going to be around then dz for the whole time we are here and will be coaching us from the ground which we are all grateful for. Thanks Kate!
All 6 groups met to wrap up at the end of the day and what better time to congratulate the achievements and celebrate the beer fines. So here are the ones I know about:
- 1000 jumps – Zac (Steve)
- 500 jumps – Peter
- 250 jumps – Nigel
- Jumper got on the wrong plane – anonymous (you can quietly put beer on and no names will be named)
- Jumper tried to get on the wrong plane but was stopped – Mike
- Jumper lost rig, later found where it was originally put down to be packed, just forgot it was put there – Cullen
- Flying to the wrong slot in the formation – Mike
- Flying to the wrong slot after sheep dogging the dude who flew to the wrong slot – Paul
May 21, 2015: Camp 1 Day 2
Well it is 8am and we are all meeting on the creeper area as a group for the morning briefing. Anyone with two eyes would see the cloud cover is going be a real kick in the nuts today and it was. But there is always a silver lining to every story and I’m sure everyone will agree we still had a fun day.
We broke into our groups for the day, new groups, new coaches (today I am in Tom’s group). To add to some of the learning the other coaches have already given, there are three new rules that we are bound by on any jump we do with Tom (but in general are pretty good rules to fly by in large formations anyway):
- Only dock on the formation when it is ready to be docked on
- Only dock on the formation when I am ready to dock
- Only dock on the formation when I am ready for someone to dock on me
Simple right? Clearly there is a lot of mental preparation that goes into every skydive, it starts at the ground and stops when we land.
When we finish our dirt dive we were left to entertain ourselves for a little while. Our coaches know what happens when skydivers are left to entertain themselves for too long so Doug called us all together for the first seminar of the day: Formation exits. Doug has a knack for making his seminars interesting and entertaining and likened exiting an aircraft at height to a beer bottle and a paper towel being thrown out of the window of a moving car. Sometimes you want to be the beer bottle, but more often than not you want to be the paper towel. Meaning: you want to sail like the paper towel in the wind when you leave the airplane and present your body to the wind, identify the base and intercept it. The seminar was really informative and we are all going to have great exits for the rest of the camps.
We break for lunch, the weather is making everyone itchy in places they shouldn’t be itchy (well we hope it’s the weather)…so the coaches in all their wisdom decide it is time for another seminar. This time we are meeting on the creeper pad (which is a large concrete area). Doug is hosting again only this time we are learning about the perfect tracking position and so everyone is getting involved this time with practical activities. For the non-skydiver: tracking is at the end part of the jump where we work as teams to leave the formation to get as far away from each other as possible before we open our canopies. Another side note: a creeper is a tool that skydivers use to simulate skydiving while on the ground, it looks like one of those mechanics trolleys that they use to roll under the cars. When we use them, we lie on them on our belly (there are lots of pictures up on fb). The message of the seminar for the best body position to track in: straight legs, lock your knees in, feel your quad muscles engage, roll your shoulders, suck your belly in and feel the air cup under your body. We also practiced using the creepers in groups of 7 forming a tracking group to get away from the formation. All of this is valuable knowledge that I know personally I will take to the sky to improve my skills on every jump. It is now about 1400 and Doug promises us one more seminar at 1530.
We take another break and again find activities to entertain ourselves. We are a bit of a cheeky bunch (Doug wasn’t really serious about the 1530 seminar) but as an entire group we congregated back on the creeper pad and called Doug over the PA to present his final seminar of the day: how to successfully open a beer. Even after stringing it out showing a number of different techniques for opening a beer it still only lasted 5 minutes.
What to do with over 100 bored Aussie skydivers? Did someone say creeper races? Yes, yes they did.
Buy in: $2 per team of two competitors.
The rules:
- Person one (creeper navigator) lies on the creeper, cannot touch the ground with hands or feet is allowed to give verbal instructions
- Person two (driver) steers person one by the legs around an obstacle course with a blind fold on
- First team across the finish line wins
There were about 8 or 9 teams who entered with knock out rounds and we got down to the final two teams for the grand final. The course was similar to one of those defensive driving courses with the orange cones (weave in and out, get to the end turn around and come back). Teams travel in opposing directions to further increase the difficult and chance of collisions for entertainment. The two teams:
- The Tall Sally’s: Richard Mallet (driver wearing blindfold) and Steve Tonson (creeper navigator)
- Look Good First Safety Second: Mark Higgins (creeper navigator) and yours truly Joseph Rummy Clarke (driver wearing blindfold)
To increase the degree of difficulty from the rounds into the grand final each of the drivers (the blind folded people) were put through 5×360 spins. Clearly done to add entertainment value for the spectators and increase the likelihood of injury. The race started and there were clear breaches of rules from both teams with allegations of cheating and so a re-race was called, because we’re all too competitive to call it a draw. There had to be a winner!
In the second race both teams had solid strategies and for the first half of the race were neck and neck, at the bottom end of the course in the U-turn the teams crossed paths… the navigators got eye contact and quickly braced for impact as their drivers clearly lacking the sense of vision drove head on into each other, leading to mass confusion for the drivers. Competitor Mallet driver for the Tall Sally’s was seen to step on the head of Competitor Higgins navigator for Look Good First Safety Second, a consequence of not being able to see I suppose. Following this less than savory interaction competitor Mallet was seen running into Look Good First Safety Second’s other team member Rummy with a cheeky shoulder. A fierce few seconds of argy bargy ensued with competitors Rummy and Mallet both trying to drop the shoulder into the other, precious seconds were lost in this battle to the detriment of Look Good First Safety Second and the Tall Sally’s came out victorious. Well fought Richard and Steve… best 2 of 3?
By now it was late in the afternoon and so close to beer o’clock that we could taste it on our lips, then a well orchestrated act of misdirection saw Dan BC put the first two groups on a 20 minute call. It was almost 1700 and we were being called for our first jump of the day. The clouds had almost parted enough to get the planes in the air. Full gear on and waiting to board the planes, then we were given the no go.
We may not have had any loads go up into the air today, but there was a lot of learning that everyone gained from Doug’s seminars and more importantly from the skills shown by the competitors in the creeper races!
May 22, 2015: Camp 1 Day 3
Today is going to be pretty succinct. The clouds were over again and we were on standby until 0900. Morning entertainment was provided by American cable and Sigourney Weaver starring in Aliens. Movie finished and the day was called off at 1030.
There were groups of jumpers who took the opportunity to hone big way skills in the tunnel with Dan BC. From what I hear, there was much progression and skill development for individuals to be able to take to the sky.
A few of us went off to March Field Air Museum (also a US Airforce Base) and enjoyed the wide variety of aircraft on display. Aussies anywhere on a weather day is always interesting and today was no exception. We managed to practice some stack ups and exits off helicopters (present, identify, intercept) – coaches would be proud, also found a F14 that was willing to act as tracking team leader as we all practiced our tracking skills and two of us may or may not have jumped a fence to rodeo a nuclear bomb (was so worth it right Higgo?).
Anyway, like good the good kids we are, we were mostly all well behaved and there were no injuries to speak of. Today was supposed to be the final day of training camp 1, with our first scheduled day off being tomorrow. Given the shitty weather of the last couple of days we are on call tomorrow and we will be jumping when the sun comes out. Stay tuned for the exciting action of our next jumps tomorrow!
May 23, 2015: First day off
Now some of you may be confused by the title for today… thinking “you guys have all had the last two days off” well that’s true, but today was supposed to be the first scheduled day off. The day started on call with the intention to jump. Jumpsuits on, meet at 0800. In theory the first training camp would have finished yesterday and we would have had today off, but alas the weather is shit and we haven’t jumped the last two. Well things come in 3’s and today was the third day in a row of no jumping. It’s not that I’m superstitious but it feels good to find a reason for this crappy weather because it could not be the result of climate change, El Niño, La Niña or an elaborate weather machine built by Mr Burns to block out the sun. We will find a way to tear down the sun blocker!
We went through the normal routine after meeting, break into groups, dirt dive the jump and then wait. And then wait a little more. And then go buy the fourth coffee for the day at 1100 and walk around the dz from one group of people to the next in the hope that the conversation will bring some much needed distraction from doing nothing but waiting. It kind of did for the most part and then we would bring up how much it sucked to be sitting on the ground and waiting and silence would set in along with the itch that grass brings when you’ve been sitting on it for too long.
As frustrating as sitting around and waiting for the clouds to move is, some good does come from the time spent on the ground: in the form of seminars. A bright spark in the group has a great idea to ask Dan BC to fill our minds with information on Visualization (thanks Robbo aka Robo-Pop).
What is visualization? And how does Visualization help me?
In the world of skydiving, visualization uses the information we know about the jump we are about to do to paint a picture in our minds and envisage what is going to happen during the jump. By doing this, our instincts and skills take over during the jump and we put ourselves in an excellent position to perform at our best. This is a pretty simple version of the detail that Dan described (he did speak to us for a good hour on visualization, goal setting and peak performance – yes, they are all interrelated). Visualization is not just about closing your eyes in the plane on the way up to height running through a blurry version of what might happen and then hoping you’ve covered everything. Most skydivers have been fortunate to see this, when it is rushed it actually looks pretty funny. Visualization is about having a clear picture of what we expect to achieve. I could write about it for days but luckily Dan has already done that in his book Above All Else. It is worth the read, I even gave my parents a copy and now they understand me a little better when I speak skydive.
Main points to take from the session:
- Visualization is a skill like any other that requires time dedicated to actually doing it on the ground, not just in the plane.
- Visualization opens up your potential to perform at your best, then your best becomes your average and you can strive for a new best.
- Visualization is a skill that is transferable to almost anything with a tangible outcome and something which you can see.
And so ends the first camp, but not without the excitement of a raffle to give away a brand new KISS helmet and helmet bag thanks to Square 1 and the P3 organizing team. Kaylene won the helmet and Tom B won the helmet bag. The generous nature of Marty letting Kaylene into the line for tickets meant he missed out on his number being drawn, better luck in the raffle at the end of the next camps mate! Don’t be offended if he doesn’t let you in next time Kaylene.
The weather outlook is supposed to be improving so we’ve got a much better chance of possibly maybe jumping. Gotta be in it to win it so we’ll be there with jumpsuits on ready to go at 0800.
And happy 40th wedding anniversary to my olds! Cannot wait for the party to celebrate your 50th!
