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Greetings!
Welcome to Brian Germain's Newsletter: "Transcending Fear"! The following is an ongoing home-study course on dealing with fear, as well as vital safety information on parachuting skills that can save your life.
"Dream big and explore this world while you're
here, because its just a limited trip; you're only here for so long. So
go do wonderful things; do things that scare you; do things that
inspire you. You'll be glad you did."
Brian Germain, August 12, 2008
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Canopy Skills Drills
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*For a PDF of these exercises and others that will help you to become a better canopy pilot, go here:
http://bigairsportz.com/pdf/article-excercises.pdf
Learning to fly our parachutes is
absolutely necessary for long-term survival in this
sport. The philosophy that the canopy is simply
a means to get down from a skydive is gradually
becoming a thing of the past. This may be as a result
of individuals with such an attitude dropping out
of the sport due to canopy-related injuries, or
from the insurmountable fear that comes as a result
of a lack of control over their experience. Regardless,
many jumpers have been taking an increased interest
in flying their parachutes better.
Reading and talking about canopies is the beginning
of this process. We must understand the principles
that allow our canopies to fly. To make a real difference
in our capabilities, however, we need to physically
experiment with our parachutes in flight. We must
practice in the real world.
Here are a few exercises that will increase your
abilities to save your own life, and enhance your
feeling of control while under canopy:
Pitch Control Exercises
Manipulate the canopy on the pitch axis using
the brakes. Look at canopy to notice the amount of pitch
axis change. Notice the difference between "soft"
and "sharp" inputs:
{slow application vs. quick}
Why?
Controlling the pitch angle is how we manipulate
the angle of attack of the wing. Without a dynamic
change to the angle of attack, we will be unable
to increase the lift of the parachute enough to
change the direction of flight from its normal full
flight glide to level flight. This maneuver is essential
for safe landings.
Pitch Control With Bank Angle
Begin a turn using a single steering toggle Apply the opposite toggle while still in the
turn Experiment with soft versus sharp inputs to
negate decent. Look at canopy to notice pitch changes.
Why?
Having the ability to control the pitch axis while
in a bank is what gives the pilot the ability to
control the decent rate while in a turn. The natural
tendency is to loose altitude in a turn, but this
is not necessarily the result of turning with bank
angle. By increasing the angle of attack while in
a bank, we can increase the amount of lift that
the parachute is producing, and even alter the flight
path to level flight despite significant bank angle.
Dive Arrest: Toggle Turns
Place the canopy in a spiral dive using a single
steering toggle Arrest the dive as quickly as possible by sharply
applying the opposite toggle as well as the inside
toggle; the inside toggle is not applied until
the two are matched in the degree of input. When
the toggles are matched, a short stab of collective
brake pressure is usually all that is needed to
achieve level flight. Exercise both banked recovery and wings level
recovery.
Why?
Turning too low is the preliminary cause of many
injuries in our sport. Unfortunately, most canopy
pilots assume that bank angle must be eradicated
before arresting the dive. This leads many to waste
valuable altitude in the process of leveling the
wing. In situations with very little altitude remaining,
this may delay the collective brake application
until it is too late. By rehearsing a transition
to zero decent while still in a bank, the pilot
becomes accustomed to applying the toggle on the
outside of the turn as a learned instinct, reducing
the chances of a turn leading to serious injury.
Dive Arrest: Front Riser Dive
Place the canopy in a dive using the front risers. Rehearse dropping the front risers and quickly
stabbing the brakes. Rehearse both straight front riser dive recovery
as well as turning dives.
Why?
While acceleration on final approach can be great
fun and usually leads to longer swoops, the acquisition
of speed is not really the hard part. What keeps
us alive is the judgment and skills necessary to
save us when we dive the canopy too close to the
ground. If we rehearse the solutions to the dangers,
the likelihood of a dive resulting in serious injury
is reduced. Letting the front risers up slowly may
be the best way to get a long swoop when the dive
is rounded up slowly and with ample altitude. Unfortunately,
this muscle memory may not serve us when we are
really low. In the time it takes to smoothly let
up on the front risers we may find ourselves planted
in the ground like a shrubbery. Dropping the front
risers allows the pilot to keep their hands down,
ready to stab the brakes aggressively to arrest
a mortal dive. A short, sharp, shock on the brakes
may be all that is necessary to place the jumper
back under the wing, and to the higher angle of
attack that saves their life.
Slow-Flight Practice
Place the canopy in 90% brakes and hold for
60-90 seconds. Make controlled heading changes of 45-90 degrees. Notice the difference in responsiveness as compared
to full flight turns. Notice that lifting a toggle on the outside
of the turn reduces the risk of stalling the wing
on the inside of the turn.
Why?
Most pilots spend the majority of their canopy ride
in full flight. This means that the feeling of the
canopy in this mode is most comfortable to most
people. It also means that flying in deep brakes
places many out of their comfort zone. This means
that most people are feeling somewhat uncomfortable
just prior to putting their feet on the ground every
single jump. In fact, this anxiety often causes
people to hold their breath, and then offset their
steering toggles toward the end of the landing in
order to get to the ground sooner. They simply want
this part to be over. In order to land with great
consistency, we must become intimately aware of
the flight performance of our parachutes in very
deep brakes. The more time we spend in this flight
mode, the more comfortable we will be. If we are
to land well, we must be as comfortable with deep
brakes as we are with full flight.
*For a PDF of these exercises and others that will help you to become a better canopy pilot, go here:
http://bigairsportz.com/pdf/article-excercises.pdf
Brian Germain is the author of The Parachute
and its Pilot, a canopy flight educational text.
Brian is also the President of Big Air Sportz parachute
manufacturing company, and teaches canopy flight
courses all over the world. To learn more about
parachutes, or to order the book, go to: www.BrianGermain.com
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Fear: Sane or Neurotic?
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Emotion can be construed
as a side-effect of negative thinking. Sometimes it is. On the other hand, fear
and other negative emotions can provide us with essential information about our
surroundings, gleaned from a different kind of thought-process than logical
cognition. That funny feeling that results in hesitation may, in fact, save our
lives.
When we get a negative feeling in our bodies, we have an
important job to do. We have to discern if the emotion is based on a realistic
risk appraisal, or simply a neurotic thought based on negative expectations.
Often we find our past intruding on matters of the present moment. We see how
the current situation closely resembles something that has occurred in the
past, as immediately assume that we are about to experience the same thing all
over again. This may be the case, but this repetition of the past may have more
to do with our belief that this is so. We are replaying old tapes, and
neglecting to consider the possibility that we are a different person now, and
we have the ability to create a different outcome.
This is neurosis in its most insidious form. When we look
at out present moment through the eyes of the past, we limit the possibilities
to only that which has already occurred. The past does not have to look like
the future. Our fear comes about based on such contractive thinking. We see a
pattern that worked out badly in the past and we slip into
the rut that makes this occur again. We live out a self-fulfilling prophesy.
There are times, however, that our fear is telling us
that we are not up to the task. We are actually in danger, and the tendency
toward hesitation due to our emotional reaction is completely valid. If our
skills are not up to the challenge or we simply do not have enough control over
a dangerous situation, we need to pause and re-assess whether or not we want to
proceed. One of the ways in which we survive danger by not moving forward when
we are actually set up to fail. This is the sane function of fear. Even when this is the case, however, we must not react to fear, we must simply act, with clear intension of a positive outcome.
More often than not, our emotional reaction is based on
negative thinking. We notice our physiological reaction and we assume that it
is coming from a place of sanity and real limitation. Due to an incomplete
appraisal, we limit ourselves in life because we let every negative emotion
execute its contractive set of possibilities. We operate based on the
assumption that all of our emotional thoughts are sane. They are not. Emotion is simply the alarm that gets our attention. It is up to our cool intellect to get us through the situation.
The job of the intellect is to make the discernment about
whether the feeling is grounded in reality or simply neurotic, over-protective
thinking. This is not an easy job, as emotion can shout at us. It can speak so
loudly in fact, that we have trouble
thinking clearly enough to make a logical secondary appraisal. This is where
our skills of de-escalation come into play.
When you feel the effects of negative emotion, your first
job is to sooth the feeling with physiological changes. You must calm down your
body, and work the situation from a "bottom-up" perspective. In other words, you
must do the things that cool you off and separate you from the effects of the
emotion. If you remain in the cloud of negativity, you will not be able to
assess the situation from an outside perspective. You will be lost in the
emotion and see only the possibilities that present themselves as a result of
the negative feeling.
If you do the things that calm you down, like relaxing
your muscles and slowing your breathing, you will see alternatives to your
original perspective. You will regain your inner balance so that you will be
able to decide which thoughts were based on real limitations and danger, and
which were simply based on patterns of fear response. From there, you are free
to choose which way you want to go.
If we simply operate based on our initial appraisal and
answers, we are missing the level of thought that is referred to as
"meta-thought". This is the secondary layer of processing that allows us to
further our understanding of the situation. It creates the possibility of
deeper complexity to our thought process, which most often is far closer to the
truth of the situation. Our first glance at the circumstances is simple.
Reality is complex. Take a moment, calm down, and consider the following
possibility:
Things may be better than I originally thought.
This is the heart of
positive thinking. If we leave the door open for more positive possibilities,
we can live our lives without the limitation of neurotic thoughts. If we always
consider that things may be better than we initially realized, we create
alternatives that are better than our initial appraisal. We can, in fact, walk
the path of our lives without fear getting in the way of our dreams for
ourselves. We can become unlimited beings.
BSG
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Transcending Fear is an educational organization devoted to teaching
the truth about fear, and the most potent methods for coping with acute
stress. We offer books, articles, radio interviews, videos and
inspirational talks all with the specific goal of helping people turn
their fear into power.
Sincerely,
Brian Germain
Transcending Fear |
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