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This was in an earlier version of this home page. I took it out somewhere along the way. Then I found a google reference to it, so I put it back in.
Freedom is not a Body Position - Skratch SCR-16, D-981 - Sat 98-10-24
Introduction
The evolution of skydiving has many facets and threads running through
it. Here are some of the ones that have interested me the most.
1 - Early Viewpoint - NPJR
2 - The Oreo Cookie
3 - Closed Frameworks
4 - Freedom is not a Body Position
5 - The Skydance Approach
This could have been 5 separate posts, but I put them all in one file
for ease of posting and emailing.
======================================================================
Subject: Frames of Reference 1 of 5 - NPJR
Date: (posted early 95 - late 94)
----
I got the urge to write about this a few weeks ago when we were
talking about spotting with high uppers, and we saw how the same
physical situation could appear so different in different frames
of reference.
I think the topic here is that the same is true of jumping in general.
We look at people jumping out of airplanes and we all have a different
idea of what we are doing.
Beauty being in the eye of the beholder is an ancient bit of wisdom,
and yet I didn't always know it. I began to learn it as I saw the jump
world adopt one consensus reality after another.
It's hard to know where one story ends and the next one begins (it's all
one story) so I'm going to start this one with an excerpt that shows
one frame of reference.
-------------------- begin NPJR quote
Newsletter of the National Parachute Jumpers-Riggers, Inc.,
August-September 1956
as prepared by Joe Crane, President of the NPJR>
NPJR - 7 -
NINE-MAN JUMP - - HOLDING HANDS
While in Europe, we learned of a very novel jump made by a group
of Frenchmen. Nine men hired a flying boxcar and holding to each
other's harness, jumped from the boxcar at one time. Their names
are Young, Braten, Ladouet, Perissinotto, Pupin, Michaut, Cros,
Leclaud and Billard. Young is the same Ray Young mentioned pre-
viously in this newsletter.
Their plans were to fall 12 seconds, but they were forced to
separate after falling 10 seconds not being able to hold on to
each other any longer. When they separated, they went in all
directions, all opened their chutes and landed safely.
While in Paris before returning to the states, Lyle Hoffman and I
were strolling down the Champs-Elysees and we met Ray Young. Ray
discussed this jump with us and I am agreeable that it is quite an
experience. I am also happy to know that everyone on this jump
came out alright but I do believe considerable chances are being
taken on such jumps and am sure that CAA would frown on jumps of
this nature as there is absolutely nothing to be gained materially
by such a stunt. I hope Ray and his friends will let well enough
alone and not attempt this type of jump in the future.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
PASSING RELAY STICK IN MID-AIR
Very recently I have heard of another performance in parachuting
which, in my estimation, is about the most accurate parachute
jumping ever made. On September 16 at Sens Air Force Base, Jean
Louis Potron and Jackues Chalom (Petrom was in the 9-man jump)
jumped from the same airplane with one man carrying a small stick
as used in relay foot races. There was 2 seconds difference in
their leaving the plane and after falling for 15 seconds, they
were able to make contact in the air, transfer the stick to the
other party, then separate and open their chute. This is real
maneuvering of the falling body and something which certainly
shows skill. I am not passing any judgement on something like
this because there is a possibility that in time, jumping of this
type might be considered as a real professional sport, but I will
say that a person should not attempt a jump of this kind until he
is a jumper of the highest calibre.
-------------------- end NPJR quote
(to be cont) Skratch
======================================================================
Subject: Frames of Reference 2 of 5 - Oreo Cookie
Date: posted 22 Feb 1995 23:33:00 GMT
----
When last seen we were at the National Parachute Jumpers-Riggers
frame of reference in 1956 and the topic was how the same physical
activity could appear quite different according to our mental frames
of reference.
I tried back in the 70's to write a book about this called The Skydance
Approach but it was too tangled in my mind with all the details of how
it had gotten that way and life came along and brushed it aside. Then in
1993 when I realized I was going to start jumping again "the book" came
up again, so I pulled out my pile of notes and thrashed around for a few
months and it now has enough form that I think it won't evaporate, and
may actually get written some day.
Meanwhile I want to talk about one of the main ideas. It is an example
of viewing our activity from a different frame of reference. And then
in another post I'll go back and pick up some of the threads in the
intervening 20 years from 1956 to 1976.
OK ... Let's see ... Hard to just jump in to the middle ... but here goes
... ..
In early 1981, after having lived in my van from drop zone to drop zone
with a self image of something like a wandering zen monk / barnstorming
skydiver / acid head alien from another planet, and knowing it was time
to make the leap from the skydiving world to ... somewhere ... get a
job, a zip code, etc ... I did one last job in Holland. It was arranged
by Arnold Camferman and after the boogie was over he asked me to write
up some 9 way dives for them.
So I did. But I also knew that that was my last boogie in the skydiving
world and that this would be the last thing I wrote about skydiving, so
I put in some other stuff that I had been wanting to say for a long
time.
It was partly about freeform flying and designing dives around the
flying instead of the hookups. The competitive sequential steamroller
was already crushing the life out of innovative skydiving. I called it
Skydance (the good stuff is in the flying *between* the hookups).
And it was partly about designing dives out of moves (instead of
hookups) so you could create hard and easy slots and thereby include
students more naturally into the dives.
And especially it was about using altitude as an active ingredient in
dive design. An *active* ingredient. Change the nature of the dance at
different altitudes and stuff like that.
Now this was partly to incorporate keeping track of distance from the
ground into the very form of the dive. We'll do hopovers until 8 grand,
then we'll switch to whirling swoops until 5,500, then we'll construct
and execute our breakup.
And it was partly to make the closing maneuver - construct and execute a
breakup - a full fledged maneuver in its own right rather than a frantic
after thought.
And it was also about making active use of the different ways the
different layers of the skydive felt. The exit feels one way. The long
fall another. The bottom part feels a third way. To organize around the
emotional content of the dive. Why miss the exit and breakup in the name
of cranking out more meaningless maneuvers?
I called this the Oreo Cookie because a dive has different feeling
layers like an oreo cookie. I even started talking in terms of "distance
from the ground" rather than "altitude awareness". "Altitude awareness"
sounds nice and civilized while "distance from the ground" sounds down
and dirty. And down and dirty is how it is when someone runs in to it.
Physical Emotional
--- ---
Exit | |
--- | Opening Maneuver Oh
| |
| |
| ---
| |
Skydive | | Filling Dance
| |
| ---
| |
| | Closing Maneuver Re Oh
--- |
Breakup | |
--- ---
Organizing around the emotional content of the dive comes from the
observation that we act in certain ways in order to feel certain feelings.
I think it's the answer to the classic whuffo question. I jump out of
the airplane because I like the way I feel when I do that.
It also opens up a whole realm of themes to organize around - the
feelings produced rather than the maneuvers performed.
Physically the exit and breakup are small parts of the dive, but
emotionally they are huge.
We started with just the closing maneuver. The idea was that at 5,500 we
would stop what ever we were doing, build a star by amalgamating, and
then at 3,500 break and track away. (I agree with Bryan Burke that 3,500
is too low, but this was 1977, squares were just coming out, and opening
altitudes were working their way up through 2,000. We weren't aware
enough to see that 2 grand was too low to start an opening sequence and
and still have time to be clumsy/confused/stressed.)
The idea was that building a star at the end of the dive would bring us
together and add a feeling of unity. We were trying a lot of new stuff
that we could not yet do and the dives often ended in disintegration
and dissarray.
And doing a change of activity based on distance from the ground trained
us to keep track through out the dive. Sometimes I see that Dytter ad
that says "Ever lose track of altitude? Consider buying ..." and I think:
"No, Consider training yourself not to do that. Consider designing
distance from the ground into the very form of the dive."
Sequential is an inherently dangerous format because the focus is entirely
on the maneuvers.
"By amalgamating" meant just flow into a big star like small drops of
mercury flowing together into one big drop.
The plan was to flash five-five with both hands at 5,500 and then really
practice and get used to that interval 55 --> 35 while building the star.
Our first efforts were pretty comical. I thought we would just do it -
like any other maneuver, but when we first started trying it, it didn't
work at all.
I remember some dives going through 3,500 still trying to get some
people's attention for 5,500!
Even after we got so we could see 5,500 the nice calm closing maneuver
didn't happen. It got frantic. Gotta get that star!
So then we tried: when you get to 5,500, just stop - freeze - look
around for a moment - then slowly get in a big loose circle - and then
slowly push into the center.
That worked. And another thing that happened was that by freezing and
starting over and moving slow, the bottom of the jump seemed about
10 seconds longer.
OK - This is getting pretty long so I'll stop here.
(to be cont)
Skratch
======================================================================
Subject: Frames of Reference 3 of 5 - Closed Frameworks
Date: (posted October 1997)
----
Subject: Re: Freeflying
Oh, now here's an interesting post!
From: Rick Nelson
>Belly-flying is still kind of fun, but it can be too much like work.
>You have to be in a certain place, at a certain time, or else everyone
>gets all upset. If you're really good at it you get a medal or
>certificate, but in the meantime you lose sight of why you started
>skydiving in the first place...it's so freaking fun.
Reminds me of something I wrote to some Swedish friends once.
... (deleted)
"ESP ... Ecstasy Sensory Perception ... Do you dive out the door
with your ecstasy sensors extended?
Creation Recreation Exploration We are mapping out a whole new
area of human experience. To fly is one of man's oldest dreams.
Skydivers are the first people in history to have more than a few
seconds direct experience. It is freedom and expression and open
ended ... and doing it in a closed framework is unharmonious and
wastes a lot of energy."
... (deleted)
I believe it is the closed framework - the quantitative how fast, how many,
how big approach that causes the problem.
Grass roots skydivers create an activity or a form. Then some one
simplifies it, strips out all the hard to measure stuff, and creates
a competition based on that. Then regular weekend skydivers start
imitating the competitive form.
Why?
People learned how to be stable. The first freefall competition was
holding a heading.
People learned how to turn and loop and roll. The next freefall
competition was a standard turn-turn-loop-turn-turn-loop.
I used to see people with no intention of ever competing go out on a
Sunday afternoon and do turn-turn-loop-turn-turn-loop and call it a jump.
Why?
People learned how to consistently get together in a circle.
The next competition was speed stars.
People learned how to make several hookups in a row.
The next competition was sequential.
People would do sequential but except for a few students here and
there who didn't know any better you could hardly get anybody to fly
no contact or hop over each other or ...
Why?
It almost broke loose with freestyle but then came the dreaded words ...
Compulsory Moves.
It made my brain hurt and my heart ache to see compulsory moves in the
same sentence with freestyle.
Is there someone out there thinking about compulsory moves for a free fly
event? Almost certainly. I don't even want to know about it.
What about the new Sit Fly Sequential Event?
And where are they going to hold the Head Down Nationals?
I don't even want to know about it.
----
I thought when I started this that it was going to be about how flying
style and body position are two orthogonal discussions but that must
be another post.
I do have one question though. What is Free Flying? I like the sound of
it. It's a good word - like Skydance. But I don't actually know what it
is. Are there any definitions / descriptions / ... ?
>Freeflying, on the other hand, is like running naked in the rain on acid.
Oh! Well! Why didn't you say so in the first place :-) :-)
Yes
Feel the rain
Through the window pane
Of mind
Of being
Very intuitive
Skratch
======================================================================
Subject: Frames of Reference 4 of 5 - Freedom is not a Body Position
Date: Wed 98-10-21
----
Freedom is not a body position.
It is not a maneuver either.
Freedom - discovery, play, exploration, innovation, fantasy
and
Body Position - sit, stand, face down, head down
are two orthogonal discussions.
Expressing freedom through the mechanism of new body position
or new maneuver has been tried several times before.
And it works for a while.
But then the forces of ego and competition step in and go through
a very predictable process.
First strip out all the interesting and meaningful but non
measurable stuff.
Then create a standard set of compulsory moves.
Then start promoting these events called meets, where the
competition is more important than the skydiving, and the
skydivers perform these compulsory moves for people on the
ground called judges.
This is an historical pattern:
Freedom / Exploration Competition
--------------------- -----------
People got stable Hold a heading
People did loops and rolls Turn turn loop turn turn loop
People learned stars Speed stars
People made bigger stuff Biggest stuff
People made other shapes 4 way 8 way 16 way
People did freestyle Compulsory moves
People did boards Compulsory moves
The artists and explorers invent new stuff which gets turned into
the new Grim Reality that the next generation tries to escape from.
Why do people start jumping in the first place?
--------
One thing that has always puzzled me is that once a new competitive
form takes hold, all the interesting stuff that got stripped out,
which is actually most of it, sort of falls by the wayside, and
the artists turn to a completely new area to explore.
I mean just because the competitors have restricted themselves to
one narrow cross section of an activity doesn't mean that we have
to too, does it?
But historically that is what happens. The recreational skydiving
scene begins to imitate the new competitive event.
That fact was part of my motivation for making up the 4 way event
in 1969.
(There was also that Southern California kept threatening to
(secede from the union, and relative work was a popular ground
(swell bigger than PCA/USPA, and PCA/USPA wanted to bring the
(relative workers back into the fold and so on.
I hate to admit it but I once thought freedom was a body position too.
In the mid 60's we learned how to make stars. In 1967 the first 10
man star meet happened at Taft. Things got weird out - people changed
personalities, politics, back stabbing, cliques, anger, blame ...
At the time I thought it was the stars that were making people act
so strange. I didn't know much about being a person back then :-) :-)
In fact I'm coming up on six decades and I'm just starting to catch
on, but that's another post.
So I thought
make up an event with lots of different maneuvers in it,
and then everybody will imitate the new event,
and we will do all these new maneuvers,
and we will all be free.
Right.
Well, as G'Kar said - "Narn, Human, Centauri .. We all do things for
the same reason. It seemed like a good idea at the time."
But that's where I learned that you have to strip out all the good
stuff in order to come up with something measurable and therefore
judgable.
--------
In the early 70's the Gulch (Casa Grande near Eloy) started happening.
By 1975 this amazing creative burst was in full bloom. So amazing
in fact that driving a 1,000 mile round trip every weekend from Los
Angeles seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Who wouldn't drive that
far to take part in something so amazing? Many famous names, and worth
a book in its own right. In fact I wrote a Parachutist article called
"Airgasm" but Norm wouldn't call it that in the magazine :-) :-)
BJ pulled the USFET together (United States Freefall Exhibition Team).
We did demo jumps and showed the movies at the Nationals in Tahlequah
and the World Meet in Germany, jumped with the Russians in Yugoslavia,
spread the word around the world ...
It is still one of the most amazing journeys I was ever on.
As a result of that Eilif Ness arranged that I spend the summer of
1976 in Norway, Sweden, Denmark.
I'm not sure what he thought I was going to do, but I was clear.
Transmit the Spirit of the Gulch.
That was my Mission.
Transmit the creativity, exploration, playfulness, feeling of
Special Times that had been the Gulch in 1975.
I arrived with The Great Mission(tm) and a head full of Hot Dives(tm)
in a land of Cessnas, speed star burnouts and students.
That summer is where I really became conscious of the emotional content
of a skydive.
It's not the maneuvers, but how people feel about them. The hottest
dive in the world is worthless if the people don't like it or can't
do it. The simplest maneuvers can be a fantastic skydive if the people
feel that way.
And how people feel is really the whole point. That's why we jump
in the first place.
Returning to Pope Valley I tried to combine the emotional content
with the idea of building dives out of moves instead of hookups.
"All the good stuff is in the flying between the hookups."
Dance was the metaphor. If you took what people were doing in the
sky and translated it to the dance floor, it would look like either
a small number of people dancing as fast as they could, or a large
number of people getting into some pattern and then standing there
holding it.
If you go the other way, translate dance, moves, vibes, attitude
into the sky then you have a sky full of endless possibility.
--------
In early 1977 the question of competition came up again. Competition
is like the Borg. It assimilates creations and turns people into drones,
at least from an artist's point of view.
For me it was an agonizing choice because the people who wanted to
compete were some of my best friends from the USFET and I really
wanted to jump with them some more.
But I took the other fork in the road.
The next post (Analyze, The Skydance Approach, That Skydiving Wind)
is about that fork.
Basically the idea was to combine the freedom of dance with the
emotional content of a dive in a way that was free of measurement,
time, numbers, comparison, judgement in order to escape the
Competition Borg assimilation trap.
--------
People have asked me what I think about Sit Flying and Headdown.
Good ideas. Expand the frontiers.
Expressions of Freedom and Art are a Good Thing.
I also believe that when the Competition Borg shows up with Compulsory
Moves that their use for that expression will fade into history along
with the other efforts.
Perhaps not. One can always hope.
That's one thing about Skydance. It's not a maneuver. It's a viewpoint.
An attitude. Each jump, each experience is what it is in its own right.
If you measure or compare then it's not Skydance.
Sit Flying in particular seems promising because you're upright and
that changes the whole visual component of skydiving for the better.
I will probably do a fair amount of it. Right now my goggles blow
off whenever I get vertical, but I'm thinking about a full face
helmet for winter time jumping anyway.
Headdown on the other hand does not appeal to me. I think about why
that is from time to time because I get invited from time to time.
I believe it is a reluctance to become too divorced from the ground
while in freefall, but that is another post. So for now it's just a
fact sitting there with no explanation.
Same for CRW. I've never had the urge to do that either.
So that's it for freedom as a body position.
Onward ...
Skratch
======================================================================
Frames of Reference 5 of 5 - (Some of) the Skydance Poems
Date: Sat 98-10-24
----
For a while the Gulch Spirit of innovation, play and exploration prospered
and even expanded at Pope Valley. Then in 1977 some of the USFET people
wanted to form a team and compete in the new 8 way event. BJ, Jim Captain,
Matt Farmer and I would be the center four. We held a meeting at Rande
DeLuca's house.
For me it was agony. These were my best friends. I really wanted to jump
with them. But competition would be an assembly line death trap. BJ and
Captain wanted to do it. Matt and I had reservations. In the following
days I went round and round and round with myself.
And then one night I sat down and wrote this Analyze poem in my logbook.
It came out in one non stop outpouring.
I had taken the other fork in the road.
BJ and Captain and others went on to form Mirror Image. Matt went back
to the Gulch. And I was now conscious of the Competition Borg as a real
and dangerous entity.
(Several of the terms refer to dives and events that we had in common
(and I will do a little glossary at the end if this hasn't become too
(long by then.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyze
Nexus - Nexus -
And the time winds wail -
Analyze -
What teams do to get good -
With their daily doses of balanced diet -
Donutize, backin & hopover ... -
The basic ingredients -
And the timing practice for crosses & weaves -
And analyze -
Those special times past -
When the fantasy flowed and the dives were hot -
The USFET magic was a frame of mind -
There because we believed in it -
Analyze -
The quadra bipole flash -
And the mood components of organized dives -
Analyze, too -
The (dao) - the path - the ASC -
The jump run feeling of tuning in -
And that explosive expansion of awareness -
When you're still going fast -
And the world slows down -
To canopy speed -
Analyze -
Competition -
The energy trap -
The price of that edge -
Is a focus too narrow -
No fantasy -
How good a donut -
Do you really want to make -
Analyze -
Journeys and goals and equating the two -
And the multiplex balance -
Of practice and challenge -
Focus - variety -
Choosing and drifting -
On an edge -
Not out -
But in -
Analyze -
The air flow and yours -
Swooping and swarming and all that milling -
Valences - Slaloms - Infinities - Pulsars -
Lurk loads - Maneuver flakes -
Lounge exits - Air flow days -
Demo dives
And coordination boogies -
Analyze -
Until ... -
It's time -
You'll have to pardon me now -
But I'm getting off here -
It was fun writing here -
Analyzing with you -
But that's dirt dive off ramp -
And I've a fantasy to do -
Skr -
5-5-77
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Mirror Image was like a seed crystal in a super saturated solution.
All the creative energy that had been flowering suddenly crystalized
into 8 way teams. So I pushed onwards with a few kindred spirits and
a lot of students.
For organizing around vibes and feelings students are actually the most
fertile ground. That's mostly who I jump with these days, the young and
innocent, people in their first few hundred jumps.
It's clearer now, 20 years later, but at the time it was easy to get lost.
The 8 way people had a clear cut form and were looking for ways to get
better at it.
I was trying to go somewhere while deliberately avoiding a form because
as soon as you have a form it is subject to measurement and is then
vulnerable to the Competition Borg assimilation trap.
It was easy to get lost and I finally wrote this Skydance Approach poem
to myself as a concise statement and set of directions. A couple months
later a second version, That Skydiving Wind, popped out. It was a very
interesting experience, I suddenly just started writing, I had no idea
what was coming.
Of course Skydance is itself a form, even if a non measurable one, and
I got trapped in it for quite a while before letting it go. These days
I mostly just skydive. Sometimes with an agenda but a lot of the times
not.
OK, just a couple more things here and I'll let this go.
One is that I've tried a few times to write a book about this, but it
doesn't seem to happen so this post is probably it.
The other is a couple things Kevin Shea said to me.
One is that "Skydiving is the doorway.
We are the experience."
The other was at Z'hills 1976. There were about a zillion locals wandering
around, getting in the way, starting fights, causing trouble. I was
complaining to Kevin that they were just out hoping to see someone go in.
He said "No.
They don't come out to watch us die.
They come out to see us live."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Skydance Approach
The Skydance approach to Boogie Mechanics means that
you view skydiving as a doorway into human experience.
And organizing dives means building Human Radios
trying to tune into that cosmic dance wavelength.
You create dive patterns by combining basic moves -
the swoop, the hop, the zoom, the lurk, the mesh, the weave ...
to suit the situation purpose mood of the moment.
And you deal with wide ranges of experience by
varying the choice of moves from slot to slot.
Including students with nonessential slots.
Look at our dirt dives
with a whuffo's wide eyes.
And realize with finality
that a plan
is just a tangent vector on the manifold of reality.
How ... ?
You can't just say
"Let it be done."
You have to think
What it really is
What it really is
is a state of mind
And the question now
is How ... ?
How do you create the consciousness for the Skydance dives?
Put your good where it will do the most?
Lead. Without leading?
.
.
.
.
*from the
Boogie Mechanic's Handbook
Fantasy Press Unhinged
12-29-77 skr sst xyz lsd
--------------------------------------------------------------------
That Skydiving Wind
Creation re creation
.
.
.
Return & re learn
(Time & numbers bad trip)
The raw experience itself
That skydiving wind
Empty
Mind empty
Of all the distractions
Slow it down
Way down
To the experience
Itself
And then it will go
And then it will flow
Fast ones & slow ones
Graceful & rowdy
Intricate simplicity
The fantasy of dance
Relax
Or you won't feel a thing
Skr
2-9-78
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