NCSL Meet 1 & Skydive CA 2 Year Anniversary!
I owe my devoted readers several blogs but this is the one I’m in the mood to write today, so buckle up. This is my blog and you’re just along for the ride.
Northern California Skydiving League - Meet 1 in the Books!
We did it! And when I say we, I mean, 14 other flyers, 1 lovely judge, and a few other on-the-ground folk, including the ever-patient manifest peeps. This past Sunday, we managed a 4 jump meet at Skydive California. We had 3 teams: 2 Rookie and 1 A class.
The team that took first in the Rookie class were a bunch of Tracy jumpers, mentored by Mika. Most of them are also pursuing other disciplines/things (freefly, wingsuiting, coaching, BASE) so I was really happy to see them come out for a 4way event. I understand the need to focus when it comes to improving at something specific in skydiving, so I appreciate when people still harbor interest for 4way FS. I, personally, find 4way FS to be foundational in the very essentials of skydiving: Level Slot Dock, awareness, mental focus, practice bringing the right amount balance of energy to a jump. Thus, I am always happy to do it. And I’m glad to see others are as well. FS really was my first love, so I love seeing others come join the fun.
I mentored the Menacing Moths, the other Rookie class team. In looking at jump numbers, I realized the other 3 inside flyers averaged 115 jumps. Our newest teammate had 36 jumps at the beginning of the day, I believe. They did really well! Throughout the day, I think we got 2.5 points? Maybe the second jump, we got 3/4 of the way to the first point. The last jump, outside of the time window, we got the first point (G) and 3/4 of the 2nd point (Q). You know, I’m proud of the attitude of our team, the improvement I saw, and the surprising lessons we learned. I experimented with flying IC for the day, which led me to realize my IC exit sucks. Anyone want to teach me how to exit as IC so I stop screwing it up? Anyway, I really appreciated the OC’s reply when I asked her why she didn’t go with my count. She paused and said, “I need to look with my eyeballs.” She thought she’d feel it more. This exit led us all to the fun lesson about what to do when someone falls off the plane or goes early. Or in this case, when the tail left, because he did watch my count with his eye holes. I did just forget the fun joy and chaos of jumping with really new people. It brings me a lot of joy.
Finally, we had a more experienced team in Single A that was doing blocks. As someone who has organized events before, a roster full of experienced flyers makes my heart flutter. It means that people who have already been to a lot of events, done a lot of skydives, deem this to be a good use of their time and energy. And whether that means they’re doing it to support me, or the DZ, or the newer flyers, or to find new people to fly FS with, or whatever. The fact that people who aren’t just young and hungry, who may be a bit jaded or broken, want to come out? Well that makes me feel like I’m doing something that the community needs, and wants. Plus, having some people out there flying blocks gives the Rookie class teams something to aspire to.
If you want scores, go look at the NSL website: https://www.skyleague.com
Kurt already has a thorough accounting of that aspect of the NCSL on his website so go look there. I don’t feel like duplicating effort.
Two Years at Skydive California!
Two years as a Skydive California have now come and gone. I can’t believe how the time has flown. I packed up my items and sadly bid SoCal and my grungy little apartment in Oceanside goodbye. I trekked up to join Richo in NorCal, in Tracy specifically, to see what was the haps at Skydive California. We live in Tracy now, just bought a house last year, and it might be fitting to say we are fixtures at the DZ? Richo has been a regular-regular there for a long time. I have been bopping in and out around all my other adventures and hobbies, but I do try my best to be engaged with the community when I am home.
It’s funny, I remember the preconceived notion I had of Skydive California before I moved up here. I had several pieces of data to go off of:
In 2016, my first jump at Skydive CA - 4way belly. Richo [dating round 1], Steve Moh (I believe?), a 4th mystery person that I can’t remember, and I did a 4way out of the 206. But we didn’t know how to exit on the strut, fucked around forever, and landed sooooooooooo far out. Then Tristan who is probably 8 years my junior (who is now my friend but at the time was just an employee of Skydive CA to me) picked me up and yelled at me. That was the last load of the day.
In 2016, Richo and I went back and did a few jumps there after landing out. Aaron remembered me (or acted like it) and was very nice. The clouds were quite low. I got my feet soaked on the first hop and pop I did. So I sulked in manifest with cold wet feet while Gareth talked in my general direction about amusing Gareth-things.
In maybe 2017 or 2019, I was invited by K-Dub to come out and LO at a SIS boogie probably through the WSN Mobile Mentor program. I felt super awkward the whole time. I wasn’t a very good or fun LO yet. I didn’t really know anyone to hang out with at the party. My ex (Richo) was there and I didn’t want to talk to him.
When I was living in SoCal in 2020, my boyfriend at the time (not Richo), was enamored with, infatuated with Skydive California and the peeps who jump there. I swear up and down that this is fairly close to a word-for-word quote: “Oh those Skydive California guys. They’re so cool up there.” He would watch the instagram videos of some of the people who are now my friends and fan-girl about the most recent ridiculous trend-of-the-day. Now I am part of that ridiculousness. It’s great. 1-5
And then I started dating Richo again. And I moved here. And I met everyone. And I became friends with this DZ. And I got invested in the community. It’s such a lovely, lovely place and I’m so lucky to have found a DZ with such a kind, accepting nature to it and so much talent.
I wouldn’t have ever assumed I’d be happy at a 1 plane DZ. And there are days that I wish I was jumping somewhere bigger, somewhere more. I have to keep reminding myself to go out and seek that when I need it, and, while I’m here, to keep building the events and jumps that I want to see. I think that it’s fair to say that I moved to Skydive at the end of an era. The way skydiving personalities and waves ebb and flow from DZ to DZ, discipline to discipline, every place is a snapshot in time, a lot of it revolving around who is jumping there. And it seems like right around the time I moved to NorCal, a lot of people either started their move away or cemented it. But I still am grateful for the overlaps that I have had and the friends that I have made.
Things That I Wish about Skydive CA:
There was more of an interest in teams
I am a teamaholic. I’ve been trying to glom together some sort of VFS or MFS team for most of the year, with this person or that person, without much luck. Once again, I’m back in the process of plotting out which of my friends I might be able to dupe into spending many fun days skydiving, with me, looking across the formation at my beautiful, smiling face. I have an adorable nose; it shouldn’t be that hard of a sell. We have so much talent that I wish I could cobble into some willing participants for a home team. Alas, I am finally accepting that I may need to outsource team options until French Marc and I finally fly MFS together in 2025. (We’ve already started the world’s slowest training progression.)
I’d also be really excited to see interest in belly teams, as well. I have pondered many times of coaching a 4way FS player-coach team for a season. But I just don’t even know if I could sell people on that here. It would also be hard to do serious, serious training here. But we could certainly train a loose VFS/MFS team or an Intermediate FS team. No 8way sadly though.
There was a decent tunnel closer (14’ suitable for 4way vertical)
Man, today, apropos something else, Richo said “iFly is the Frontier of tunnel experiences.” comparing it to Frontier Airlines, and I felt that to my core. (Sorry if you like Frontier. It sucks.) (To my dear friends who work at iFly, I wish your corporate overlords were better to you as well. I know that you are doing the best you can with what’s going on and I appreciate you. Top Tier Peeps at iFly? You suck so hard. You are fun vampires. You make it nearly impossible to burn all of my dollars to get good at this stupid skill. My financial advisors probably appreciate that you’re so bad at running a business though.)
SF Bay is an ancient 12’ beast with 2 doors and constant smell of In-N-Out that wafts into the tube and the building and makes you crave fast food the whole time. Plus, it feels impossible to book time. Maybe it’s better. Lawrence is great though.
Sac tunnel is better, but I just wish it could competently support 4 regular sized people flying vertical. It’s short and a little underpowered. It’ll be great for NCSL indoor events, plus the staff seems pretty accommodating. So, you know. Plus it’s like 1.5 hours from me.
We could manage that sweet spot of enough people to keep the plane turning but not so many the calls are incredibly long.
We suffer from two ends of the spectrum. Sometimes we don’t have quite enough fun jumpers to keep the plane turning. Somedays we have incredibly long calls. I have solved this by living in Tracy. I can go home and swim in the pool when it’s long calls. I can remedy the short days by going more often. But I imagine this is probably an issue anywhere.
The last few winters weren’t so wet
I blame this on climate change? I can’t really be upset that we finally got a reasonable amount of rainfall. We need it. I mean, the hills south and west of Tracy caught fire on Saturday and I panicked all night about whether we’d have to evacuate. It wasn’t that close of a call; I just worry a lot about everything. So a wet winter is good for everyone else. Not bad for Tahoe. We shredded a handful of days and that makes me really happy. But it was a bit bleak for skydiving in NorCal.
Skydive CA does have me thinking about how you divide up your time in Skydiving though. I once heard someone divide it up into percentages, but I forget the buckets. For sake of example, let’s say 30% with people less experienced than you, 30% with people more experienced than you and 30% with people as experienced as you. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately re: SDCA. So I’ll probably write Part 2 of this blog tonight about that and post it later for you. Anyway, thanks for the good 2 years so far, Skydive CA!