Learn to love your belly before you begin exploring your butt
I’M A NEWER SKYDIVER. HOW DO I PREPARE FOR MY FIRST WINGSUIT JUMP?
The most common question asked of me by newer skydivers is “How do I prepare for wingsuiting? One of my buddies told me I should spend a lot of time tracking. Is this true?”
No.
With so many skydivers starting out with wingsuiting as their ultimate goal, it’s important to focus on the skills of SKYDIVING. One of my stock phrases is “Learn to love your belly before you begin exploring your butt.”
Learn to skydive, focus on belly flight, focus on being comfortable with others near you in the sky. You’ll learn plenty enough about tracking at breakoff from two, three, four way skydives. Genuine tracking skill doesn’t come into play in wingsuiting, not in the early stages of learning to wingsuit.
Learning to maintain a heading, learning to fly proximity to others, gaining RW skills, and learning to land safely are all far more important skills than learning to track hard and far.
If you’re determined to be a tracker, fine. However, it’s recommended that jumps are mixed up so that there is a good exposure to RW/FS-types of skydives so that you’re comfortable and in control flying near others. Shit-show tracking or angle flying jumps don’t count towards “being comfortable and controlled.”
Whatever you do, avoid the “I got my A license and now I’m gonna start free-flying until I can wingsuit” mentality.
At 25 jumps, you suck on your belly regardless of what the local skygod is telling you. At 100 jumps, you maybe are figuring out a few things. At 200 jumps, you should be comfortable turning fast, rolling over, being unstable, and very comfortable at the door of the aircraft.
Most of all, have fun as you prepare for that first wingsuit flight, hopefully with a super-skilled coach!
More Reading
Article extracted from Douglas Spotted Eagle’s ‘Book of Wingsuit’, available from Amazon here.
Other articles from the book
Performance Flight Comp Format
Performance Flight Comp Strategies
