Ask anyone who\u2019s been in the sport for more than a couple of seasons: the times, they are a changin’. For the first 15 to 20 years of sport skydiving\u2019s popular heyday, there wasn\u2019t any doubt that the party lay at the heart of the matter. In the not-too-long-ago bad old days, your standard sport skydiver would go about chasing boogies all season long — and chase the sun to find even more skydiving parties when her\/his own season ran out. Beer, tent cities and magic-carpet exits ruled the day
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In recent years — as you may have noticed — the sport is sobering up. Today\u2019s skydiver has a different goal to chase: skill development. Suddenly, it\u2019s not enough to simply jump out of an airplane with your buddies; now, you\u2019d better be using that jump to get — well — better<\/em>. This is the age of the skills camp; of the training trip; of one-on-one coaching. People just want more. And can you blame \u2018em? Enter AXIS — one of skydiving education\u2019s indisputably premium brands. Brianne Thompson and Niklas Daniel, AXIS\u2019s owners and instructors, are a pair of highly decorated skydivers who founded AXIS as a boutique instruction operation. The intentionally-small operation has been based at Skydive Arizona since 2010. In that time, Nik and Brianne have managed to actually<\/em> revolutionize how skydiving is coached. How\u2019d they do that? In essence, by integrating once-disparate disciplines in a unified space — and focusing squarely on quality. Because the pair have had a long history of competing all across the board, AXIS\u2019s coaching method uniquely implements a singularly effective, multi-domain coaching strategy born in the fire of the highest-level training in the sport. To serve those goals, AXIS has been using the Merit system for a little under half a year — and they love it. \u201cAXIS merits are essentially a prize-quality achievement that people can be proud of,\u201d Nik says. \u201cWhen someone sees that a person has an AXIS merit in a particular area, they\u2019ll know that person is legit.\u201d \u201cWe pride ourselves on coaching,\u201d Brianne adds, \u201cbut we also know we can\u2019t coach the world. The Merit system provides these traceable, tangible verifications that help visualize somebody\u2019s experience level and qualifications This is a way for all coaching entities — not just AXIS — but the industry at large to start having some accountability, at a moment when skill over-exaggeration has become a systemic problem.\u201d According to Nik and Brianne, AXIS has incorporated Merits for one central purpose: to help their customers create their own, highly individual definition of success. \u201cAs there are no ratings or licenses within the USPA system for many of the services we provide,\u201d Nik explains, \u201cwe came up with a system based on proficiency, knowledge and skill rather than attendance. To frame it as a metaphor, our Merits are set up like a collectible card game: by mastering the skills set out in the training, you can create your own skill deck. Each person\u2019s deck is unique, in that you as a skydiver can create the collection that best benefits you and what you\u2019re after in the sport.\u201d
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