Handheld | Bridle Awareness Part Two

Evasion Skills

Often called Avoidance Skills I prefer the term Evasion Skills. View it as a bank robbery where you get away clean without a scratch on you.

These skills are what you rely on when an object strike is imminent unless you do something very quickly.

Jumpers have been arguing since the dawn of time over the most efficient way to turn your canopy away from objects and I’m not here to continue that debate today, although I do plan on putting an end to it at some point.

Before I briefly talk about the methods, the most important thing to keep in mind is that if you open facing an object, you need to do something to turn your canopy as quickly as possible.

While it’s true that each method can be argued to be better or worse in a given situation, as long as you don’t hit the object, and then manage to land uninjured, thats all that matters.

To turn your canopy most effectively there are three commonly accepted methods:

— Double Rear Risers

— Single Rear Riser

— Toggles

When first learning, I think it’s good to try all three of them so you at least get some idea of how each feels, and then you pick one, and get really good at using it.

With all of them, it’s good to know how much input you need to give in order to turn a certain amount.

For example, with single rear riser you should know if pulling it to your face is enough to turn 90, or maybe you need to pull it to your shoulder, or maybe even further.

People love to argue over which method is better than the other but the reality is that there are benefits and drawbacks to all of them.

You can practice these by starting with rear facing floaters.

Exit facing the bridge, deploy, and try and turn the canopy before you fly under it.

Side floaters are great as well - When people first start doing avoidance work they tend to over correct, often doing a full 180 correction. In a live scenario it’s frequently enough to just turn 90 degrees and I think side floaters do a good job mimicking this.

Then you can progress to the ultimate test: Packed 180’s.

Packed 180’s are, in my opinion, the single best thing you can do for Object Avoidance training.

Floaters are great to get the mechanics down for the method you plan on using, but you’re not going to get the full feel of things until you actually experience it.

It’s far better to have that experience for the first time on a forgiving object, in a controlled setting vs out in the wild.

Aside from actually simulating an off heading in a forgiving environment this also gets people in the mindset of expecting it.

I really feel like thats most of the battle.

When you’re in the waiting room, if you are expecting an off heading, and are ready to respond, you have a much better chance of success vs not expecting it and being caught off guard.

Packed 180’s are another topic of debate that some people argue about.

I’ve even heard of several coaches telling their students that they are a horrible idea, that you are intentionally packing a malfunction etc

I’ve been doing them myself, and with students, for the last 10 years and I have yet to see any problem with them.

I’ve seen more people land in the trees resulting from a low turn on normal jumps than I’ve seen any problems resulting from a packed 180.

When doing packed 180’s at the bridge I think it’s best to have no wind, or a headwind. I’m not a fan of doing them in tailwinds because after initially fixing the 180, you have to do another 180 into the landing area. Depending on which method you’ve used you might be too low to make it over the trees.

If the beach is open, great, but if not, and it’s a tailwind, I typically won’t do them with people.

I think it’s best to do these as dropped PCA’s vs free falls because it gives you more altitude.

While these are a fantastic thing to do every so often to keep your skills sharp, the first time you do them it’s best to have someone experienced watching over you. Even when you are comfortable doing them yourself, make sure you have someone on the load with you in case you end up in the water.

Lastly, keep in mind that packed 180’s are the last thing you do in avoidance progression - You want to have the mechanics of your method dialed from floaters before you start doing them.