Firstly if you haven’t already noted it….
RAMBLE ALERT / RAMBLE ALERT / RAMBLE ALERT / RAMBLE ALERT / RAMBLE ALERT……
As one of the now dedicated bunch who are regular competitors in Virtual Freestyle I am now getting more used to flying with the video recording quietly in the B/G. As a plus to getting a VF entry together I’m also finding it a useful ‘training aid’ and have been doing a few little ‘studies’ ala Mama74, and the long and short of it is, I’m finding a little habit developing where I’m starting to ‘fly within the frame’ more naturally….
Now for the likes of developing a VF entry I can see this being a quite useful ’instinct’ but I hadn’t realised how much it was starting to ’cramp my style’ (forgive the eluding to any style I may have per se, and, in what quantity, I leave the assessment of to other more learned colleagues). this really only dawned on me today…
If I may explain… I went out for a fly yesterday, well actually for 2 fly’s
, and I’d been out the day before and even the day before that, this was pretty unusual for me of late and it was bit of an eye opener. You see, day 1 was a definite ‘don’t bother with video’ day for me, I was going to be pretty much 10 days rusty and there’s no hope I’d fly with any consistency after that sort of a spell, let alone have any of the micro control really required to pull it all together. So day one was like many average days, timing and control generally out by about 5-10%
Day 2: took the video out (phone with video and mini tripod) and just had a fly, shot about 1 hour worth of video, most of it ’developmental stuff‘, So getting home I dutifully downloaded it and sat down with a beer to watch it. And, like a golfer, I was looking mainly for the one or 2 gems that I remembered seeing during the session , and truly it was a tedium to wade through my 55 mins of ‘average rubbish’ to find the broken up bits of 2 mins of, “oh, isn’t that nice“ flying.
So I’m guessing you’re wondering why I writing this… well that comes down to day 3...
So day 3...
Wasn’t supposed to be a good day to fly, but they were wrong….
The numbers on my computer said stay at home and work, but the ‘beaufort’ leaves were telling me different, I took the risk and shot down to the park. Without the tripod…
Now I was, in the back of my mind, thinking that it might be a good time to have a crack at knocking out a good minute for the archives… but alas at the park I realised the tripod was not with me… Oh well, lets just fly…
OMG what a day! (well more like an hour or 2 if I‘m honest) I had the whole space all to myself, and the wind was at 10 knots +/- 10% and it was good…. And that AoxomoxoA thingy was on and it had me in it‘s spell...
I put in sequences I’d only seen in videos of others flying, I was hitting all my ‘long odds’ tricks, wap do waps inverses, insanes even a B/S cascade (1 each way anyway, bettering my previous best by 1
). At one stage I realised that I had been in control and in the air for what felt like 20 mins un broken (prob closer to 5-7 mins in real time) and some of what I was throwing at the kite should never have worked, but this time it did. Again and again and again…
Now to the ‘thing’…
Something was different about this session, either it was a ‘fate/luck’ thing plus 2 good warm up days(which did contribute, no doubt), or there was something I had changed that was big enough to improve my flying by 20+% Was that even possible? By 20+ %?!?!
So what was it???? I’m thinking a few already know… I had a chat on the phone last night with a quality pilot that is know to many here and he got it straight away… Bloody smart ass is that other ‘Winter’…
On reflection (cos there wasn‘t any video to check
) It made all the sense in the world, what I’d done ‘right’ was open up my usable footprint, and looking back, by quite a bloody lot. With a static video on I really only have an available footprint of something like a 5m x 15m long space to work with. Yesterday I was finding myself in many different places on the field and doing a little map in the head I’d say I’d open up my footprint to something like 40m x 50m, and I’m thinking this might be significant…. Now because I was a little lost in the moment there were little instances that are recorded as ‘memories‘, but most of it (the flying) was gone as fast as it happened from my mind. And those instances were things like… I noted that I was doing a smooth crossover step when I was side sliding, something I don’t think I’d ever consciously done before, I know the ground I needed for a wap do wap was far more than I’d used before (unsuccessfully), multiwraps (6-7 of them 3-4 times) were needing a lot of field also and were working as soon as I gave them it (and looking back on the epic Tim Benson wrap set it‘s obvious you need the ground, he ends up in the next suburb by the time he‘s finished)… Little moments scattered everywhere all indicating to me that I still have lots to learn….
So to the point, as if it needs condensing
Ummm welll ummm maybe it’d be ummm… “Don’t forget to move your feet” yeah that it, “Move your feet” jeez how easy is that! No need to thank me, it’s all part of the service
END RAMBLE ALERT…
WD
