November 2007 skilz camp - the rebirth of skillz camps

 
 

Shown above is one of the camp jumps. A fourway with Nate, Dave and Matt and it should be mentioned that all three are largely freeflyers all though Matt and Nate have competed in at least one CaSL meet. Keith is acting as coach in the inside center slot. Right out the door the B tends to spin as Bs will do if not sync’d well out the door (easier said than done).There appears to be a good presentation initially except for Point and this would be due to inexperience in 4 way, I think Daves FF and VRW experience muscle memory is kicking in. You can manipulate the video curser at the bottom of the screen to move step by step back and forth. Dave is in serious risk of rolling under but pulls it out, the momentum adds to if not causes the turn on the B exit. However i have  been on much more experienced teams that did very much the same. Keith is trying hard to crank them back on heading with some difficulty. He is nicely parallel with the outside center, Nate, but is struggling with a tendency by point and tail (Dave and Matt) to be too focused on facing in. Notice how they get to a point of being almost completely perpendicular to the center flyers. Also note how this makes both Center flyers have full right arm extension because the hip grips are getting pulled away. The transition to the H is obviously affected by the momentum on the exit, Matt struggles a bit with fall rate then recovers to come in kind of hot. Much to his credit he recognizes this and does not use grips to stop, keeps from getting too much over the top and slids nicely into his slot. Good discipline on his part. The transition to the J is not the prettiest in the world but would count in competition. Note how the center flyers and point/tail are parallel to each other but the point/tail pair are still having a tendency to face into the center too much. Again, note the extreem arm extension of the centers. Transitioning back to the top, B, is better, but still way too much in-facing by the point/tail. Matt especially can be noted by the extreemly acute angle of his left arm. The final build to the B is much much better, again with outstanding discipline on Matt Dresners part. Tail is more often than not the last one on. Notice how he first picks up left than looks at and picks up the right grip before looking into the center to indicate time to key the next transition. Again, good discipline. Even though he and the formation are washing around quite a bit, he locates and picks up grips without disruption and has good eye communication. Also, there is nothing wrong with looking at grips as long as you do not chase them around the sky. Another good example of discipline is how the wrist grip is lost between Nate and Dave but is picked back up prior to key.

Highlight video of nov 07 camp

We had a great turnout for our first camp. Ian tewksbury, Nate Mckitrick, Dave Jennings, Matt Dresner, Andrew Forster, Kim O’donnel and Gary Mcnair attended along with the organizing and coaching of the Flying Majeronis and myself. Video was provided by Rich Altens and Matt Norris as well as myself. Camp was held at Carolina Skysports and jumps were conducted out of first the Otter and then the Casa.


The experience levels varied greatly from Matt Dresner who has about 500 jumps but is mostly a freeflyer to Kim O’donnel who literally completed his final A license requirement on the first camp jump. I acted as coach/video on that jump and counted it as his A license check dive. A thorough EP review was conducted at the beginning of the camp and KIm decidedly completed at least one style series with Gary on the exit from which they recovered nicely.

Outside Center - Nate Mckittrick

Inside Center - Keith Majeroni

Point - David Jennings

Tail - Matt Dresner


Draw - B H J

(stairstep diamond, bow, donut.