Facebook has this sometimes annoying feature that shows something that you posted on “this day” X number of years ago. A gentle reminder that everything you say and do on the internet will be out there forever. There are times however, when that’s a pretty cool thing.

This morning when I opened FaceBook to share a link to videos of the bust-ass Just Huck It! Danielson Tunnel Invasion, I was greeted with a picture of my graduation certificate from AFF at Z-Hills in Florida.
“Graduating” from AFF, and getting cleared for “self-supervised skydiving” is kind of akin to 8th grade graduation before entering high school. In the great scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal. High school  graduations  warrant parties or a big dinner with the family, while the 8th grade thing is kind of like “Good job, now you get to go to 4-12 years more of school to be a regular person.” But ask any 8th grader, and they probably feel a bit different than that.
Graduation from more or less says, “Good job, we trust that you can save your own life now. Go try it on your own, or with people who aren’t going to do it for you.” It still feels like a big deal.
My instructor told me, “You should go do a solo now. It’s going to be the longest skydive of your life.” “Ya, right” I thought. I’d been thinking for a long time about the day that I’d shed the instructors and all the bust-ass flips-n-shit I was going to do when I had the sky to myself. I replied something like “Well, I’ve got a lot stuff in mind, so hopefully I’ll get most of in.” My instructor just grinned, and said “Trust me, you’ll have plenty of time.”
I had a perfect exit, and there was no one there to see it (well, maybe the coach on the plane saw it). “Okay, here we go… Back flip! Whoaaa! That didn’t work quite right, Front Flip, YA! alit-check, good! 360, 360, YA! alti-check, good! Track! Whaa-hooo! Alti-check 8,000 ft, really? Tons of time! Back Flip, well not really, 360… alti-check, really? 7k?, uhm, track? alti…Shit, I’m tired. Find the DZ. I think I’ll just chill here ‘till 55.”
He was right. Being out there all alone sure gives you some time to… wow, that was a lot longer than I expected!

Karl Wade & I ready for a training jump.

It seems fitting that 5 years, and 555 jumps later I returned to Z-Hills to earn my AFF
Instructor rating from SkydiveRatings.  My final evaluation dive was probably the second longest skydive of my life.  It’s a category D-1 dive flow, which is known as a “busy skydive” for the instructor.  You have to release the student and move in front of them, and basically be ready for what ever they do besides just falling in place.  On a rating jump, you can rely on one thing:  Your “student” is not going to remain in one place.  He’s going spin, change fall-rates, flip over, and you have to be there to fix it all… but release him as soon as you do so you don’t inhibit student learning.  Oh ya, and chances are pretty good that he won’t pull when he supposed to, so you have be ready to deploy for him, but not without giving him every opportunity to pull on his own by giving hand signals and assistance.  If you get anxious, and re-dock your student before his pull altitude, it’s an automatic unsatisfactory.

Me & Bram on the way to altitude.

The bottom end sequence is a lot of flying in a short period of time, so I had my misgivings
about getting all my timing right.  Once we left the plane, I left all those concerns behind.  I had a bunch of practice dives with Karl to prepare me with the plan for the work, and now I was working the plan.  Bram threw a bunch of variables into the dive, and I just followed my training.  When we got down to the bottom end, time just kind of slowed to to a nice steady flow.  I felt like I had all the time in the world again.

Earning my AFF Instructor rating is certainly my proudest skydiving achievement yet.  Bram Clement, my evaluator put it best after congratulating me on passing my evaluation, “Now the learning begins!”

I’m looking forward to that learning this season at my home DZ in Connecticut, Skydive Danielson, and clearing students for their longest skydive in their lives.