Oh yeah! After having a pretty sucky last set of flights, I felt I was in much better flying form today! I had a new trainer today, and I always love learning new tips, tricks, and ways to think about different skills. Each trainer brings unique experiences and background to what they do, so I try to just put myself in “sponge mode” and take it all in. However, I have a tendency to overthink everything, so I was careful to not psych myself out as I was putting on my flight suit.
One really good tip my instructor shared that I did ponder this time, though, was to try and focus on improving control in one area of my body. Last time my instructor said I was exhausting myself unnecessarily with my arm position, and that I should try more T-rex style arms by bringing them in closer to my body. That tip definitely helped during this visit, as I felt like in general, my neutral position was more stable than in the past. We also played a few games of “tap the stickers,” and I felt more in control this time around than probably any flight in the past.
Last time I was at iFly I just totally stunk at entrances – I would either have my feet kick up/out halfway into the tube (didn’t give myself a hard enough outward push) or headed up towards the sky (body wasn’t flat). On a side note only nerds would care about, this week I practiced my tube entrances at home…kinda. Every morning, once I got up and ready for work, I’d come to the side of my bed, reach my hands in the air, keep my eyes glued to the ceiling, and fall.
The practice at home definitely helped once I got to do the real deal! My “trust fall” version of the entrances went pretty well, and my exits are fairly solid too. But my “straight out” entrances are still a bit wobbly. A good tip I got was to think of the entrances as “You are flying the whole time,” rather than the way I was approaching it, which was “I’m going to push myself out on to a pocket of air and try to balance on it.” I’ll give that a go next time.
Another thing I struggled with this time was staying high up in the air. I thought my new T-rex arm position would take care of that, but I still found myself slowly crashing and burning (so to speak) several times. My instructor said next time I should really focus on powering the moves with my legs, because sometimes those were bent too much to keep me up and stable. I’ll give that a go next time too!