Oh yeah! Another super fun visit with little improvements. I feel like this whole flying thing is starting to click!
After my last pretty decent set of flights last week, I was anxious to get back in the tunnel today. I was also nervous because I would be flying with an instructor I hadn’t met before. But as I mentioned in previous posts, it’s really awesome to get to work with a variety of instructors since each one has given me different tips and tricks to work on, or given me a different way to think about an existing skill to make it easier or less tiring for my limbs.
Since this instructor hadn’t worked with me, my first run in the tunnel was mainly so he could see where I was at skill-wise. They kept the wind speed a little lower, and he ran me through a set of the level 1 skills: neutral belly position, belly forward/backward, belly turns, belly up/down, belly fly side slide and belly fly enter/exit. Overall I felt pretty solid with everything but the tunnel entrance and belly side slide.
One thing I really appreciated this time around was that my instructor gave me some tips at the beginning of each turn (normally instructors gave me a debrief once all the turns were over and we were back in the lobby getting changed out of our flight suits). He told me to suck in my butt more during the tunnel entrance, and kind of “curl into it” by bending at the knees as I fell forward. That really helped, because my landing was a lot more smooth. However, I think I got too excited and pushed too hard off the ground, because I almost crashed into the other side of the tunnel. The next time, he gave me the goal of not pushing out quite so hard and trying to end up right in the center of the tunnel. I did it (video below)!
On the next turns, we worked a lot on side slides, which I’m still struggling with. It’s sometimes frustrating to watch the Tunnelflight videos on skills like this, because they’re always so smooth and perfect! However, I am starting to get the hang of it.
Overall though, I accomplished the goal I set for this visit: I wanted to engage my legs more to support the different movements. I definitely felt a difference during my back/forward flying, as well as my tunnel exits. Now if I can just get my legs to do what I want during side slides, I think I’ll get those nailed pretty quick too.
After my turns were over, my instructor gave me a ton of encouragement and good advice for what to work on next time. He even said he would sign off on belly forward/back flying and tunnel exits, so I shot those approvals over to him! That leaves only tunnel entrances and belly side sliding and then I’ll have conquered level 1 of flying skills!
Update #1: My instructor signed off on my new skills – check it out!
Update #2: Also, going forward I wanted to start keeping track of my total elapsed tunnel time, and update it in future posts. As of today my total tunnel time is: 60 minutes
Update #3:
Oh and I almost forgot: today they moved my wind speed up from 66% to 67%. I want to brag about this to somebody, but I’m not sure who outside of the iFly staff would think that’s neat 🙂
Update#4:
I learned that when you’re flying and wobbling back and forth and/or side to side, it’s sometimes called “potato chipping.”