The Perfect Formula: Experience & Currency
By Hannah Nicole Parker
Skydiving is a balance of confidence. The ideal place to be is somewhere in the middle, where you don’t believe you are invincible but also know and trust in your abilities. The winning combination to achieve this requires both currency and experience. Firstly some simplified terminologies to break it down.
EXPERIENCE - We are talking actual jump numbers. Years in the sport. Different drop zones jumped at. Skydiving experience which can only really be achieved the hard way - with time!
CURRENCY - How frequently you have jumped recently. Whether you work in the sport, do a few jumps at the weekend or you haven’t skydived in a while and therefore would consider yourself ‘uncurrent’.
Each individual is different, but if you haven’t jumped for a week or so, or feel uncurrent, you may have different thought patterns and priorities to how you feel at the end of a training camp. However, being very current also creates complacency and overconfidence, with the upside of having the balls to try new things and push yourself.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
This being said, an uncurrent experienced skydiver can be unwittingly just as dangerous as a current unexperienced skydiver. We have all heard of the ‘danger zone’ of experience, where you have between 500-1,000 jumps and have possibly reached skygod status. Confidence and muscle memory is at an all time high and that’s also where complacency can creep in and mistakes can happen.
The global situation with the pandemic created a strange phase in skydiving, where suddenly there were a lot more uncurrent skydivers than current ones. There were many videos and offerings of advice from experienced canopy pilots of how to safely get back in the air, but there have still been numerous incidents occurring. These were often from very experienced skydivers getting back in the sky and making mistakes due to a lack of currency.
An incident that happened recently, involved a skydiving instructor who has been in the sport for over 7 years with over 5,500 skydives. After a 4 month break due to the pandemic, when they were jumping at a dropzone that was not their home dropzone, they did a low turn and ended up with some very bad injuries. An out of character incident from someone who has had sensible canopy progression and amassed a lot of experience in jumping. This is just an example that it can happen to anyone.
It is important to note that it is not always black and white and circumstances will differ for the individual, but is something to always be conscious of. For example, not sending a big way head down formation then a sick 450 on your first jump back. Also try not to add extra complications to the jump, such as jumping with unfamiliar kit or at a different dropzone.
Essentially, you should treat being uncurrent the same as being inexperienced. Don’t add extra complications to your jump and never be afraid of asking advice from a mentor who is more current or experienced than you. Keep it simple and keep it safe.