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6 of us arrived Sunday afternoon in TF for Johnny Utah's BC' 04 Spring Session.

Brian , Dennis ( Straight out of Deutschland ), Matt , Omar ( Top Shelf El Presidente Margarita , please ), Jamie ( I'm Rick James..Bitch ) and myself ( The Beer Enforcer )
Monday morning we hit it hard, ground schooling and packing. Late afternoon we were in the pool practicing our step off exits. After that we headed out to do our PCA's. Were we pumped. What a day !
Following days brought on fine tuning our pack jobs, more ground school, flight paths, weather conditions, heading correction drills, different exits (floater , side floater ) gear / maintenance . Johnny covered it all. At the end of each day we'd be back at his place debriefing and watching the days jumps. By the end of the week we all left with at least 17 jumps. It was unreal ! The weekend brought in alot of jumpers and got to meet some great people. Saturday was pretty much blown out , boat Captain Don Mays and crew put on a great BBQ and raffle. Everyone had a great time. Props out to Don and all the manufacturers and everyone who contributed to the raffle, making it a sweet day. Sunday brought in some winds late morning to late afternoon , as they started to die everyone was back on it. The day ended with a sunset load with everyone on the bridge . Thanks again for everything Johnny (Marcia and Trevor too ! )

I'd also like to thank local boyz Tom, Jamie and some guy named Ray for all their help and of course Megan for driving us all over and shooting vid. Also, the Shilo Inn for always keeping a packing room available for us.

Mike, you posted the review I was going to give. Much props to Johnny Utah whos course is top notch. His course is a week compared to most manufacturers whos courses are only 3 days. Since it was very windy, I dont think 3 days is enough for BASE. I am not trying to bash any other courses, but realisticly 3 days is way too little time to learn how to BASE.

Mike, where's my margerita?

It was fun hanging with you. Hope to see you at an exit point at some other time in the future.

Top shelf presidente margarita
Should we tell them Johnny's course was $$$ less too?...oops too late
~J

You guys received excellent instruction from Johnny and I want to thank Johnny for letting me sit in on one of his ground school sessions. I agree with you guys that three days is not enough. But then again is a week long enough? To me, the biggest benefit of the whole weekend was to be able to see what a great site the Perrine is and what a great place to learn how to BASE jump before harder more exotic stuff is tried. I am happy with what Jimmy and Marta (plus many others) have taught me so far and now it's time for me to spend some time training out at the Perrine. Hmmm ... Moab, Yosemite and wingsuit jumps in Europe can't be that many years away can they?

But I still have so much to learn.

Do you feel that the 6 to 1 Student to Instructor Ratio had any effect on the quality of instruction?

I know that most other instructors limit their courses to 2 students per instructor maximum (this weekend I saw no one else with more than 1 student per instructor, actually).

Anyway, I'm just trying to sort out if folks feel they get better value spending more time in a large group, or less time one on one with the instructor.

I think the ratio was a good learning tool, because if one of the other students did something wrong we would all learn from it and correct ourselves not to do what the other did. Johnny paid alot of inidividual attention to each and every one of us. Johnny pulled me to the side away from the others and told me I had to correct a certain problem which I had and which I have corrected. I dont know if he did that with anyone else, but it sure made me feel like he was watching out for his students. At the end of each day we would sit down and watch videos of the days jump and critique us on it.

I think 5 to 1 should be the max, but Johnny handled the 6 of us very well, and I have no complaints about the way he taught and instructed us. In fact, if someone approaches me about BASE and I believe they would be qualified for it, I would refer them to Johnny Utah's course.

I mean this in the nicest possible way...... How did the others learn from your mistake when he pulled you aside?

He was making a reference to my packing, not about a particular jump. He told me I needed to be a little neater on my packjob, which has improved tremendously since.

Before I took the course I thought 2 or 3 would be better than 6 But I NOW think 6 was great! Like Omar said we got to learn from each other
it was a 24 hour class. After a few El Hefe margaritas at Cafe Ole a question would cross my mind and Johnny would have a good answer. When we did the classroom stuff there were 6 people asking questions,I learned stuff I hadn't thought to ask.
Everyone got their tailgates,brakes,lines,and closing checked untill we got it down.
Everyone got a gearcheck,where we geared up,and at the exit point,EVERY jump.
And even though we waited for everyone to finish packing,I got in 18 jumps! good times!

Without a doubt you guys left the Perrine with more jumping experience than someone like myself who did their FJC with Vertigo. But as I said, I'm still happy with the instruction I received from Jimmy and Marta. Gear checks and dive flows (including landing targets) were the norm for all of our jumps as well and people like Johnny, Jimmy and Marta have excellent things to tell us all in their respective ground school sessions.

All in all, I left the Perrine with a whole new world to explore and while it's not close to me, you can bet that I will be back in Twin Falls (I'm thinking one weekend per month) to continue to learn how to BASE from their most bodacious (sp?) bridge.

Good stuff I tell you, but stuff which needs to be respected.

I was also in johnnys FJC and made 26 jumps at the perrine that week. I learned so much from Johnny and I believe he has the best FJC to offer. THe student ratio was great we talked about what everybody did right or wrong as a group so we could all learn from it. It was the best vacation I've ever had and Is an experience I'll never forget. ALSO much props to the DENVER B TEAM you guys rock.

Dude, if I didnt leave with as many jumps as I got in, I would not have had the confidence I had last night to jump an A. It wouldnt be as easy for me to travel to TF since I live in the opposite end of the country.

Johnny totally rocked (well, except for that one moment at Chili's where he didnt let me drink my margarita right before we went to jump).

ha! i see nothing in s.fl. is safe from omar anymore..

Yes, be afraid, be very afraid