Basejumper.com - archive

Hey there. I'm looking to start base jumping. I know (of) a couple jumpers at local skydiveing clubs that have jumped. How do you think I should go about approaching a mentor-to-be? I haven't really talked to any of them (apart from 'hello' and meaningless banter waiting to fill the plane), and I definitely haven't asked them about base'ing. I'm just curious, cause I'd really like to get into the sport and not be to upfront doing it "teach me to base, master!"

/The Captain

make friends with people at your dz, if one of those friends turns out to be a veteran base-jumper then it will be easy to talk about base. Don't just try to make friends with people cause you hope they will be a mentor.

Thanks for your reply. You make it sound so easy, doesn't help that the season is coming to an end here either (southern sweden).

/The Captain

(My dz doesn't have any base'ers to my knowledge, but I do know of a couple guest jumpers who drop by every now and then.)

Oh, and just as a shot in the dark; If there are any jumpers in southern sweden, who wouldn't mind picking up a student/jump buddy, feel free to drop me a line.

/The Captain

Part of the base experience is to dig your own hole in this community...no pun intended. It's not easy and don't count on anyone else to do it for you.
At some point your gonna have to take the step and do whatever it takes to get there.

It's just a matter of motivation!

Don't expect that one day a dude's gonna show up at your doorstep with a packed rig and say "here buddy! let me lend you my rig and let me teach you how to base jump!" it doesn't work like that...

There are so many wannabe's outthere...
If you really want to do it, you will find a way!
One way to get into it, is to take a first jump course.
(which I did) and it then gives you a bit more credibility towards a mentor.

Getting into base jumping is a lenghthy experience.
and requires dedication and time.
I can not tell you how many weekends i blew just walking around, figuring things out, and not jumping!

with enough willpower, the right motivation and dedication... you'll get into it and then people will start to help.

good luck!

damn, i really had my hopes up about that one ;]

I can definitely imagine myself doing a couple jumps first, too bad the Kockum crane is gone now =/ (i'm just a year or so late for that one ;)

/The Captain

Do you have a younger sister? It helps sometimes if you show up at a party with your younger sister (twins would be even better) and a case of beer or two to give out to the experienced jumpers. If you don't have a sister then sometimes, in a pinch, your girlfriend might be willing to help out.... (Some BASE jumpers are even attracted to strange small furry creatures)

If you have anything else you can give/lend them, that really draws them in a lot.... Or you can just offer to drive them around for a few weeks/months and do errands for them.... Most BASE jumpers are push-overs that way.

Best of luck!
Skypuppy

Do not assume that the people at your local skydiving clubs are experienced enough to be BASE mentors. The may have made some BASE jumps, but that is not really enough to be an effective mentor. I have seen lots of people who think "well, he's an AFF instructor" or whatever, and end up learning BASE from someone who has only 10 or 15 BASE jumps. Be certain to carefully investigate the BASE experience of a potential mentor.

Some of Sweden's most experienced jumpers are on tour in the US right now (see thread here). You will need to wait another 2 weeks or so for them to return home. Any of those guys would be a good choice to learn from.

It's funny how many times I post after Tom to say, "Tom is right, however . . ."

Don't too quickly discount the older BASE jumpers found limping around on most drop zones. New guys know new stuff, old guys know everything.

Sure, you want to be mentored by the most current and up-to-date people, but you also want to make the connection with the entire BASE community and sooner or later that means the guys Tom is telling you to avoid . . .

I remember one day in Perris when BASE was still a bit of a secret and connecting with BASE jumpers is much harder than today. I was walking to the plane with an AFF student and there was this guy standing in the loading area wearing a tee-shirt that said, "I Want To BASE, for God Sakes, Someone Please Help Me."

You can bet after I landed I went and found that guy and I'm happy to say that person went on to make a lot more BASE jumps than I'll ever accomplish . . .

NickD
BASE 194

I didn't mean to avoid learning from guys whose experience was older. More that some people think that person X might be an "experienced" BASE jumper, when person X only has a very few BASE jumps.

I once ran into a student-instructor pair on the catwalk at the Jolly Green, and it turned out the instructor only had 4 prior BASE jumps (all from that span). The student ended up breaking his leg (had line twists, drifted across the river and landed out), and when we were picking him up I asked him about his choice of instructor. He said something along the lines of "hey, he was good enough to teach me to skydive, so he's good enough to teach me to BASE jump."

I sometimes fancy myself qualified to teach BASE. I know for certain I can't teach skydiving. It kind of bothers me when people who are in my boat, in the opposite direction, make a different decision.

Tom is right, however . . .

We can take the safe road and say all prospective BASE jumpers should go a certain route, and I think that's what we are doing as a community, but I grew up in a day when people with four BASE jumps "did" teach others to BASE jump and it worked most of the time. I know it's hard to imagine now, but there is a time when someone with twenty jumps is considered a god. In those days, when no one yet had more than a hundred BASE jumps, it was the only way to go about it. From the beginning BASE jumping has been for the most curious, the most self reliant, and the most "out there" among us. The real dilemma is there are as many new pitfalls stemming from spoon feeding BASE to people as there is in any other way of learning it.

NickD
BASE 194

That's very true. I've seen people in BASE now who lack some very basic knowledge because it wasn't spoonfed to them.

One guy with over 100 jumps didn't know how to assemble his 3 rings.

I'm not sure what kind of definition of spoonfeeding we're using here, but I like to think that BASE has no room for it. Spoonfeeding a person into safety is only going to postpone accidents. Inevitably it'll happen. Then again, it also happens to those that didn't need spoonfeeding.

The only thing we learn is that we never learn...


BASE jumps or skydives? The latter is not uncommon at all. I knew a guy with over 100 skydives who couldn't attach a canopy to a container without having twists in his risers...

>>One guy with over 100 jumps didn't know how to assemble his 3 rings. <<

There's always been that in skydiving. It's why it's called a, "skydiving first jump course" and not a, "rigging first jump course."

But, I'm sure you did the right thing and sent that prospective BASE student home to come back another day? You see? We only seem to progress not by solving things, but by changing things, and then we start making brand new mistakes . . .

NickD
BASE 194

BASE Jumps. Virtually all of them here.

Actually, I just taught him to hook up the 3 rings. He had taken a reputable FJC (not mine) some months previously.

The point I was making was (I think the same as yours) that since we can't cover everything when spoonfeeding, people need to develop the ability/desire to learn for themselves. Before FJC's, the manner in which we learned to BASE jump naturally screened for this (you simply didn't become a BASE jumper without a certain natural curiousity, because there were no instructional courses available). Now, we're missing out on it, quite often, because we've created something of an institutionalized path, and it assumes that you have certain basic knowledge, and has no real plan for addressing shortcomings in those areas.

>>The only thing we learn is that we never learn... <<

Somebody pretty smart first said that.

Case closed . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Thankyou all for your input, I appreciate every bit of it. And I totally understand the whole 'spoon feeding' issue. I'm a fan of selfteaching (I work as a self taught computer programmer, perfect example), but having some basics shown to you early-on can make all the difference later. I just might have to give one of those guys a call when they get back.
I'm sure there's a thread out there already, but since I got this one going, how did you all get started?...did you solo it the whole way, do it as a small group, or have a teacher/mentor.

/The Captain

Tom :
.Do not assume that the people at your local skydiving clubs are experienced enough to be BASE mentors. The may have made some BASE jumps, but that is not really enough to be an effective mentor.
...............

Ahhhh Yes - the old case of, The Blind leading the Blind. I think I have seen or heard this happen a time or two.
.

Which definitely has its place. Just to reinforce the other side of the picture (because it is my firm belief that the way things were once done is not always representative of the way they should be done), we had a jumper locally who was driven strongly by a desire to learn things on his own. It's my opinion (the person involved knows that I respect him) that that played strongly in his subsequently having a close encounter of the Building kind. BASE can be pretty unforgiving with respect to "learning it on your own".

There's a significant difference between teaching yourself when to use pointers, and teaching yourself when to use a 42.

i find this thread insightful and helpful. It's nice to know this forum is still worth reading as opposed to all the other crap on dz.com

my $0.02:
DO NOT expect anyone, other than yourself, to take responsibility for you. others will tell you things. it's up to YOU to determine if it is correct.

being inquisitive, thoughtful, creative, knowledgeable, able to think for yourself, etc. can only help.

being dependent upon others will not.

FJC's are great to help people avoid known mistakes. competent instructors are trying to teach you stuff THEY WISH THEY HAD KNOWN.

so, I guess my best advise is to be cocky and confident enough to think you don't need a FJC/mentor, but humble enough to sit quietly and listen to both!

Self teaching is something worth talking about as it's a foundation of BASE. It's the part of BASE jumping that makes it BASE jumping. Look, we didn't really know what we were doing back in the day, and it's hard to reconcile (with the signal to noise) that things are any better now.

The difference is, because of the internet, there's a standing "how to" book to be read and understood by anyone discriminating and smart enough to know bullshit from the other stuff. What I mean is you're better off being self taught in the 00s than you'd be in the 80s.

The day I meet someone who is self taught and doing alright, and I start disparaging them, is the day I take up bowling and seriously start working on my hook . . .

NickD
BASE 194

for me, it's the best way to take command of knowledge.
it's the way to know your subject through and through.

I'd much rather be at an exit point going, "hmmm, if I do this, then such and such will happen," instead of "now what did so-and-so say about this situation?"

much confidence arises from thoroughly knowing a subject.

someonw once said something about chicken nuggets that comes to mind... or was it gold nuggets....

__________________________________________________

One guy with over 100 jumps didn't know how to assemble his 3 rings.
__________________________________________________
Stop it.
one word to him that may teach volumes

CReW.

or perhaps learn enough CReW to be proficient.

be safe

kleggo

I relate to it as understanding why something is done a certain way so then you can actively decide how you are going to do it.

Most things I've found, in skydiving/BASE jumping specifically, are done to eliminate/reduce failure. Once you understand the why's you stop second guessing yourself on whether you did it right.

Thanks for all your replies. Important topics were taken up here, I hope it can be usefull for other base'ers-to-be. I'll continue reading, and working on getting to my first jump!
Thanks again!
/The Captain