Bad Habits

Despite the fact that I know I should wait a good six weeks (doctor's orders) before jumping again, I went against my better judgment and drove out to the DZ today to meet up with the few brave souls who were undaunted by the clouds and rain. I came away from it unscathed, so naturally I hope to jump some more this weekend, weather permitting.

Jump #27

The first load of the day made it to 5000ft. Unfortunately the clouds prevented us from going above that. I was apparently a little asymmetrical in the 10 seconds or so of freefall I got. I went into a slow right hand turn and managed to relax and stop myself just a couple seconds before deploying. There was a little bit of precipitation, and the feeling of the rain droplets hitting my face was pretty unpleasant, to say the least. Also, my flare pretty much sucked. I flared early, would have been fine, but then let up on my toggles just before touching down. I didn't bother trying to stand it up--in fact I've decided I'm not going to stand up any landings for a while so I don't put unnecessary pressure on my ankle.

Jump #28

The second and final load went to 4000ft. More rain, and even a little snow this time. My canopy opened into a right turn. Maybe my packjob wasn't so great and therefore the left break came unstowed during opening? The condensation that accumulated on my goggles was so bad that I couldn't even see through them, so as soon as I was under canopy and got both brakes released to stop my turn, I took them off and left them around my neck. Once again I flared early and let up just before landing. Kevin got it on video, so I was able to see what I messed up. Seeing my hands go up when I was supposed to be holding the flare, all I could think was "What the heck?!" I didn't even realize I was doing that... all I knew was that my landings had been kind of rough recently. So I need to work on staying focused and making sure to hold my flare. Strange how bad habits like that can develop... early on in my student training I was doing fine with my landings. It's also strange how oblivious I was to what I was doing.