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So I’m back from Mancun!

Hey everyone!

 

Sorry about the major delay in posts, spent some time down south getting away from the cold.

The weather here’s not so bad, but it’s quite cold. I was hoping to get some skydiving done at the skydive mex boogie, but I ended up on more of a party trip then anything else.
The weather in the Cancun area is really not permissive of safe skydiving anyway… It was about 25-35 mph of wind every day, great for surfing, but that’s about it…
So before my trip, I got to go to the tunnel for about 40 minutes of flying time. 30 minutes at the “nuit blanche” (All-nighter in english) which was a blast. I got to fly with 3 friends of mine who also happen to be much better skydivers than I, so I got to learn enormously and have fun at the same time. We did 3 sets of 10 minutes broken into 2 minute splits. The first 10 minutes involved a lot of getting through the rust I had built up (being that I hadn’t flown in nearly a year in the tunnel) I had quite a laugh when I almost rammed head first into the wall during the first 2 minutes. Afterwards things pretty much progressed nicely. I got to practice 4 way formations, work on my levels, formation speed and we worked towards getting as many points as possible.

By the last 10 minutes, we were doing swimmingly, but it was also 4 am and we were burnt.

 

A few days later, the day before my trip, Geneviève and I decided to go fly for 10 minutes during the day. We couldn’t find anyone else to join us, so we just flew together. We flew as if we were flying with 2 other people that were in formation with us and worked at mostly fun formations. Over-unders side by side, over-unders while doing 180 degree turns, position work, 360 degree turns while holding each other, etc.
This was quite a fun 10 minutes and would’ve been fun to continue.

I received my sexy new suits from Deepseed a while ago, had to mail them back for re-sizing as there was an issue with measurements… Kinda sucks when the company’s on the other side of the planet, but I’m REALLY excited to get them back as the suits are the best looking suits I have ever seen.

Blue ones everyone!

 

Adam

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Skydiving in hurricane season – Part 3 – UPT visit

 

 

Hey everyone,

I trust you’ve all been well, I’ve been super busy dealing with my day job, dozens of different appointments that I kept putting off because of skydiving (Dr, Dentist, etc…), getting back to training at the gym regularly (6 days a week).

Basically, just been quite hectic this past while.

So anyhow, without further ado, here’s part 3 of our trip to Florida.

Our visit to UPT.

On our 4th day in Daytona, we realized that we couldn’t simply spend our time skydiving and that we had to go around and do some tourism. Our first stop was UPT. Being our sponsors and being that they simply ROCK when it comes to customer service, they took us on a tour of the facilities.

Mark Klingelhoefer (who from now will be referred to as Mark K for obvious reasons) was the man to show us around. I must say… This man knows his stuff. There is not a piece of equipment that he doesn’t know inside and out and he is more than happy to tell you about it.

Mark used to sell replacement gear so he has gotten to know everything piece by piece. I won’t go into details about every bit of equipment on a container as it would be long and tedious to read, but if you’re curious, just head on over to the UPT Facebook page to see all the different add-ons and parts of a Vector 3 there are. If you still have questions, just send him a message.

So UPT’s facilities are located in DeLand florida. They have 3 addresses. The main building where everything is made and the offices are, there is the shipping and receiving building and the rigging loft.
We started off in the main building.
Mark showed us some of the more “special” containers.

The black and red “thing” in the middle was Bill Booth’s first ever container. It was the beginning of a new era in sport skydiving. Notice that there is no reserve flap. This is because this rig preceded reserves being packed into the container. People still jumped with chest or belly mounted reserves.

Speaking about reserves. Above, you will find the “cutaway” snaps. You would open up the mechanism, put your thumbs into the metal loops and pull both simultaneously. If you didn’t pull them at the same time, you’d end up in quite a mess.

Next came the extractor. Nowadays, your pilot chute is a little less than 2 feet across. This was it’s grandfather. The first ever hand deploy pilot chute. As you can see there were air pockets somewhat similar to those on a ram air canopy that would cause the drag that would pull out your main. (And no, it’s not collapsible).

Next came this furry beast. This was Bill’s 10 000th rig manufactured. (Notice some upgrades?). To celebrate his 10 000th rig, Bill decided that he wanted it to cost 10 000$ to make. So he had all the metal parts gold plated and put mink fur lining all over it. Mink fur being the most expensive available at the time. But after completing it, he realized that it had only cost him 6 000$ to make.

So he added two of these:

Bill only flew it once to say that he had jumped it and planned to put it away. But a few weeks after he had made it, he got a phone call from none other than Playboy mogul Hugh Heffner. Hugh had heard a rumor about the rig and wanted to know if it was true. Sure enough, Bill told him about it and Hugh asked him if he could borrow it for a short while. Two Playboy Playmates ended up jumping the rig…. Bill’s only disappointment? He got to jump the rig, the Playmates got to jump the rig, but he didn’t get to jump the Playmates.

Above: Bill jumping rig 10 000.

 

At some point, Bill went to a ZZ Top lookalike contest and ended up winning 1st place. What did he win? A pair of blue leather snakeskin boots.
He was so proud of these boots that he decided to make rig # 20 000 and a jumpsuit to match.

The only problem with a jumpsuit that matched blue leather snakeskin boots? Well… leather jumpsuits in Florida on a heavy set man… You get the idea.

I don’t have images for # 30000 and 40000, but # 50 000 was also a very odd looking one:

And finally number 53821. this one was used for a jump from Everest.

The rig was standard except a couple of mods: 1) it had small loops that held his oxygen tubes in place and 2) the handles were modified to fit his thick gloves.

 

After Mark gave us the tour of all the rigs, he brought us through the workshop. I call it a workshop and not a factory simply because everything is done by hand and I have the image of a factory needing machines.

The first area was a stitching area where the pieces are stitched together in groups. The person in this picture was making reserve cover flaps for military orders. (The whole row she’s in does NOTHING BUT military orders). We can’t divulge how many containers are made for confidentiality reasons, but I can say… It’s a LOT.

Another view of the same room, this time from one of the edges to show you just how big the room actually is. (There are two identical rooms like this plus a HUGE empty storage area that they recently built)

Now, a container is built of many different pieces. In each area, someone is responsible for cutting shapes for some parts, someone else stitches those together, someone else puts another part that was made elsewhere in the workshop together with the now made piece and stitches it, and so on. It’s a veritable relay race with each person doing something different. For example: we met a woman who was making hackies to be stitched onto pilot chutes. All she did all day was stitch two pieces of leather together and filed them with filler. Someone else would then stitch them onto the pilot chutes as they are ordered.

Above is the back pad. Notice that the harness isn’t a part of it? It’s actually stitched on as well. (It’s done very securely, but it isn’t made as a single piece… Hence the warning not to put your lines bgetween the D-bag and the reserve as it could risk ripping it. You wouldn’t detach from your parachute, but you’d have some expensive repairs to get done)

The final picture shows you just how many different colors you COULD have on your custom Vector.

For those of you wondering: The pig logo is called the wonderhog. It was designed in the 90’s as the name of the first sports modified container was the wonderhog. It was named the wonderhog because the reserve was piggy backed on top of the main instead of being belly mounted.

UPT has a long waiting period simply because they cannot fill all the orders in a shorter time span. All the staff is supposed to be off on Fridays yet they have been working every Friday for months simply to get all the orders out, yet more simply keep on coming in.

It was simply awesome getting to tour the UPT workshop, I learned a hell of a lot from Mark and I have to say. Bill is a mad genius for coming up with all of his inventions and if it wasn’t for him, most people involved in skydiving would either be jumping completely different gear or simply wouldn’t even be involved in the sport at all.

I’d like to extend a HUGE thank you to everyone at United Parachute Technologies for their hospitality, Tara for getting me my rig on a weekend so that I could jump with it, Mark for taking us on the tour and Rosi for agreeing to sponsor us.

 

Part 4 to come soon…

In the meantime:

Blue skies everyone!

Adam

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Skydiving in hurricane season – Part 2 – Review of Skydive DeLand

Hey everyone!

I’m not really sure how to start up a part 2, so I’ll simply continue where I left off.

On Day 3, the weather was looking great out and being that we didn’t get to jump at DeLand on our first or second days in Florida, we were DYING to get into the sky.
We were supposed to stop off at UPT for a tour of the place, but couldn’t hold back from going jumping.

We got to:

And immediately proceeded to the Manifest.
Being that it was a Tuesday and the weather’s been on and off, there weren’t many skydivers… But we were extremely lucky, there was a group of Military jumpers following a Flight-1 canopy course. And where there’s military jumpers…
There’s the SKYVAN!!!!!! We had a lot of fun jumping from the Skyvan that day. We were about 3 or 4 going to full altitude, the Military guys were all doing hop and pops, so we basically had the plane to ourselves up high leaving us a lot of space to run =).

After doing a few jumps, I did a quick tour of the place, it’s really quite a big DZ..

Fairly straight forward, this is the DZ restaurant/bar

Outdoor “Tiki” bar which is pretty much just an open area anyone can go behind to bar tend.

Flight-1 School building

Waiting area/loading area

Packing room/climbing wall

more of the same packing area (Very comfy carpet)

Team room/packing area #2

Team room – another angle.

Tandem room – Mad Dog is Tara’s father and currently works at UPT… He is an extremely bad ass individual!

Enormous creeper pad / waiting area.

My overall opinion about Skydive DeLand: The drop zone has some extremely talented skydivers, a really cool Manifest staff and some awesome planes. The coaches there really know their stuff and are always keeping their eyes open for opportunities to coach you and help out (and not always for a price). The drop zone has plenty of indoor packing area to go around, lots of room for people to just hang around and talk, plenty of benches and a great restaurant that actually has reasonably priced food and good portions.

And to boot: Jump tickets are 23$!!!!!!! They have bulk options as well (50 tickets +) which lower the price, but at 23$, Geneviève and I were extatic (Being that it’s 35-36$ back home).

Needless to say, DeLand is set up to be a busy drop zone and it’s been said that DeLand is the epicenter of the North American skydive universe. But According to Mark Klingelhoefer at UPT, it’s NOT because of Skydive DeLand.

Tune in later this week to find out why…

Blue Skies in the meantime!

Adam

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Great weekend at the Tokaya Chick’s Boogie

 

 

Hey everyone!

So I was at the Tokaya Chick’s Boogie over the weekend… And apparently, so was everyone else! There were over 100 people signed up for the event and it looks to be that there will be even more next year.

The event was organized by Karine Lemelin and Karine Provost, the two ladies also run Tokaya, a green company that basically designs and sells clothing made of Bamboo.

I wasn’t present for the whole weekend as I had to work on the Saturday, but I did manage to get there just after dinner time. They had turned a barn into a dinner hall and did a wonderful job at it!

As a side note: The boys from Parachute Montreal all skydived in wearing dress shirts and bow ties which was quite funny to see… Pretty much a James Bond style jump.
Dinner was raw vegan… Not exactly my thing, nor my girlfriend’s, but I’m guessing that for those who are into it, it must’ve been great =)
After dinner, they started some games, had a couple of bodyguards (guys) strip their clothes off for prizes, who could do the most squats with their lady friend in their arms, etc… I found some of the games more fair than others as some were geared towards applause, which usually leads to who has the most friends there winning. But all that aside, I’m pretty sure everyone had a lot of laughs.

This was followed by a percussion band who played as they walked everyone from the barn to the Manifest where there was a DJ booth set up and people could continue to party the night away.
The drummers played at least a couple of hours and got everyone engaged which was great fun.
The DJs looked kind of bored though, but that was simply because people were having such a great time with the percussionists.

There weren’t any drinks available for people who hadn’t thought of bringing anything with them, so for some people, it was a dry night, but the night went on until at least 3-4 AM.

 

The next morning was sort of rough for some people as an 8 am wake up for skydiving isn’t always very easy after partying all night, but there were plenty of people in the sky.
I was on a couple of loads organized by none other than Melanie Curtis. I only got on two loads that day, but Nick Grillet (From Arizona Airspeed) got into the skies and showed people how things are done!
He came up with a bunch of fun skydives including a Speedstar to back flip 10 way. (10 people racing to form a star, then all back flipping).

The day pretty much continued on that note, there weren’t any activities on the Sunday unfortunately, but from what I read on many Facebook statuses, people seemed to have had a great time.

Sorry I didn’t have much more to say about it, but I wasn’t there for the whole time. 🙁

Blue ones for now everyone!

 

Adam

 

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My 100th jump.

 

 

Ever since I started skydiving, I wanted to become a CReW dog… I used to love watching them fly and I visioned myself as one of them flying through the skies.
As recently as 3 months ago, I had signed up for a CReW camp at Parachutisme Atmosphair, but was denied by the instructor as I wasn’t experienced enough for his comfort. I took the refusal in stride and kept my head up as I knew I would be able to try it at some point soon.

For quite some time, I had been speaking to Nicolas Huard, one of the DZOs at Parachutisme Voltige about doing it as it is the best DZ in my area to learn it and he himself is a CReW dog =D. You should have seen the look in his eye and the eyes of all the other instructors at the DZ when I said that I wanted to learn. I got high fives all around and nothing but smiles… I knew I was in for the time of my life.

 

The day had come, I was 3 jumps away from my 100th, the skies were cloudy, but had many blue holes, so I took the risk and ventured to the DZ (which is about an hour and a half drive from my place). I figured, I can’t jump if I’m not at the DZ, so I’m going. “Jump or no jump, I’ll be there!” I said to myself.

I got to the DZ at 9:30 am, the first load had gone in the air, an hour later than planned as the skies were quite cloudy by now. My hopes were shattered for the moment, as it was clear enough to skydive, but not enough for CReW (For those of you who don’t know what CReW is, it stands for Canopy Relative Work. Basically, canopy formations). So I kept on waiting, and waiting, and waiting. 4 hours had passed, and I was still waiting, so I decided “what the hell” I’m gonna go get some skydiving done, this isn’t going to be a wasted day! I decided to work on my freeflying. I asked Philippe Thibodeau (the local freefly skygod) for some tips, and I get in the air to work on my sit flying. My new Deepseed Vyper hadn’t arrived yet, so I wore one of the school’s jumpsuits. Needless to say, I had fun flying, but I wasn’t very stable haha. 😀

After a couple of attempts at freeflying, I grounded myself. I wasn’t going to pass 100 doing practice, that’s for sure! This IS a special jump after all.

Come 5 pm, things are looking dire. The DZ is in full swing, tandems everywhere, load after load of tandems go up, Nicolas was replacing one of the tandem masters who hadn’t made it in to work that day. I was starting to feel the disappointment getting to me as I felt that jump slipping away (Especially since next weekend, I’ll be at the Tokaya Chicks Boogie, and I know I’ll be jumping there… Although, a 100th jump with a bunch of skydive chicks would be fun, the idea didn’t mean as much to me as a CReW jump did… Is there something wrong with me?)

At 6:30 I look to the sky and there’s not a cloud in sight… Perfect for a CReW jump!!! But the last 2 loads are already manifested and I’m not on them… And to make matters worse: Nicolas is still set as a tandem master!!! My hopes are shattered, at this point, I figure, I might as well just stick around and have a few beers with everyone before heading home, someone else surely paid for some for some reason or another haha.

 

Mario comes to save the day! No! Not this mario!

 

 

Mario is another one of the DZOs, he pulled me to the side and said “I’m not going to let the tandems get in the way of your 100th, I’m going to replace Nicolas on the last load so you can do your jump!”

The shine returned to my eyes, my smile instantly appeared! Mario had made my day! Nicolas brought me to the side to start the briefing:

Ok, I absolutely HAD to post this picture as we look like complete tools but I find it quite funny!

 

After the briefing, we headed to the plane to get things rolling.

We started off with Simond exiting and popping, I was to wait 2 seconds then jump and pop 3 seconds after then Nicolas to follow me.

As you can see, Nicolas and I are fairly far after only a couple of seconds delay.

 

Now, explaining the rest of the jump would take ages as it lasted a good 8-10 minutes. So here’s a video that Simond filmed.

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZfB_V5NMaw&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

 

Overall, this was THE BEST time I have ever had skydiving. I have now found my 2 passions in the sport. Big ways and CReW. I spoke to Nicolas about starting coaching to learn it and practice more and more, he said he’d be very happy to teach me, so I’m hoping that by this time next year, I’ll have a bit more experience on my belt. And don’t worry, you’ll all get to read about it!

 

I want to thank Nicolas Huard and Simond Gingras for being a part of my 100th jump and helping make it a reality. I also want to thank Mario for having thought of me and helped make it possible. And I would like to thank Voltige 2001 for being my home DZ and a great overall place to have fun!

 

Saturday, I’ll be heading to the Tokaya Chick’s Boogie, so keep your eyes open for my next article!

Till then, blue skies everyone!

 

Adam

 

 

 

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You absolutely have to get to Boogie Fest….

 

 

If you don’t have the chance to get there by the last day (August 5th) then you ABSOLUTELY MUST attend next year.

This was the first boogie that parachutisme Atmosphair had and what a boogie it was!
It started on July 25th and will be going on until August 5th.

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend by Pierre Bilodeau AKA Peter Pan. He’s one of the 6 DZOs at the drop zone which is located just outside Quebec city in Quebec Canada.
He was setting up the event organized around Festivent which is a hot air balloon festival in Quebec city.

Pierre never ceased to impress me during my entire time at the DZ. He is extremely lively, always up for fun jumps and was simply a blast to be around.

 

Unfortunately I have a day job, so I was only able to attend for a couple of days. I arrived on Saturday July 28th at around 8 PM. Just in time to see a sexy 2 plane 30 way sunset jump. The load was organized by the lovely Katie Woods, an English skydiver who lived at Deland for a while before moving north to the Montreal area. Katie took care of organizing all the big ways of the weekend for us. (More on that later)

After the sunset load landed, I had the opportunity to be welcomed by Scott Bland and Paul Litherland who were running the Wingsuit camp.

 

They were doing a briefing of the last jump that was done with the camp.

 

I had never met Scott before, but Paul and I had met when I was doing my AFF at Skydive City in Z-Hills. He’s a great guy and a hell of a photographer!

After I met them, I proceeded to set up my tent next to the hangar and I went on to eat with everyone at the dining hall. when I was greeted by this:

A sexy BBQ/Smoker for our ribs! That’s right, dinner was a rack of ribs… MAAAAN do they know how to sell themselves to me =D.
Following the dinner, we were given a fire breathing show by a couple of skydivers:

This was followed by a bunch of beers and some partying in the packing loft.
Unfortunately, my camera didn’t manage to take such great shots in the black light, but we were given a live DJ show and a sweet light set up!

 

I went to bed fairly early… In fact, I was snoring by about Midnight. The next morning, bright and early I started roaming around the DZ meeting more people. Pierre got me onto the second load for an 11 way big way which was a great chance for me to warm up and also get to be part of what would be a full day of big ways!

Katie was organizing all the loads and took care of all the briefings and planning. We just needed to go where she told us to be haha. =)

The first jump was done from the Caravan, which was fairly successful. I unfortunately wasn’t able to get my hands on any shots of the jump.

 

The second was an 18 way that turned into a 20 way as we were being briefed by Katie. This was done from both the Twin Otter and the Caravan, 10 in each plane.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFJEaxI2BVc&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

I’d like to point out that Pierre mentioned that this was the first time he was able to dock without issue. Being that he doesn’t have complete use of his legs, being able to dock at all is a feat in itself. Hat’s off to you Peter Pan!

 

The following jump was a 16 way which didn’t go as smoothly unfortunately. What was of note is that Katie divided the jump into two sides, one side being the more experienced skydivers, the other being the less experienced ones. The only side that actually connected completely was the less experienced one. NYA NYA! (Ok, enough teasing, the more experienced people were jumping from a different plane altogether haha)

 

 

The final big way of the day was another 20 way. on my exit, I banged my head on the handle bar and messed up my exit, caught up to the group, but ended up on the wrong side of the formation, by the time I had placed myself in the right area, I was too low to be able to catch up to the group, so I flew off. My messing up lead to it being a very symmetric formation however, so it wasn’t all bad. 🙂

All in all, I learned a heck of a lot during that day and I truly appreciate the fact that this boogie was set up the way it was. No one was left behind, be it their 100th big way or their 1st, they were allowed to participate and were given ample coaching and proper briefings to get to learn.

The wing suit peeps also mentioned that they loved the camp and that Scott and Paul were great teachers (I never doubted it).

 

We finished off the day by doing a drawing and a contest for a few prizes that our sponsors had given me to hand out as well as the event sponsors.

UPT had given me some shirts, packing pull-ups and two 30%/15% discounts on brand new Vector containers. (For those of you who don’t know, Vector containers are among the best on the market, and 30% off the price + 15% off add-ons saves a HELL of a lot of money)

NZ Aerosports sent me some stickers, temporary tattoos, packing pull-ups, bottle openers and a few other goodies.

Vigil sponsored the event directly by giving a 50% rebate on a brand new Vigil AAD and a Vigil backpack.

Frankais also sponsored the event directly by giving a 30% rebate on a pair of Freefly pants, a 100% rebate on a a pair of freefly pants, a free reserve repack and two packing mats.

Aside from these, there were 10 tickets to Festivent (The Quebec City sky festival) and 5 flashlights (Sort of a gag gift I guess)

 

We decided that we would raffle off everything to all the participants of the boogie who had signed up.

Since there were so many winner, I’ll simply name those who won big prizes:

Hélène Bouffard – Reserve Repack
Mario Morales – 30% rebate off Freefly pants
Jérome Caron – 100% rebate off Freefly pants
Odile Bélanger – 30/15 rebate off a UPT Vector Container
Martin Casgrain – 50% rebate off a Vigil

Now, I mentioned that there was TWO rebates from UPT.

For the second rebate, we figured we’d have a bit of fun. Since NZ Aerosports had sent us a whole bunch of temporary tattoos, we figured we’d have a little contest:
The person who came up with the most original placement of said tattoos would win the prize.

Here are some highlights:

We had such a hard time deciding on this as there were lots of great ones, so we ended up picking the top 6 and doing a draw for the winner.

The winner of the contest was Nicolas Alie-Chartrand.

I’d like to take a quick second to that UPT and NZ Aerosports for their generosity and for sponsoring some gifts for the event.

I also want to give a HUGE thank you to Pierre and Isabelle for being so hospitable. I’ll DEFINITELY be back.

Blue skies in the meantime everyone!

 

Adam

 

Photos by:
Marc Guerin
Sylvain Demers
Martin Casgrain
Guy Labarre
Denis Lessard
Jose Calderon
Alain Houde

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New records for the books!!!

Andrew Toman of the Hired Guns just let me know that there were two more record breaks for freeflying done at Parachute Montreal the 20th of July.

The first, a 30 way head down jump:

 

And an 18 way head up:

Congrats to everyone who participated, this has been quite the month for Canadian records!!!

 

Below, a picture of all of the skydivers who participated:

Blue skies everyone!

 

Adam

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The moment has finally come… (Version Fr en dessous)

 

 

 

 

…for me to post the interview of Rise N Shine!

But first, I’d like to wish Lance the best of luck with his move to Florida as it’s not only half way across the world, it’s also a HUGE change of way of life and a totally different culture. Hat’s off to you Lance!

 

So a couple of weeks back, I had the opportunity to sit down with and interview two skydivers who have mentored other skydivers, spent plenty of time fun jumping, one even started a business and all the while, they managed to win the Canadian nationals for Artistic Freeflying.

Bruno and Olga are the two “faces” of Rise N Shine. I say faces as they are the two who are seen on camera, however as we’re about to learn, Artistic FF is a whole different ballgame. The camera person is considered a part of the team and so (s)he has an effect on the final score the team tallies.

Here’s a video of one of their competitions:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaU8OfAlMWY&feature=plcp[/youtube]

 

Adam: So can you guys tell me, what exactly is the difference between Artistic Freeflying and VFS (Vertical Formation Skydiving)?

Bruno: Artistic freeflying encompasses all the positions that are involved in skydiving, be it sitfly, head up, head down, back flying, belly flying, whereas VFS is usually head down or sit flying and is usually a 4 person team. In VFS you aim to get the most points by doing predefined figures in the sky. In Artistic, you are scored for the quality of your presentation. The person filming is just as important as the people flying in front of the camera. You have to implicate the person in your show. You are also ranked on the difficulty of the moves you attempt.

Olga: You’re putting on a show for the people watching the video.

 

Adam: Sort of like figure skating?

Olga: Yes, but in freefall.

 

Adam: So how did you two meet? It seems like you really have to know your partner well to perform well in Artistic Freefly

Olga: We were both part of the first group of instructors at SkyVenture Montreal. Because we were hired before the tunnel even opened, we flew to San Francisco to be trained

Bruno: We had been working together for two years before we decided to form a team.

 

Adam: Why Artistic freefly? Why not VFS or RW?

Bruno: Olga has had a lot more experience than I did. She’s been in many competitions and had already done some Artistic Freefly before.

 

Adam: What was the progression for Rise N Shine? I’m sure you didn’t just look at each other on the day of a tournament and say “Let’s make a team for today”

Bruno: Well, we started together in 2009. In 2010 the team was started. In 2011 we won the nationals. And now we’re here, preparing to go to the Worlds in Dubai in December.

 

Adam: How long have you two been skydiving?

Olga: My first couple of skydives were in 2003 in Russia, which were done with the round military parachutes. Then I moved to Canada in 2004, so by the time I was able to get myself organized and get around to doing my PFF it was 2005.

Bruno: I started in 1999, but I had a much slower progression, I was mostly just doing fun jumps here and there, I wasn’t paying much attention to competing, to me the sport was for fun. The motivating factor was when I got my job at SkyVenture. I realized that I was enjoying improving my skills constantly. Once I met Olga, she coached me and my skills exponentially improved. Competition was a way for us to set an objective for ourselves.

Olga: It’s a goal that we set for ourselves which had a deadline so we had no choice but to be ready by then.

 

Adam: I’m sure you’ve heard this a lot, but why do you skydive and why compete?

Olga: We do this because it helps us push new skydivers to try the sport and, more specifically, to Artistic Freefly. This discipline is relatively small in Canada, compared to the United States and Europe.

Bruno: Our primary activity is to compete, but also to Coach. It allows us to share our passions while hoping to bring more people to competitions. And hopefully have more friends to play with in the sky.

 

Adam: What competitions have you participated in? Aside of course from the SkyVenture competition a few weeks back.

Bruno: In total, we’ve participated in two tunnel competitions and the nationals once. But 2011 was mostly a team planning year where we built our strategy and formed the team properly. Before competition, there’s a lot of mental preparation, which takes a while to develop. We alsoneeded to make our preparation for the competitions efficient and effective.

Olga: We’re definitely more efficient now.

Bruno: We took 1st place in the 2011 nationals, which allows us to go to the Worlds in Dubai in December 2012. As part of our preparation for the 2012 Worlds, we’re also going to the US nationals in November.

Olga: With 2011’s experience we can much better prepare ourselves for competitions.

 

Adam: How exactly do you compete by the way?

Olga: An Artistic Freefly competition consists of seven rounds. Typically, those 7 rounds comprise of 5 rounds of open routines where the team is free to do anything they want as long as the routine, submitted to the judges is followed. Most teams will do the same routine 5 times over because it’s easier to learn one routine than it is to learn 5 different ones. Those 5 rounds are judged on the difficulty, the esthetics and the execution of the routine. There is a grid that the judges use to figure out how many points of difficulty they can attribute for the move that is done.

Bruno: The other two rounds of the competition are a bit different. You can still do whatever you like in it, but the judges set four elements to the routine that must all appear in the routine.

 

Adam: So basically if they ask for a back flip where Olga flips around you, and a barrel roll, you can do a barrel roll, then switch to head down and circle around each other, then do the flip thing?

Bruno: Yes.  But you have to keep in mind the difficulty grid. If the team chooses to do something very difficult and has sloppy execution of the move, they will end up with a lower score than a team who chooses a simpler routine and does it perfectly.

 

Adam: What’s your mission exactly?

Bruno: Our mission as a team is to train ourselves, to compete and win of course. But it’s also truly about making Artistic Freefly popular.

 

Adam: I can see a LOT of logos on your jumpsuits, who are your main sponsors?

Bruno:
Parachutisme Voltige
SkyVenture Montréal
Frankais suits
 Unites Parachute Technologies
Performance Designs
Cookie Composites
Brainshell
Float4 Interactive
Oberfeld Snowcap

Olga: Parachutisme Voltige and SkyVenture are two of our main supporters. They are directly involved in our training.

Below, a picture of Olga and Bruno sporting their sweet Frankais jumpsuits and cookie helmets (Design on the helmet by Brainshell)
(Yes, I’m aware that I’m the worst photographer ever and my shadow is in the picture haha!)

 

Adam: So you two mentioned that the cameraman is a part of the team, who is your cameraman?

Bruno: Last year we worked with Philippe Thibodeau, who acted as a cameraman and who played a very important role in launching the team. Today, our cameraman is Richard Guilbault. Philippe remains highly involved as a coach.

 

I’d like to thank Rise N Shine for taking the time to sit with me. Bruno and Philippe have both taken the time to coach me in the past and Phil even taught Geneviève (My girlfriend and photographer) to sitfly.

If ever you’re around SkyVenture and want to learn from some top level skydivers, give them a shout, they’re always happy to teach!

 

They can be found on:

Facebook

Youtube

And the Rise N Shine webpage

And of course, if ever you want to see them fly, just head to Voltige in Joliette Quebec on any given weekend, you’ve got great chances of being on a load with them!

 

Blue skies everyone!

 

Adam

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

Le moment est finalement arrivé…

… pour que je vous parle de l’entrevue de Rise N Shine!

 

Mais avant tout, j’aimerais souhaiter à Lance le meilleur dans son déménagement en Floride car ce n’est pas seulement un déménagement à l’autre bout du monde, c’est aussi un changement ÉNORME de mode de vie et une culture complètement différente. Chapeau Lance, chapeau.

 

Donc il y a quelques semaines, j’ai eu l’opportunité de m’asseoir et faire un entrevue avec deux parachutistes qui ont étés des mentors, ont eu pleins d’opportunités à faire des fun jumps, un d’entre eux à même parti une entreprise et tout cela en même temps qu’ils étaient en train de s’entrainer et même GAGNER les nationaux Canadiens de Freefly Artistique.

Bruno et Olga sont les deux “faces” de Rise N Shine. Je dis faces car ils sont les deux qui sont vus sur la caméra. Par contre, comme nous allons bientôt apprendre, le Freefly Artistique est un jeu complètement différent. Le caméraman est considéré une partie de l’équipe donc il/elle a un effet sur le pointage final de l’équipe.

 

(Plus haut, vous pouvez voir un video d’un de leurs competitions.)

 

Adam: Pouvez vous me dire quel est la différence entre le Freefly Artistique et le VRV (Vol Relatif Vertical)?

Bruno: Le Freefly Artistique inclus toutes les positions qui font partie du skydive soit le sitfly, head up, head down, back fly ou belly fly tandis qu’en VRV c’est plus souvent du head down ou du sit et d’habitude, c’est une équipe de 4 personnes. En VRV l’équipe vise d’avoir le plus de points possible en faisant plusieurs figures prédéterminés dans le ciel. En artistique,  l’équipe est mesuré pour la qualité de leur présentation. La personne qui est en train de filmer est aussi important que les personnes qui volent en avant de la caméra. On doit impliquer la personne dans le “show”. Vous êtes aussi noté sur la difficulté des manœuvres que vous tentez.

Olga: Tu es en train de faire une pièce pour la personne qui regarde la vidéo.

 

Adam: Un peu comme le patinage artistique?

Olga: Oui, mais en chute libre.

 

Adam: Comment avez-vous rencontré l’un l’autre? Il me semble qu’il faut vraiment bien connaître ton partenaire pour pouvoir bien performer en Freefly Artistique.

Olga: Nous avons tous les deux fait partie de la première équipe d’instructeurs au SkyVenture Montréal. Étant donné que nous étions engagés pour le tunnel avant l’ouverture, on est allé au San Francisco pour faire notre formation.

Bruno: Nous avons travaillé ensemble pendant deux ans avant de décider de former une équipe.

 

Adam: Et pourquoi le Freefly Artistique? Pourquoi pas le VRV ou le VR?

Bruno: Olga avait beaucoup plus d’expérience que moi.  Elle à participé dans plusieurs compétitions et elle avait déjà fait un peu de Freefly Artistique.

 

Adam: Comment s’est passé la progression de Rise N Shine? Je suis certain que vous ne vous êtes pas simplement regardé le jour d’un tournoi et pensé “On va faire un équipe aujourd’hui”.

Bruno: Au faite, nous avons commencé ensemble en 2009. En 2010, l’équipe à été formé. En 2011, nous avons gagné les nationaux Canadiens. Et maintenant, nous sommes là en train de se préparer pour aller aux Mondiaux à Dubai en Décembre.

 

Adam: Depuis combien de temps faites-vous du parachute?

Olga: Mes premiers sauts étaient en Russie en 2003. Ils se trouvaient à être avec des parachutes ronds  militaires. Après cela, j’ai déménagé au Canada en 2004, et jusqu’à ce que je me suis organisé et finalement eu l’opportunité de faire mon cours PAC il était déjà 2005.

Bruno: J’ai commencé en 1999, mais j’ai eu une progression beaucoup plus lente. La plupart du temps, je faisais des fun jumps ici et là. Je ne portais pas trop d’attention à faire des compétitions. Pour moi, le parachute était pour m’amuser. Le facteur motivant arriva lorsque j’ai eu mon emploi au SkyVenture. J’ai realisé que j’aimais améliorer mes habilités constamment. Lorsque j’ai rencontré Olga, elle m’a coaché et mes habilités se sont améliorés exponentiellement. Les compétitions étaient une façon pour nous d’avoir un objectif fixe pour nous-mêmes.

Olga: C’était un but que nous nous sommes donné qui avait une date fixe donc nous n’avions pas de choix sauf d’être prêt pour ce moment là.

Adam: Je suis certain que vous entendez ceci souvent, mais pourquoi faites vous le parachute et encore plus, pourquoi participer dans des compétitions?

Olga: On le fait car c’est une façon qui nous aide à pousser d’autres parachutistes à essayer le sport et plus spécifiquement à essayer le Freefly Artistique. Le sport est relativement inconnu au Canada comparé l’Europe et aux États-Unis.

Bruno: Notre activité principale est de participer à des compétitions mais aussi de Coacher. Cela nous permet de partager nos passions et espérer d’amener plus de gens aux tournois. Et bien sur pour avoir plus d’amis avec qui jouer dans le ciel.

 

Adam: Dans quelles compétitions avez-vous participé? Mis à part bien sur celui de SkyVenture il y a quelques semaines.

Bruno: Au total, nous avions participé à deux compétitions de tunnel et une fois aux Nationaux. Mais 2011 était pas mal un an de planification ou nous avons préparé notre stratégie et formé l’équipe correctement. Avant une compétition, il y a beaucoup de préparations mentales qui prends énormément de temps à développer. Nous avions aussi eu besoin de rendre nos préparatifs plus efficaces et effectifs.

Olga: Nous sommes définitivement plus efficaces maintenant.

Bruno: Nous avons pris la 1ère place dans les Nationaux en 2011 qui nous permet d’aller aux Mondiaux à Dubai en Décembre 2012. Comme préparatif pour les Mondiaux, nous sommes aussi enregistrés pour participer aux Nationaux Américains en Novembre.

Olga: Avec nos expériences de 2011, nous pourrons nous serons beaucoup mieux préparés pour les compétitions dans le futur.

 

Adam: Et comment exactement se déroule un tournoi de Freefly Artistique?

Olga: Un tournoi consiste de sept rondes. Typiquement, les sept rondes sont comprises de cinq rondes de routines ouvertes ou l’équipe est libre de faire n’importe quoi tant que la routine qui à été soumise aux juges à été suivi. La plupart des équipes font la même routine cinq fois de suite car c’est plus facile d’apprendre une routine qu’il est d’en apprendre cinq différentes. Ces cinq rondes sont jugées par leur difficulté, l’esthétique et l’exécution de la routine. Il y a un barème que les juges utilisent pour décider combien de points qu’ils peuvent attribuer à leurs mouvements.

Bruno: Les deux autres rondes de compétition sont un peu différentes. L’équipe est encore libre de faire ce qu’ils veulent pendant la routine, mais les juges mettent quatre éléments qui doivent tous absolument apparaître dans la routine.

 

Adam: Donc pour simplifier, si ils demandent un salto arrière ou Olga fais son salto au dessus de toi, et un tonneau, tu peux faire un tonneau, par la suite, faire un switch et faire du head down et faire le tour l’un de l’autre et après faire le salto?

Bruno: Oui, mais tu dois garder en tête qu’il y a encore l’histoire du barème de difficulté. Si l’équipe choisis de faire quelque chose de très difficile et l’exécute mal, ils auront un pointage moins élevé qu’une équipe qui à choisi une routine plus simple et l’ont exécuté parfaitement.

 

Adam: Quel est vôtre mission exactement?

Bruno: Notre mission comme équipe est de nous entrainer, de faire des compétitions et bien sur de gagner. Mais avant tout, il est aussi d’aider à rendre le Freefly Artistique plus populaire.

 

Adam: Je vois beaucoup de logos sur vos jumpsuits, qui sont vos commanditaires principaux?

Bruno:
Parachutisme Voltige
SkyVenture Montréal
Frankais suits
Unites Parachute Technologies
Performance Designs
Cookie Composites
Brainshell
Float4 Interactive
Oberfeld Snowcap

Olga: Parachutisme Voltige et SkyVenture sont deux de nos commanditaires principaux. Ils sont directement liés à notre entrainement.

 

Ci dessous, une photo de Olga et Bruno portant leurs Jumpsuits Frankais et leurs casques Cookie (Le design est fait par Brainshell)
(Oui, je sais que je suis un photographe horrible et qu’il y a mon ombre dans la photo haha!)

 

Adam: Vous avez mentionné que le caméraman fait partie de l’équipe. Qui exactement est votre caméraman?

Bruno: L’année dernière nous avons travaillé avec Philippe Thibodeau qui à agi comme caméraman et à joué un rôle très important dans le lancement de l’équipe. Aujourd’hui, nôtre caméraman est Richard Guilbault. Philippe reste très impliqué comme coach.

 

Bruno: Artistic is less accessible at first as it’s much harder and needs more training, but once you learn it, it permits you much more than belly flying ever could.

J’aimerais remercier Rise N Shine pour avoir pris le temps de vous asseoir avec moi. Bruno et Philippe ont tous les deux pris le temps de me coacher dans le passé et Philippe à même entrainé Geneviève (Ma copine et photographe) à faire du sitfly.

Si jamais vous êtes au SkyVenture Montréal et vous voulez apprendre quelque chose de quelques parachutistes de haute niveau, demandez les, ils sont toujours heureux d’enseigner!

 

Vous pouvez les trouver sur:

Facebook

Youtube

Le site web Rise N Shine

Bien sur, si vous voulez les voir voler, allez simplement faire un tour à Voltige à Joliette, Québec une fin de semaine, vous aurez de bonnes chances d’être sur un load avec eux!

 

Blue skies tout le monde!

 

Adam

 

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What a week for Canadian skydiving!

Hey everyone!

Sorry about the delay on the posts, I had quite a setback with my move, just getting back into the swing of things.

 

So this week was quite an insane week for Canadian skydiving in Quebec. It started with Mission 100, the Lemay family’s 2 year project. (For those of you who don’t know, the Lemay family are also known as team Evolution, they are and have been team Canada for 4 way relative work for many years. They also happen to operate two drop zones in Quebec and part of Skyventure Montreal.)

Mission 100 was first attempted in 2011, but unfortunately didn’t pan out after a few attempts. So they decided to give it a whirl in 2012 a second time. 102 skydivers participated, and 102 skydivers made the formation.

Here is what it looked like from below:

(Picture by Andrew Toman of the Hired Guns – Parachute Montreal)

This was a HUGE event for Canadian skydiving, and it is sure to be remembered by at least 102 people who now have their names in the record books!

 

The second is equally as impressive, but completely different in it’s own way:

This past weekend was the Go Big boogie at Voltige 2001 a weekend oriented around big ways. 17 000 foot skydives, 3 caravans and lots of smiling faces!

They broke the Canadian head down record with 29 people!!!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of the record, but as soon as I do get my hands on one, it’ll be on our Facebook page!

 

I’d like to congratulate everyone who participated on a job well done!

And I want to give a shout out to the organizers of these events as without people like them, skydiving would be a lot less organized. =)

 

Blue skies everyone!

 

Adam