Taihiko Tournament - Freefly Competition September 27th

I will be organizing Skydive Orange's first annual freefly competition on Saturday September 27th, 2008. Sunday the 28th will be a makeup day if there's weather trouble.

I struggled for awhile over how to organize a competition given the general skill level of the DZ (er... not that we suck... uh). It's just very hard to find freefly camera flyers who are willing and able to cover all of the competition jumps. Everybody who's able is not willing, and everybody who's willing is not able.

So what I'm going to do is a 2 way freefly competition where at least one of the performers must be wearing a camera. So, each dive is just a 2 way, and the dive pool will be made up of only points that show up pretty well on "inside" video. You can get an outside camera flyer if you want, but if you want to use inside camera, the dive pool will accommodate that. This does a couple of nice things for the competition.

• it lets everybody who wants to compete participate, we don't have to siphon off half the freefly talent on the DZ for outside camera
• it makes it pretty easy to organize a team, you just need one other flyer and a camera between the two a yas
• the morning of the competition the organizer (me) won't be running around like crazy because I'm short on camera flyers

The Technical Details

• there will be 4 rounds
• there will be 2 dive pools
• intermediate - sitfly friendly points only
• advanced - headdown points and mixed sit to headdown points
• each round will be 5 points
• 3 from the intermediate pool
• 2 from the advanced pool
• the points will go 1 - intermediate, 2 - advanced, 3 - intermediate, 4 - advanced, 5 - intermediate so that the advanced flyers will have to transition a lot
• if you're going for the intermediate cup, then just do the intermediate points and start over
• if you're going for the whole schabang, do all 5 and start over
• you will have 40 seconds of working time from exit
• I will be judge judy and executioner
• I will draw the dives the day before
• if you repeat a bad round sneakily, you will be caught, and you will be flogged
• you will have all day to make your jumps, and you will be responsible for manifesting yourselves
• you must make these four jumps your first four jumps together that day and hand in your mini-dv after the fourth and final round (you'll get it back)
• the day's manifest will expose you if you try to repeat a bad round
• I will decide if you have a legitimate camera bust that can be rejumped
• if I say that you have to do intermediate because you're a scrub, then you do
• if I say that you have to do advanced because you're sandbagging, then you do
• I will delegate judgement of points to one person (since I want to compete). If that person says it's a point, then it is, and if they say it's not, then it's not

The Dive Pools

These are the dive pools from whence the dives shall be drawn

• intermediate pool
• sit to sit hand to hand
• sit hand to foot
• probably best if the camera flyer takes the grip
• sit to sit foot to foot
• either foot to either foot
• as long as one foot from each flier is touching on video, count it
• sit to sit feet to knees
• probably best if the camera flyer is on bottom
• top flyer may place feet on the quadraceps or knees of the bottom flyer
• carve
• at least one full rotation
• you can do it on your head, feet, or mixed. Doesn't matter, just get around
• 360 degree flip
• You both flip, but you need to take turns so that both flips are on the video
• It doesn't matter whether you do it on your head or on your feet, just do a flip as you are
• 360 degree cartwheel
• You both cartwheel, but make sure they're both on video
• It doesn't matter whether you do it on your head or on your feet, just do a cartwheel as you are
• 360 degree turn
• You both turn, but make sure you take turns so that both are on video
• It doesn't matter whether you do it on your head or on your feet, just do a 360 as you are
• advanced pool
• headdown to sit hand to hand
• double spock
• over under
• the flyers must fly over / under one another and do a 180 degree flip transition as they do it
• it does not matter what position your are in
• if you're both on your feet, fly over / under one another and end up both on your head
• if you're mixed, fly over / under one another and end up trading places
• if you're both headdown, fly over / under one another and end up both in a sit
• it does not matter which way you flip e.g. the flyer going over top can back flip, briefly losing eye contact if desired. You just have to fly over / under one another, and do a 180 degree flip transition as you pass
• headdown round
• headdown flower
• headdown hand to foot
• both flyers are headdown, one flyer docks the other's foot
• double dock vice versa
• That's sit to headdown, both hands to both hands
• Needs to be clear on video that both grips were established
• 69
• Doesn't have to be closed up. Sitflyer does not have to pick up grips, just headdown grabbing both legs of the sitflyer.
• Needs to be clear on video that both grips were established
• sole to sole
• Needs to be clear on video that the dock was made

What Can I Win?

Certainly pride, I'm working on some other stuff.

Clarification

You must declare your camera flyer pre jump. You cannot hire an outside camera man and go up with both performers wearing video and then pick the best video of the three. You can only have one designated camera flyer per jump. You could switch it up on the next jump, though.

Also, I heard some people say they were flying outside camera for so and so. That's fine, but I want to be perfectly clear:

You do not have to have outside camera.

The minimum requirement to compete is 2 flyers, one of which must be wearing a camera. All of the points chosen can be seen on inside video (for example - there is no vertical compressed in the dive pool).

You can use outside camera if you want, but you don't have to.

Freefly Competition FAQ

Critic who hasn't thought about this as much as me: Can we do a scrambles meet?

Me: No, what if 18 people show up to compete and only 5 of them have cameras. I want each team to have one little camera problem rather than the organizer (me) having a thousand big camera problems.

Critic who hasn't thought about this as much as me: Can we do it like the Arizona Money Meet and keep changing partners?

Me: No, what if 18 people show up to compete and only 5 of them have cameras. I want each team to have one little camera problem rather than the organizer (me) having a thousand big camera problems. And I want our good freefliers competing, not flying outside camera.

Critic who hasn't thought about this as much as me: Can we add a Triple Lindy to the dive pool?

Me: No. Only three people in the world can pull that off, it doesn't show up well on inside camera, and Rodney Dangerfield is dead.

Guy asking a pretty reasonable question, but still hasn't thought about this as much as me: Why are the advanced points every other point instead of just doing 3 intermediate points followed by 2 more advanced points?

Me: Because I want the advanced flyers to experience the slight disadvantage of having to transition frequently. If you just slapped a couple of headdown points after the sit points then I don't think it would be as cool and interesting as intermingling them.

Guy asking a pretty reasonable question: Some of these points still seem like they're a little tough to catch on inside video. If it's obvious that you have the grip, but the grip itself was just barely missed by the video, will it count?

Me: Yes... probably. Now, the best thing to do is to get the grip or move completely in frame because then it's guaranteed to be a point. If you just have somebody's leg in frame and you say that you docked that guy's hand, that will probably not count. If you have a 69 with one grip in frame and the other grip just out of frame but the arm and leg are clearly coming together, that will probably count. I'm going to delegate the judging of the points to someone else, but I'm going to ask them to be somewhat generous.