BigBUG

I am a tunnel instructor and a skydiving instructor (didn't renew my license so it's doesn't count anymore haha) and I am afraid of height. I am not feel comfortable on the balconies etc and avoid coming close to cliffs. The question here is a feeling of control. When you driving your car at 80 mph are you afraid of light poles? No. Because you are in control and you will not hit that pole if you don't want to. They are deadly if you hit them at this speed, and still you do not care. I like to play a little game with my students, who already know how to fly. First I ask them to do some really high layout, or just fly up in the sit, do a headdown transition and fly down to the net. Of course, they are totally capable to do this. Then I ask them to step on the wall on exactly same altitude and do a gainer/transtition down. Most of them are really scared, but nothing actually changed! It is still the very same movement! It's our brain, suddenly switching from 'flying' mode to 'normal life' mode when you 'step' on the wall - only to found out that it's going to drop from 15 meters :) When you are in full control, there is no place for fear. Good instructor will not push you out of the comfort zone too far and you eventually build needed skills. Build skills and fears will go away. Practice high-speed recoveries. Make yourself comfortable at certain level and learn how to mainain it in every position.

yep, that's right just remember that hotel is a subject of availiability, first come, first served :) we will do our best to put you to another hotel nearby with 15 to 20% discount if we will be full. Taxi pickup to/from airport is on us anyway, visa invitations as well. Our coaching rates are standard for Europe, 150 eur/hour.

May be interesting for camp organizers and flyers as well: **** It's only 270 euro/hour for night time and 310 euro/hour for day time (without coaching), and you getting Extra Free Hour for every 10 purchased. So it is 2700 or 3100 Euros for 660 minutes (night/day time). Also we have new tariff 5h+15mins for 1350 Euros (night time only). You will get free airport pickup/delivery and free motel stay (depends of availiability, first come first served) with every 660 or 315 minutes purchased! Visa invitations are on us as well. Ring me up if you need help with organizing trips, we are providing all the support.

believe me, there is a very strong difference when you getting a kick in the head in a 4 way dynamic, when ramming into you at full speed. I am so thankful for having Skyhelmet, it saved me from concussion at least 2 times for 2 years. Also, visor system in G3 is awful. It starts to vibrate over time (that impaires your vision), it goes off the adjustements and just generally shitty. Price for G3 made of garbage plastic ($1 in production cost) is ridiculous as well.

1. Actually elbow pads are not necessary if you are not flying dynamic with the team. Knee pads are a good idea (tho I never had them :) 2. What tunnel you are going to frequent? All ISG tunnels are, for example, adjustable and temperature is within 23-28 C all the time (depends of what coach wants). 3. Consider getting a built-in hood. Deem, Boogieman and other leading companies offer it as option for their tunnel models. 5. Hour per day is ok, intesive but ok, but it depends of what you are doing and how your coach plans your tunnel time. I'd say, 45 mins is optimal for beginner.

well as a member of Flystation staff and someone who incorporates a modern way to teach, I'd reccomend to go in bigger tunnel. I'd say that small tunnels like that could be really good bargain for money when you already pretty good and working on static drills -like static sit/headdown. For 2-way VFS/MxFS team it actually could be a great solution, because it will teach you to be efficient and fast. All our National 2way VFS medalists came from small tunnels. For starters, it is essential to have the ability to move - hence we are teaching carving and layouts pretty early now, it makes students fly and learn a lot in the same time, instead of boring and tiredsome 'oldschool' static progression. You could not do this in a small tunnel. Another (very personal) consideration is a temperature. Butterfly is insanely hot in the summer and I personally not functioning above 30-35 C. But should be Ok in the fall/wintertime.

It's a small (2.5m) tunnel, located in Zelenogorsk, small town 60 km from the city. Powerful enough to try all the position including headdown (but in the summer you'll need to wait quite a time until it cools off), wind is quite rough (as in any small tunnel) which could be both bad and good thing - harder to learn and way more tiredsome, but if you could fly in the small tunnel, you'll fly anywhere :) Instructors are good, some speaks English.

Look for Russian Freefly group at Facebook. Alexander Ragulin, Alexander Rizhenkov, Mikhail Razomazov, Vladimir 'Poozer' Polyakov, Eugenii Borovik, to name a few.

Yes it will be Flystation, but it is not open yet. You could expect same level of price as other big Russian tunnels, with some big discounts before opening :) In the meantime, you always could visit the mothership in Saint-Petersburg :) And it's a city worth visiting :)

As a tunnel instructor - having fun in the tunnel and learning how to fly your body is a completely different things. When I have a firsttimer, my goal is not to make a good flyer out of him in 2 minutes, my goal is to provide safety and fun for him. I would not waste his expensive time to make him fly perfect position, if his position is stable and he is having fun. I would never put him on the net, even briefly, if there is any chance to avoid that.

yes, for some reason I couldn't edit old posts :(

It is up to tunnel policy. Normally coaching is _not_ included in price for sport flyers. I.e. you are paying for air time and it's completely up to you to choose your coach and make all arrangements with him. Some tunnels (like FlyBox in Israel or Flystation Tokyo) offering you set of rates: without coaching (if you have your own already or want to fly by yourself), with intermediate/advanced coach or with 'top' coach. In this case you are paying to tunnel, not to coach directly. Some tunnels wants a big part from coach' money, so sometimes instructors working for one tunnel prefer to organize their camp in completely another place. It's generally a win-win situation, you are paying the same, they are making more and they are not bothered by their everyday job routine so they could focus on your progress. We host lots of these camps here in Flystation Russia.

what tunnel and style of coaching? mindless repetition does not help. if you stuck, you need to do other exercise that, being a completely different thing, still aimed to develop problematic areas. example - you have trouvles with lower legs and feet control, while trying to sitfly. Solution may be doing something that seems completely unrelated, like low-speed back carving and layouts, it develops a lot of leg control. generally, moving around helps. I prefer dynamic approach and try to make my students fly around, do transitions over the net and assisted layouts etc as soon as they could backfly. So they are more focused on actual flying. And yes, it's much more fun.

Flystation Saint Petersburg 14 feet tunnel, built by IGS, sooooo...best wind quality. 450 Eur/hour including coaching, buy 10 hours - get 90 minutes free. feel free to pm me if you have questions

for a whole thrilling 9 meters! i