FEEDBACK (FREEFLY TEACHTER #1; AD A#382, Director Euphoria FreeFly School)
Olav Zipsers First School of Modern Skyflying’s
Teachers’ Course
The following is a report of the F.S.M.S teachers’ course from a student’s perspective. Of course this report will have bias towards the methods of instruction used by the school and the course, as it was the understanding of the student that these were the best and most refined methods for teaching human flight and the best school to learn these skills.
Course description
The course was clearly broken into four modules that tested flying skills, taught and evaluated coaching methods and put the student coach under the realistic pressures experienced when coaching freefly.
Module 1
The first module consisted of testing the student’s skills and their understanding of flying techniques. Copy cat flights, sometimes with aerial tools such as streamers, were used to push the students own abilities whilst putting them under more pressure by applying concurrent activities to the flight plan.
“I really enjoyed these flights as it pushed my flying skills and put me in the right frame of mind for the rest of the course. The jumps made me concentrate on being a clinical and perceptive flyer and helped to hone my reactions for what was to come”.
During the first module the student is also introduced to the First Schools briefing structure and its own unique philosophy for the explanation of how we fly. Throughout the course these methods were rehearsed before and after the jumps to teach the student how to explain and coach more efficiently.
Module two
The second module is designed to put the student under realistic pressure experienced when coaching Freeflight, the evaluator uses aerial roll play and various scenarios to achieve the aim. Very much like an AFF course the evaluator plays a host of different personality types who wish to be coached.
The evaluator will also use his experience to make sure realistic problems occur both on the ground and in the air during this part of the course. It is the job of the student coach to rectify all problems and to efficiently coach the individual.
E.g. Broken or misrouted parachute equipment, Effects of hypoxia, unconsciousness in the air, scared or over zealous students, lack of concentration, not having sufficient time to brief the dive act…..
“For me this was the most frustrating part of the course! The use of different personality types during this phase was distracting and required me to constantly check and control the student. Safety was always the number one concern on my mind knowing that the student could and this case would behave in an unusual manner or would do something that was unsafe during the coaching period.”
“This part of the course was most useful and helped me to create a system of controlling all parts of the coaching process.”
Module three
The third module consisted of the supervised coaching of a real student. The evaluator would be there through all parts of the coaching process making sure that no base was uncovered and that the correct briefing/ debriefing process was used. The evaluator would fly outside camera for the coaching jump and record the methods, reactions of the student coach.
Other jumps where the student coach would follow a real student and the evaluator on a coaching dive. The objective was to watch and document various coaching demonstrations, to keep the dive in frame and to do various ambidextrous concurrent activities at the same time.
“I found that having outside camera whilst I was coaching and knowing that I was also being evaluated throughout the flight put me under a little more pressure than usual. I was consciously aware of trying not to imprint my stress on the student as this would make any problems with the student snowball out of control.”
Module four
The fourth module consisted on more hands on coaching with the evaluator playing the student making fast speed changes or a student going unconscious during the flight. This Module was also used as a testing phase where mock AD#B tests were carried out with streamers. The tests give a student an understanding of how far away they are from being able to go for the F.S.M.S instructors’ licence.
“I really enjoyed the mock test and found the experience to be very helpful in understanding my own skill level and giving me an achievable goal to work towards.”
Summary
The F.S.M.S teachers course is a well thought out modular course designed to educate, evaluate and test an aspiring freefly coach. It establishes achievable goals and introduces efficient coaching methods and philosophy, which make the whole coaching process more productive for both the coach and student. The course inspires confidence in a coaches teaching abilities and gives them the necessary skill set to coach a wide variety of students.
Andrew Newell
AD#A 382
F.S.M.S Teachers licence
Director Euphoria Flight School
