Choosing your first freefly path

Freefly splits into four disciplines: head-up, head-down, angles and dynamic. If you try all four at once, each one gets too few jumps to settle and progress stalls. Build the shared foundation first, then pick one direction and give it enough jumps in a row to stick.

Foundations first

Every path starts with Freefly 100. It trains back-fly and the vertical recovery position until you do them without thinking. It also covers the freefly gear check, corking and the speed difference it creates, exit order and separation, breakoff, jumping on your own, and moving from the tunnel to the sky.

Every track is built on top of it. The faster flying later on assumes that if you become unstable, you can already recover to a back-fly position.

The order that follows

From Freefly 100, each track runs in a clear line.

• Head-up: a stable sit, then moving and transitioning head-up, then head-up in a 2-way, then the crest-standard assessment, then groups and big-ways.
• Head-down: starts once you can move head-up. Then finding and holding vertical, control and transitions, a 2-way, the crest-standard assessment, then groups and big-ways.
• Angles: tracking and navigation, then flying a slot, then the endorsement assessment, then planning and leading angle jumps.

Every track uses the same four tiers: Stability (100), Relative (200), Group (300) and Mastery (400). The crest and endorsement assessments sit at the top of the Relative tier. Mastery covers big-ways and advanced work, and those courses carry no approval at the end. You do them to keep learning after the crest.

Why head-up before head-down

Learn head-up first, because of the recovery position. If you can get into a wide back-to-earth recovery without thinking, then whenever you become unstable you recover to back-fly, in the recovery position, and end stable. Head-up is where that recovery is easiest to reach and rehearse. Head-down is the fast end of freefly, so it comes once you have the reflex and the range.

The major national bodies teach head-up before head-down too.

In Australia, the APF Operational Regulations require the early head-up stage to be complete before head-down training jumps.

Starting angles

If angles is your first direction, start small. Fly beginner angles in groups of three at most, counting the coach. With three, the coach can keep everyone close and in view for the whole jump. Join a bigger group once your coach approves it.

Belly and back count separately. If you are cleared for bigger groups on your belly, learn the basics of back-flying angles in groups of three or fewer first.

On the way through, a movement jumper learns five things:

• How jump runs work and how a load is put together.
• How to navigate in the air.
• How to approach the formation.
• How to control heading, pitch and speed.
• How to break off safely.

Commit to one direction

You progress fastest in one discipline at a time. Choose the vertical path or the angles path as your first direction. Both reach the same place, and the shared skills carry across when you do change. As a guide, fly at least eight jumps in a row of the same type before you change discipline, so the skill has time to settle.

Three habits help on any path:

• Practise what you can’t do yet.
• Give body mechanics and aerodynamics equal attention.
• Pick one coach and stay with them, so each explanation builds on the last.

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Advisory, educational content. Progression pathways and the rules around approval points vary by federation. Train with a qualified freefly coach, and follow your federation’s and drop zone’s rules.