Reading your student

This page outlines study material for a developing coach. It is informed by the Australian Parachute Federation’s coaching material, and by research into best practice from parallel disciplines such as gymnastics and aviation.

Two students with the same jump numbers and the same tunnel hours can need opposite briefs. One needs the drill broken into three pieces. The other needs to be left to fly it.

Two questions sort them: how far into this skill are they, and how loaded are they today? The answers tell you what to change on the next jump.

Question one: how far into this skill are they?

Skill learning moves through stages. The stage belongs to the skill, so the same person can be at different stages in different skills.

• Early. The student is still working out what the movement is. It takes all their attention, so they cannot watch anyone else, hold a heading and think about their legs at the same time.
• Middle. The shape is there and they are refining it. They can take a correction and apply it on the same jump.
• Automatic. The movement runs without conscious attention, which leaves them spare capacity for something else.

A flyer can be automatic head-up and early head-down on the same jump, ten seconds apart. Ask the stage question about the skill you are about to coach.

The stages also set a firm guide for group flying. Flying close to others, leading, or doing a second task at the same time all need spare attention, and only the automatic stage has it. Keep a skill that is not yet automatic away from other people, because that is the skill that breaks down under pressure.

Question two: how loaded are they today?

Whatever their stage, the same student varies from day to day. Three things load them:

• Anxiety, about the jump itself or about being watched.
• Low confidence in this particular task. It is different from general confidence.
• Too many objectives, and those are in the coach’s hands.

Any one of these calls for the same response: lower the demand and add structure for the day.

What you can see

A novice’s stress usually shows in their body before it shows in what they say. Watch for fidgeting, changes in breathing, and yawning or stretching that doesn’t match how tired they are. Watch for someone going quiet when they were talkative, or talkative when they were quiet.

None of these proves anything on its own. When you see one, ask a question.

Asking is more accurate than reading the signs. When researchers interviewed gymnasts and their coaches about the same frightening episode, the two gave materially different accounts of it. A coach’s outside read of a student’s state is unreliable, so ask.

Sensory overload

Past a certain level of stress, a novice reaches sensory overload. They stop taking in information, and anything you add makes it worse. Put less in a nervous student’s brief, and less in the plan for their jump.

Where the pressure comes from

For many students the pressure on a coached jump is social: flying on camera, in a group, with a debrief to come. That is closer to dancing in front of an audience than to standing on a cliff edge, and the two call for different help.

The mechanism is well described. When a movement that is not yet automatic is performed while someone watches and judges it, the flyer starts monitoring it consciously. Conscious monitoring breaks a movement that should run by itself. A student who flies a skill cleanly with just the coach and loses it in the group is showing that effect.

These help, and they cost nothing:

• Tell them the adrenaline is fuel. Treating the spike in the door as useful changes how the student reads it, and that is easier than making it go away.
• Give them a fixed routine on the ground before boarding. It occupies the part of the mind that would otherwise be rehearsing failure.
• Set goals around the process. “Get the level first” is something they can take into the air. “Don’t stuff up the dock” takes only the worry.
• Let them speak first in the debrief. It reduces the feeling of being judged from outside.
• Consider debriefing the weakest performance privately. A group review saves time, and it puts the most scrutiny on whoever flew worst.

General reassurance has little measurable effect. Confidence in a task comes from past success at that task, so give the student a version of the task they can succeed at.

Judging readiness

A student is ready for something harder when the step sits just above what they can currently handle. Difficulty comes from the whole situation: the jump plus the conditions, the group, the partner, their currency and how they are today.

The same jump on paper is a harder task on a windy day with an unfamiliar partner. The jump-count guides in a syllabus stand in for a judgement you make directly.

Between pressing on and standing down there is a third option: keep the skill and lower the difficulty. Use a smaller group, more altitude, a familiar partner, one objective or a slower fall rate. The student still gets the practice, at a difficulty they can take in.

Four patterns you will meet

Recognise these on the day and use them to decide what to change. They describe behaviour on a given day, and the same person can move between them.

The one who picks things up quickly. Often has a background in a body-awareness sport and can recall the jump accurately. Give them less instruction and more range. The risk is progress that runs ahead of their recovery skills.

The one who wants to know how it works. Needs the mechanism, and does better with one focus point at a time. Watch for them getting stuck in their own head, which is the conscious-monitoring problem again. An analogy usually helps more than another explanation.

The apprehensive one. Does better in small groups or one to one, is more likely to bail on a jump, and will take more time and money to progress, because pressure is hard for them to manage. Use that in your planning.

The one who overestimates themselves. Takes on jumps beyond their ability, talks up how they flew, plays down their weaknesses, and is hard to give feedback to. This pattern carries safety consequences, so handle it firmly. Your observation outranks their self-report. Hold the standard, use the video, and be willing to cap what they do next. Self-assessment is least accurate where skill is lowest.

Before each jump

Ask yourself three questions:

• Which stage is this skill at for them?
• How loaded are they right now?
• How hard is what I’m about to send them to do, in today’s conditions and with today’s group?

Between them, the answers tell you what to change.

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Advisory, educational content. Techniques and standards are guides, and the authority to train and assess belongs to your national federation and your drop zone. Some material on this page is drawn from contributed coach-development notes.