posted Mar 9th, 2012 - The preview of the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2012 continues with an update from the French delegation on Friday morning.

Marin Ferré, French national 4way coach, was available for a conversation with the NSL News. He was waiting for the Aerodyne Cypres Deep Blue Defenders to land from the last training jump of a back-to-back series while he answered a few questions. He had to go back to work with the team when the Defenders had picked up their parachutes and walked back to the team's headquarters.

The coaches have more time these days to prepare and evaluate the daily work while the teams are in the air. Most top teams execute series of back-to-back loads, up to six and sometimes even more, before a break for resting, debriefing and preparing a new series. Even the debriefing is sometimes delayed until the very end of the day. Repetitions of previous jumps follow in the next back-to-back series or next day.

The NSL Reality TV camera followed the French team to the creeper pad after the NSL Talk with Marin Ferré, which ended when his team walked by from the last jump. The conversation with the French 4way world champion of 1999 and 2003 continued while his team was preparing the next jumps on the creepers.

Marin Ferré had mentioned earlier that he defines the slots in a different way compared to most other teams and coaches. The positions simply have numbers from 1 to 4 rather than names. The Point is Number 1. Front piece partner is Number 2 in the Center Outside position. Center Inside is Number 3 and Tail Number 4. Most teams use abbreviations for the positions when they explain the slots:

Point = P = 1, Center Outside = CO = 2, Center Inside = CI = 3, Tail = T = 4. Other teams also define the center slots with Outside Center (OC) and Inside Center (IC).

Another former XL member currently visits DeLand with a large group of skydivers and students from the United Kingdom. Chris Lynch was one of the original Sebastian XL members in the mid 90s. He and Steve Hamilton told the NSL News that other XL members will join very soon.

XL videographer Rob Stevenson still works in Sebastian and will visit to meet his former team mates at the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2012. John McIver is also one of the original XL members. He will compete with Satori in DeLand, and this XL reunion will have to take place on the ground.

The most recent XL reunion happened at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2012 where the XL lineup also posted scores. XL may have to change the definition of the "reunions" to something else, as the team name appears frequently on the leaderboards. The next XL scores will be posted soon at the World Challenge 2012. However, the NSL News will also follow the XL activities on the ground in DeLand carefully.