posted Dec 20th, 2014 - The current 4-way dive pool has remained untouched by the officials for years by now, with only a few minor changes, which speaks for the integrity of the system in general. The combination of 22 blocks and 16 random formations is obviously interesting and challenging enough for all 4-way teams.

However, John Petersen of the Danish national 4-way team VAF Warriors has detected a potential flaw in the dive pool, and his reasoning seems to make a lot of sense from his perspective. He is not out to invent and introduce any new moves, as the current dive pool offers more than enough variations and combinations.

John Petersen sees an imbalance between the three types of blocks in the current dive pool. There are 16 blocks which bring each team member back to the same slots after the inter, with options in two of those blocks (4 and 19). The other six blocks (3, 5, 10, 12, 16, 17) are the so-called "slot switchers", which create memory for the pieces.

The "slot switchers" create two different types of those six blocks. The current dive pool brings memory and slot switchers to both pieces when two blocks (5, 17) are drawn, unless a team decides to mirror image every other page, which has become very unpopular.

Four blocks (3, 10, 12, 16) bring slot switchers only for one of the pieces, the front piece for most of the teams, depending on the engineering system of each team.

That's where John Petersen thinks that there is an imbalance, as the front pieces have more memory work compared to the rear pieces. In fact, there was a time in 4-way history when mirror-image engineering was very popular, which brought memory only to the front pieces and never to the rear pieces.

The current engineering by most of the teams in the 4-way world has dropped the mirror-image option almost completely. The rear pieces prefer the slot switchers over the challenging muscle memory hurdles that mirror-image engineering creates.

John Petersen believes that the six slot switching blocks should be more evenly balanced, and he has proposed to change Block 10 (Diamond - Bunyip) accordingly. His new Block 10 (Diamond - Diamond) would bring slot switchers and memory to both pieces and change the balance to 3 - 3 instead of 4 - 2.

The change would still not perfectly balance the dive pool, as three of the blocks (5, 10, 17) would now bring slot switchers to both pieces, while the other three blocks (3, 12, 16) are still only challenging the front pieces mentally. However, it is a logical proposal, and John Petersen found the support of Trude Sviggum, Chair of IPC's Formation Skydiving Committee, and of several other competitors at the last open meeting after the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014. The proposal will be voted upon at the upcoming IPC meeting in January.