posted Sep 6th, 2007 - New videos on NSL-TV introduce the five teams of the Colorado Skydiving League that competed at the August 11 meet. COSL Director Travis M. Roth commented the competition and provided more details of the teams.

Three of the five teams (Invictus, Mojo and Vertigo) represent the Air Force Academy with new cadets in new line-ups. Revolution and Mayhem are civilian teams. Mile Hi Mayhem is the current leader of the national Rookie Class Rankings and was introduced with a team profile on June 19. Mayhem will travel to Florida and compete at the NSL Championship 2007 on October 25 - 27 in DeLand. Rookie Class teams from Florida and Carolina have already announced their contention for the new NSL Rookie Class trophy, as well. Mile Hi Mayhem still seems to be the top contender at this point in time. Here is Travis M. Roth's meet story:

Colorado August meet

By Travis M. Roth

The 3rd meet of the season was a great success. All five teams completed six rounds mid-afternoon without any weather or operational holds.

Mayhem proves the power of coaching and dedication as a team. For perspective, 2006’s national leader in the Rookie Class, CK1 Snatch Force, scored an 8.3 average at the best of three meets. Mayhem’s 9.8 average at the 3rd meet this season puts the team over a point ahead of the national leader in 2006, and quite possibly will give them the highest average for any Rookie Class team nationally in 2007? Knock on wood, the season is not over!

The two new Air Force teams for 2007, Air Force Mojo and Air Force Vertigo also competed in the Rookie Cass, and both teams showed great potential with very few team jumps together. Expect them to have very high scores in the AA Class in 2008 if these teams continue to compete.

The AA Class had two teams competing. Air Force Invictus and Revolution. Invictus is the Air Force sponsored “Wings of Blue” team. Revolution is a group of college students, self-financed with no sponsorships.

Revolution did not improve the team's average at the 3rd meet, which is not surprising considering that their school commitments over the summer did not allow any training as each player traveled overseas. Now that the team is back together and able to train, their scores should improve.

Air Force Invictus increased the meet average from 8.3 in May to 10.7 in August. If they continue with the 10.7 point average, their season average will put them in the Top Ten of the AA Class Rankings. Round 3's sequence featured all random formations, Q, E, O, F. This round was the deal breaker for Revolution as they scored very poorly due to sloppy and rushed formation building, whereas Invictus harnessed the power of the all-random draw to post a 20-pointer. To show the power of random sequences: if Round 3’s scores were to be omitted from the competition, Invictus’s 10.7 point average would have been an 8.8, and Revolution’s 6.8 average would have been a 6.2. Round 3 opened the gap between the two teams from a 2-point difference to a 5-point difference.

If Revolution wants to improve, they must harness their randoms, as their blocks are surprisingly quick considering they don’t have full time coaching. Their learning curriculum consists of dedicated research and watching video of world champions, then self-evaluating their performance. They have the discipline to learn from others, to keep their blocks tight, to cross reference, they just now need the precision to clean up their randoms.

If Invictus wants to score a 10+ average in future competitions, as their Air Force predecessors have, they will have to be either very lucky and get a fast random round like they did this meet or improve the block techniques, as their block work still is sub 10. But, if they are lucky enough to get a random round, and they can harness an 11-point block average, they just might score 15+ with the combination of luck and talent, making them a national leader.