posted Feb 10th, 2008 - The NSL News story on 7 January 2008 introduced Mike Ashley as the new Mideast Skydiving League Director. The story on 30 January 2008 followed up with an invitation to the MESL Meet-n-Greet event at Start Skydiving on April 12.

Mike Ashley has moved further forward in the meantime and added valuable 4-way information in the last newsletter. Fastrax member and world-class 4-way competitor John Hart provided Mike Ashley and the 4-way community with an article, which is the first part of a series of 4-way tips.

Team Fastrax and John Hart will be at the MESL Meet-n-Greet event, hosted by Start Skydiving in Ohio, the Fastrax headquarters, to help all participants with their great collection of 4-way experiences and general information about the sport. The first part of the series of articles by John Hart is an introduction of the valuable information the participants can expect to get at the April event.

John Hart himself went through all levels of 4-way performance in a very short time period. He began from scratch and his first freefall in 2000, competed for the first time at the USPA Nationals 2003 in the AAA Advanced Class (13.2) and finished the 2007 season on a 24.4 average level at the USPA Nationals 2007, which was only topped by Airspeed Odyssey. Now he will compete with the US 8-way team Knight Trax for gold medals at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving this August in France.

John Hart's pursuit of excellence in this short time period provided him with a great collection of experiences, including how to form and maintain lineups. Much of this information is still fresh in his memories, and he began to write down what could be relevant for other interested skydivers and potential future 4-way competitors. MESL Director Mike Ashley forwarded the first part to the 4-way community with the newsletter.

1) Four Way Tips - Team Building

By John Hart, Team Fastrax

Probably the hardest single step of getting into 4-way is building a team. Often, the next hardest step is keeping that team together for the first month or two. A team is usually most cohesive and successful when the members are similar in the following ways:

1. The amount they want to train 2. Their level of ambition in the sport 3. Their current skill level

These factors are sorted by importance. Flying skills can be upgraded with a little training, but a person who wants to make 50 jumps a year will not commit and follow through on a 300-jump schedule, and a jumper wanting to train 6 days per month will soon be frustrated with a 2-day-per-month schedule.

Personality compatibility will often prove to be one of the greatest challenges of the sport. Learning to work with people different from oneself, under adverse conditions, is sometimes the test of a successful 4-way jumper.

2) Four Way Tips - Slots

As in many other sports, each member of the team plays a particular position. Each position, or slot, has particular responsibilities and uses certain abilities and strengths. This section includes a brief description of the slots and their nature of their jobs. Note: all examples in this document assume the team exits a left-door plane such as an Otter.

Inside Center

Inside Center:

The inside center is the "quarterback" of the team. He or she tends to move less than the other slots and spend most of the time facing in. Accordingly, this slot is responsible for most of the keys. An inside center must be mentally acute, maintaining awareness of the entire team at all times and remaining calm and focused. This slot need not be the most agile of the players, but must provide a reliable, solid center for the other players. The inside center is usually inside the plane, in the center or toward the back of the door.

Outside Center

The outside center shares some of the responsibilities of the inside center. This slot must help provide the reliable, solid center for the point and tail, and shares many of the keys. However, the outside center is a much more mobile slot than the inside center. It involves a great deal of turning and outfacing work in addition to forming the center of most single-person center formations. An outside center must be mentally acute, agile, and solid. The outside center usually exits from outside, near the center or toward the front of the door.

Point

This player must be both agile and precise. A point spends much of the time facing out and may have dives where he or she takes no grips. In triad blocks (blocks 2, 3, 4) where a single jumper orbits a three-person piece, the point is usually the solo flyer. Speed is this player's primary need, with precision while outfacing a strong second. The point usually exits from inside, toward the front of the door. Because he or she spends so much time facing out, the point has few keys.

Tail

The tail is the "go-getter". The tail takes many grips, frequently switching grips between the inside center and the outside center, and often finds him- or herself making large moves to compensate for small inaccuracies at the front of the formation. Due to these large moves, the tail is often the last one on grips and must be a very aggressive flyer to avoid being last. The tail usually exits from outside, at the back of the door. The tail has almost no keys.

Remember on Saturday, April 12, we will be hosting a Meet-n-Greet event at Start Skydiving. Skydivers of all experience levels, who are interested in doing 4-way at any level, from extremely casual, to hardcore training, and everything in between are invited to attend.