I was a little nervous to start with as I wasn't sure I'd remember all of the things we'd gone over the last time, never mind cope with a load of new instructions. And as before, Tarn was brilliant, putting me at ease and reminding me endlessly to 'breathe' and 'relax', lol.
It was a bit different this time, as I'd actually done freefall and was more confident in my ability to turn and to hold an arch. Though now I'm relearning my arch because a hard arch is for dropping lower then a 'core pull' and rounded shoulders is for rising (equivalent to increasing and decreasing my fall rate in free fall) so I need a more relaxed arch for neutral.
And after the first rather tentative cycle of 2.5 minutes, it was much easier in the following cycles to just focus on Tarn and follow her instructions. So I learned to go up, hover, drop down a bit, hover and then we worked up to moving forwards and backwards, with me docking on Tarn at one side of the tunnel, then dragging her back to get the feel for the body position. I say 'docking' in the loosest possible sense - a panicked grab might be more accurate for the first couple, lol. Though after a couple of practice goes, I figured out how to stop myself from crashing into her and was able to take hold of her presented forearm more gently. Mainly by watching her like a hawk and doing as I was told :-D
I'm fairly confident at going backwards - trainers bumping into the tunnel wall aren't really that scary and I can't see the wall coming. Going forwards was definitely more tentative - face-planting a tunnel wall or Tarn are not particularly appealing options, lol.
Stepping into the tunnel and dropping into a stable hover turned out to be a little easier than I was expecting. Definitely a LOT more graceful than the scrabbling crouched launches I'd been attempting on my first session, most of which ended up with my upper body flying and my legs still sticking out of the door until the tunnel rat dragged me bodily fully into the wind.....
So far so good, then Tarn announced I was going in by myself and should watch her for instructions through the window. Say what?? By myself?? She obviously trusts me more than I trust me! But in the event it was fine. A couple of wobbles but mostly I was able to do the little circuits she set me - start close to the window and get stable, rise up, hover stable, go backwards to the other side, hover stable, drop down, hover stable, forward to the starting position. The only times it went a bit wrong were when I lost focus for a moment and stopped looking at her. And now I've also learned to fly myself to the door so I can get out :-)
OK, this seems to be going quite well. Lots to practice on my consols. Oh wait, Tarn's not finished with me yet. Side sliding is next. We haven't talked this through outside, so I'm on my tummy on the floor of the sealed corridor of the wind tunnel with Tarn explaining the leg movements and guiding me into position. This could be challenging.....
The phrase 'trying to run before I can walk' comes to mind with this exercise, lol. I can slide to the left quite well, but my right leg seems to be somewhat reluctant to play ball, ha ha. This is the same leg that wants to curl instead of being symmetrically straight with my left leg and has a tendency to make me spin when I forget about it. But I did manage to move both left and right eventually, so more stuff to practice. I'm going to have to be VERY careful of my altitude because these 2.5 minute slots race by and they're 3 times longer than I'll actually get in free fall !
Overall, it was fantastic session - I learned loads and can't wait to get back up in the air to start trying them out in some space. I only had one really mad out-of-control moment where I flipped onto my back and before I could attempt to control it with a hard arch, I was being smothered by a tunnel rat, lol. Though I did get back over and got to the door - I can't play the video on my laptop for some reason so I'll have to wait to see what I actually did that caused it. I suspect an overly aggressive pull of the arm when attempting not to bump into the wall of the tunnel. But that might be quite fun to try when I have some space.......
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