Having failed miserably to get a 4-way team together and actually jump or train in the tunnel, I was curious to find out more when Brian Cumming created a group dedicated to a different type of tunnel flying. Instead of taking grips and turning points, the idea would be to keep moving, to make dynamic patterns in various sequences and then start linking the sequences together.
I did a lot of tunnel time when training for the World Challenge as the costs came down drastically when split between 4 people, so splitting the costs even further made this seem like a great way of improving my flying skills whilst the weather was still hampering my jumping so badly.
I have never laughed so much during tunnel training, even during scrambles!! It was amazing, so much fun and again, so much more relaxed than 4-way and trying to turn points. We did moves with names like Washing Machine and Weave, and we renamed one move to Goldfish Bowl as we took it in turns flying round the tunnel walls, like goldfish circling :-D It's a lot trickier than 4-way in that we have to fly over and under each other a lot (instead of keeping pretty much on the same level) and sets of people are moving all the time unless we are at the Home position. I had one spectacular crash trying to side slide over 2 people at once (hit the tunnel wall headfirst :-( ) but apart from that, it wasn't too daunting. We all improved a lot over the 30 minutes (15 x 2 minute sessions) and were able to link several moves together by the end.
The second session a month later was with different people but it was just as much fun. Another 30 minutes in the tunnel and I was feeling much more confident with my ability to side slide, scoot forward and back under and over someone's burble and to carve my way around the outside of the tunnel. Brian doesn't have enough time in his calendar for more sessions at the moment but as soon as he does, I'll be back :-)
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