Giving up

hey everyone my name is Anthony and I currently live in New Jersey, anyways I am really new to skydiving and decided to enroll in the aff ground course like 3 weeks ago and did my in depth tandem jump a week after due to rain and flooding and work schedule and tried to do my first aff level 1 jump until two days ago when I got there I thought I was ready but I guess I could not remember some of things I learned so my instructor told me I cant jump and I am not ready. Has that ever happened to anyone and did it discourage you from trying to learn and jump again?

I made a few mistakes during my first go at aff. at the time i was juggling work, dumping a lot of money into woodworking, and attempting to learn skydiving. at the time i decided that i wasn’t ready for it as I had a lot going on and i understood what i was doing as far as risk to myself and the instructors (they didn’t say anything negative about it) a year or two later I went back and breezed right through it. 
 

I guess in a way some of it had to do with my mentality at the time of me thinking negatively about my performance in the situation which in fact had an effect on my performance. I was one of those people that thought I was going to learn quickly and seeing that I wasn’t on video kinda crushed me a bit. it was always in the back of my mind, processing what I was doing wrong, why I did it wrong, the emotions I was feeling at the time, ect. for me, fear was holding me back. not so much of dying, but fear of doing things wrong and being too hard on myself because of it. I let the previous mistakes dwell in my mind and it hindered my performance on the next jump as well. that was when i decided to stop. I knew myself enough that I wasn’t as mentally prepared as i thought i was. 

a year or two later my woodworking slowed to a stop but my thoughts about skydiving never did. so I decided that for me to do this right I had to commit completely to it and remembering how things went before, get over it and move on. I also put all my free time towards reading forums, blogs, videos, books, ect. one thing I would suggest that helped for sure was the wind tunnel. learning how to fly well enough in there eased some of the mental burden during the jumps. most people only need 15ish minutes to excel well but the few times i went, they had a discounted price on a 10 minute deal. by the time i got my license i probably had about two hours in the tunnel. 
 

skydiving is more mental than physical. the movement is easy, it’s getting your brain to work the way you need it to in the moment that’s difficult at first. it’s sensory overload mixed with the uncertainty of your performance in the next few minutes that overwhelm you. add the small possibility of death or paralysis and your mind is moving faster than you can process. regulating your breathing a few minutes before and during the jump can help slow your mind back down to regain control and focus only on the jump plan. and shut out the unnecessary thought that only hinder you once you go out the door. Brian Germain has quite a few videos on youtube to where he talks about it and methods he uses to work through it. 

overall if you or your instructor says your not ready for it yet, it’s because you’re mind isn’t as prepared for it as you thought. skydiving is a very unnatural thing to do. you’re not supposed to be able to fall for a minute or more and live but because of science and technology, we can now with a pile of string and nylon fashioned into a backpack. hopefully I gave you a enough material to look into to help you out. Talk with your instructors more and see if what steps they would want to see when you go back. The sky will always be there when you’re ready 

The key is not to get discouraged too easily. If the instructors told you you cannot jump right now they might  not necessarily consider you a lost cause, but merely someone who needs some extra training. There is no shame in that. 

Every jumper will hit a bottleneck sooner or later in their jumping career. This can be anything from the exercise they cannot master, to getting back into the air after taking some time off due to personal reasons, after witnessing their first incident up close, all of the above, or something else entirely. 

after re-reading the original post I found that i misunderstood the situation. I read it as something went wrong on the jump whereas now I read it as you were ready to jump but your instructors weren’t confident that you could do it safely. (I was just getting to sleep when I first read the post) 

simple answer is more training is needed. it may cost you a little more but in the long run, the amount is small when you start considering gear cost, maintenance, jump tickets, ect. best bet is to talk to the instructors and find out what they want to see to move forward 

what dz was this?

It's tough when there is a delay between your class and your first jump, as there is a lot to remember.  However the first jump course provides you with information you may need to save your life.  What was it that you "didn't remember"? (Don't answer that, just think about it.)  If it was emergency procedures, for example, not remembering could get you killed if you are unlucky and have a malfunction on your first jump.  Your radio may malfunction, and you'll have to remember the landing pattern on your own.  Did you review the material before going to the drop zone?  Did you (perhaps unintentionally) convey the impression that you didn't take things all that seriously to your instructor?  In any non-tandem jump, you are completely responsible for getting to the ground and back to the hanger safely.  Your instructors cannot deal with a malfunction, or steer you back to the landing area, or ensure you flare on time etc.  If they are not confident that you could do those things unassisted, they are doing their job to have you wait until you have mastered the first jump course material.

If you really want to give skydiving a try, you won't let a minor setback like this discourage you.  Assume your instructor has your best interests at heart, and they did not feel you were ready to jump.  Review all the material, and go back with the goal of proving you are ready for the next step.

On 7/16/2021 at 11:54 AM, GeorgiaDon said:

...If you really want to give skydiving a try, you won't let a minor setback like this discourage you.  Assume your instructor has your best interests at heart, and they did not feel you were ready to jump.  Review all the material, and go back with the goal of proving you are ready for the next step.

This.  Hang in there and keep trying.  There are plenty of people on here that have had a much harder time of it and gone on to be accomplished skydivers.