Does Practice Make Perfect....or even a little better?

[Shug Emery]

I have been staying up late and watching Windy U videos and got inspired by the ones where he is practicing for Team Trials. Thought I would adapt his technique and give it a go.  It is both wonderful and discouraging. But I know it will serve me well in time. Mine is a life of practice. Juggling, mandolin and now control line stunt. Oh yeah, and practicing being a decent human being too 
Always good to inspired)))))
All secure in sector seven,
Shug

[Les McDonald]

Shug, I'm lovin your attitude so please keep at it!

[Chris_Rud]

Hi Shug!

Everything is looking great! I can see a lot of improvement from last year. I think you are ready for a bigger ship! When is that Strega going to be ready?

I have never tried the tape method like Windy but I do the plastic and dry eraser method. Works the same and tells me a little more on tracking in the rounds. Same concept just a little different approaches. It always humbles me   I love the chart idea... going to start doing that rather than my blank paper.

Keep it up!
Chris Rud

[Dan Berry]

Practice makes permanent. Not perfect.

[Paul Taylor]

The best patterns are always at the bottom of a jug of fuel. 

[RknRusty]

Ho boy, not only a good study aid that I hadn't thought of, but good entertainment too. I laughed out loud at your closing state.. state.. statement. KNOW WHEN I SHOULD QUIT! You witnessed me get in trouble for not doing that on my first Oriental pattern movie. And my good buddy gave me a sorely deserved public flogging about it. Bye the way, that was probably the best pattern I have ever flown. Glad I can watch it on video. Your pattern was looking pretty... crisp, considering the buffeting wind.

Tape on the video screen, I've been using my fingers, now I'll try tape, or maybe string taped to the edges. Thanks for thinking of me and dropping my name. If my first pattern with my new ship is any indication, and I put my head into it, I'll be doing much better when the Carolina Classic comes up in a few weeks. We're riding up to Watt's to fly this Sunday. Among other things I have to flatten out my bumpy bottoms, especially in that treacherous outside square. I have to trust my plane and get over that fear. I tighten up going into that one. My OH8s always suck, but the ones I did on Tuesday actually were a lot better than ever before.

I'll keep at it, you keep at it, and we'll have a fun time with it in October.
Take care,
Rusty

[Tim Wescott]

Don't be afraid to dedicate a whole flight to just one or two maneuvers.  It's like practicing that one difficult measure over and over on your ax -- you need to practice the thing in isolation from the rest of the piece.

I'd highly recommend that you do a whole flight of horizontal eights, or of round eights alternating with square eights.  Doing a stunt, seeing what you did wrong, and then immediately doing it again right, over and over, will really nail things down in your head.

Just remember to count how many maneuvers you've done, so you don't run out of fuel and bonk the airplane.

[RknRusty]

Yes, I do need to do that. Wayne can check his watch for engine run time while he flies, and I've been practicing flying laps without looking at the plane, developing a better sense of the plane in my hand and arm muscles. I'm not very good at it yet but I can do it better each time I try. The Combat guys do it for the whole match.

And I need to get a watch. I bought a $10 dollar one once and the buttons always double clicked. I took it apart and tried to make the contacts better and it only helped for a day. It's a shop ornament now.

But I got a real plane and I'm happy and ready now. Lets Fly. Or as we say it around here...
Les Fly

[James Mills]

On of my college football coach's favorite things to say was "practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect", made for some long days on the practice field .

James

[Shug Emery]

Ah yes, it's been another long winter in Minnesota. 

Yessir...those long Winters are good for sharpening some skills. But not flying skills.

Shug, I'm lovin your attitude so please keep at it!

Well I thank ya' Les. Means a lot coming from a Stunt luminary such as you.
I have enjoyed seeing those photos of you from the 70s in the white pants. Wish those days would return...dress up the sport a bit. A secret pair resides in my Nut-Hut that I am going to wear sometime in a contest.
Thanks for Classing it up.
Shug

Hi Shug!

Everything is looking great! I can see a lot of improvement from last year. I think you are ready for a bigger ship! When is that Strega going to be ready?

I have never tried the tape method like Windy but I do the plastic and dry eraser method. Works the same and tells me a little more on tracking in the rounds. Same concept just a little different approaches. It always humbles me   I love the chart idea... going to start doing that rather than my blank paper.

Keep it up!
Chris Rud

I hope there is some improvement....been fun striving for it.
Yes, I need to get the Strega together. It is up next on the work slab. Do you fing bigger planes groove better?
When I happened upon the Windy tapes of him doing that....Windy U 784 Novanta Repair and higher. Lots of his flights and notes and tape on the TV screen in there. Breaking down the moves. Target practice. It spoke to me.
Look forward to seeing your new family built plane sometime.
I like the dry erase on the screen too. Good for defining shapes. I will try that for sure.

Practice makes permanent. Not perfect.

I will log that.

The best patterns are always at the bottom of a jug of fuel. 

Burn it up as I have heard it said. Burn fuel...get better.

Ho boy, not only a good study aid that I hadn't thought of, but good entertainment too. I laughed out loud at your closing state.. state.. statement. KNOW WHEN I SHOULD QUIT! You witnessed me get in trouble for not doing that on my first Oriental pattern movie. And my good buddy gave me a sorely deserved public flogging about it. Bye the way, that was probably the best pattern I have ever flown. Glad I can watch it on video. Your pattern was looking pretty... crisp, considering the buffeting wind.

Tape on the video screen, I've been using my fingers, now I'll try tape, or maybe string taped to the edges. Thanks for thinking of me and dropping my name. If my first pattern with my new ship is any indication, and I put my head into it, I'll be doing much better when the Carolina Classic comes up in a few weeks. We're riding up to Watt's to fly this Sunday. Among other things I have to flatten out my bumpy bottoms, especially in that treacherous outside square. I have to trust my plane and get over that fear. I tighten up going into that one. My OH8s always suck, but the ones I did on Tuesday actually were a lot better than ever before.

I'll keep at it, you keep at it, and we'll have a fun time with it in October.
Take care,
Rusty

I have always watched back the videos and held a yogurt lid as a cirle. The tape on screen really show the  (bad) intersections and did help me see the 45% angle.
When I watched your flight those bottoms jumped out. Trying tosee what judges see and like everything, it is usually errors. Thinking like a judge may help our flying.
That Oriental is going to get you moving on up. I can tell.
Best to you in May. Man, I wish I could go and to Joe Nall too. But work and gigs call.

Don't be afraid to dedicate a whole flight to just one or two maneuvers.  It's like practicing that one difficult measure over and over on your ax -- you need to practice the thing in isolation from the rest of the piece.

I'd highly recommend that you do a whole flight of horizontal eights, or of round eights alternating with square eights.  Doing a stunt, seeing what you did wrong, and then immediately doing it again right, over and over, will really nail things down in your head.

Just remember to count how many maneuvers you've done, so you don't run out of fuel and bonk the airplane.

Been doing that...picking the end of the pattern and working it. Plus squares.
It is good to do.

On of my college football coach's favorite things to say was "practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect", made for some long days on the practice field .

James

I like your coach! I like when coaches say "Back to the Basics" and "In the 4th quarter, the legs are the first to go"

[Chris_Rud]

I hope there is some improvement....been fun striving for it.
Yes, I need to get the Strega together. It is up next on the work slab. Do you fing bigger planes groove better?
When I happened upon the Windy tapes of him doing that....Windy U 784 Novanta Repair and higher. Lots of his flights and notes and tape on the TV screen in there. Breaking down the moves. Target practice. It spoke to me.
Look forward to seeing your new family built plane sometime.
I like the dry erase on the screen too. Good for defining shapes. I will try that for sure.
I will log that.

Shug,

I wouldn't say that bigger necessarily means better... but at the same time bigger does make it better . And this is all just my opinion but they stay on the lines better, more reliable power systems and overall appear to fill the pattern better. I just looked at this years NATS technology report and for Advanced, Expert and Open of the 33 IC entries 30 of them had engines larger than .60. Thats 90% of them. At a glance it looks like the the average wing area is ~670 sq in. Your Strega is about 740 sq in. There must be a good reason that most people fly this size ship. There is to big... As Rich Gacobone about his .90 stuka.

One negative of a large ship is your arm wants to fall off on a windy day. Thats the main reason I switch to a slightly smaller ship this year (700q in)... after 8 flights I literally couldn't fly anymore. They can pull like no other and if they are a little noise heavy can get really stick heavy. And when I was in High School at 125 pounds this made for a real problem. Another big point is full fuse vs a profile. A full fuse is going to be stiffer and have better/more consistent flying characteristics. I think you will be shocked at the difference when you go from a Prowler to the Strega. At first you are not going to think you can fly it.... keep at it and trim it right (look at Paul Walkers trim series in the last few stunt news issues) and you will be very happy in the end.

Good luck!
Chris

[john e. holliday]

Yes practice works if you have a good coach like any sports that knows what is going on.   They should also be able to tell you where your mistakes are and how to correct them.   I too like your enthusiasm.   Now I don't remember Windy ever winning the NATS, but he has won a lot of smaller contests.   I watched him at the NATS when I could and could never figure out why he was never a NATS Champion.   He placed in top five many times and won the concours award numerous times.   A really great guy when not in the heat of a contest.   

[Tim Wescott]

Yes practice works if you have a good coach like any sports that knows what is going on.

And if you find a good coach, listen to the guy and encourage him to keep it up!  Self-coaching as you're doing is a heck of a lot better than nothing, but you'll still have blind spots.  Having a second person watching your flying and critiquing means that the only blind spots remaining are where your inabilities overlap.

[Bill Little]

Hi Shug,

What you need now is a coach.  Someone who knows what the pattern should look like and will agree to coach you.  Then listen to him.   You are at the stage where self coaching will not create the results you want.

BIG Bear
RNMM/AMM

[Shug Emery]

Shug,

I wouldn't say that bigger necessarily means better... but at the same time bigger does make it better . And this is all just my opinion but they stay on the lines better, more reliable power systems and overall appear to fill the pattern better. I just looked at this years NATS technology report and for Advanced, Expert and Open of the 33 IC entries 30 of them had engines larger than .60. Thats 90% of them. At a glance it looks like the the average wing area is ~670 sq in. Your Strega is about 740 sq in. There must be a good reason that most people fly this size ship. There is to big... As Rich Gacobone about his .90 stuka.

One negative of a large ship is your arm wants to fall off on a windy day. Thats the main reason I switch to a slightly smaller ship this year (700q in)... after 8 flights I literally couldn't fly anymore. They can pull like no other and if they are a little noise heavy can get really stick heavy. And when I was in High School at 125 pounds this made for a real problem. Another big point is full fuse vs a profile. A full fuse is going to be stiffer and have better/more consistent flying characteristics. I think you will be shocked at the difference when you go from a Prowler to the Strega. At first you are not going to think you can fly it.... keep at it and trim it right (look at Paul Walkers trim series in the last few stunt news issues) and you will be very happy in the end.

Good luck!
Chris

Good intel on largeness! I saw that .90 Stuka on the videos. Crazy big. Saw you on the videos too flying in Muncie. You have been at it a while....explains a lot!
Look forward to meeting you sometime.
Thankas Chris.
Shug

[Shug Emery]

Yes practice works if you have a good coach like any sports that knows what is going on.   They should also be able to tell you where your mistakes are and how to correct them.   I too like your enthusiasm.   Now I don't remember Windy ever winning the NATS, but he has won a lot of smaller contests.   I watched him at the NATS when I could and could never figure out why he was never a NATS Champion.   He placed in top five many times and won the concours award numerous times.   A really great guy when not in the heat of a contest.   

We have not had the flying time as a group to get coaching. For now we all just want to fly with limited time at the field.
So....not sure why Windy retired or left. Maybe all the filming and all he did burned him out? He sure did pass on a ton of wonderful knowledge though.

And if you find a good coach, listen to the guy and encourage him to keep it up!  Self-coaching as you're doing is a heck of a lot better than nothing, but you'll still have blind spots.  Having a second person watching your flying and critiquing means that the only blind spots remaining are where your inabilities overlap.

For now self-coaching is all I can do. Sporadic weather and not always able to meet up with those that helped me lats year. So for now that it shall be.

Hi Shug,

What you need now is a coach.  Someone who knows what the pattern should look like and will agree to coach you.  Then listen to him.   You are at the stage where self coaching will not create the results you want.

BIG Bear
RNMM/AMM

Maybe in time that will happen again. I have a different job schedule than many in the club so me and the stooge are often there without others. That'll have to do for now.
I fly with Keith Sandberg often and he has helped me immeasurably.

[Steve Helmick]

I'd like to politely suggest that you experiment with wrapping or taping some soft foam over the microphone on your video camera to reduce or eliminate the wind noise. My hearing isn't good, and all background noise really causes me trouble in filtering out the chaff.

Otherwise, I've been fairly critical of videos of stunt flying...dark days, it's often hard to see the plane at all on the downwind side of the circle. But that seems to be getting better, maybe due to digital cams, or better quality cams or something. The best thing is setting it up on the tripod, like you are doing. Bravo for that! If I see that the camera operator is panning with the plane, I just turn it off, because it then means absolutely nothing.

I'm looking forward to see the P.Force flying as well as the Prowler does. Which bring me to suggest that an awful lot of improvement will be noticed from trimming. You might make a change and find it's bad, but you still learn from it. Just be sure that you can put it back where it was before you messed it up, so you can then change it a wee bit in the other direction.   Steve  

[john e. holliday]

Do as Steve says, but have a note book to write it down.   I'm lazy about doing that myself, but I don't plan on winning the NATS either.   

[Shug Emery]

I'd like to politely suggest that you experiment with wrapping or taping some soft foam over the microphone on your video camera to reduce or eliminate the wind noise. My hearing isn't good, and all background noise really causes me trouble in filtering out the chaff.

Otherwise, I've been fairly critical of videos of stunt flying...dark days, it's often hard to see the plane at all on the downwind side of the circle. But that seems to be getting better, maybe due to digital cams, or better quality cams or something. The best thing is setting it up on the tripod, like you are doing. Bravo for that! If I see that the camera operator is panning with the plane, I just turn it off, because it then means absolutely nothing.

I'm looking forward to see the P.Force flying as well as the Prowler does. Which bring me to suggest that an awful lot of improvement will be noticed from trimming. You might make a change and find it's bad, but you still learn from it. Just be sure that you can put it back where it was before you messed it up, so you can then change it a wee bit in the other direction.   Steve  

Believe me....I had a piece of Gorilla tape and a windscreen over the mic and that wind still cut through. Those Canons have sensitive mics. The wind noise bothers me to in editing and the worst I left out. But it has been really windy at the fiels so I either put some voo-deo out or nothing. Kinda like filming on top of a mountain......wind wins!
Got the PF up this morn but engines iffy and the winds were mighty. It flew gret what little I did. A snappy square. Gonna mess with the OS .35 a bit more. If it dissapoints I have an OS .40.
We all bailed today as the wind won. No video.
Shug

[Tim Wescott]

... so I either put some vodeo out or nothing ...

Vodeo?  Is that a typo, or some magical Caribbean way of recording sound and visuals?

Oh no -- that would be Voodeo.  Right.

[RknRusty]

Yah mahn, dat voodeo, De plen fly bettah on de voodeo dan in ril life. I need dat fo shoin off... an wurryin de Shug.

[Steve Helmick]

Good Cajun accent there, Rusty one. You been watching too much "Swamp People"?    Steve

[RknRusty]

Good Cajun accent there, Rusty one. You been watching too much "Swamp People"?    Steve

Haha.. No, that was supposed to be my Caribbean Island accent, Steve.
Rusty

[Steve Thornton]

Good video Shug and good flying!  The key word in this discussion is "precision."  Whether it's music, aerobatics, or building or....you can do it for the fun but at some point the challenge becomes more precision.  The real difference in a pro and a sport flyer is not passion, but precision, and that comes with practice. Just my $.02 sermon.
Steve

[Shug Emery]

Good video Shug and good flying!  The key word in this discussion is "precision."  Whether it's music, aerobatics, or building or....you can do it for the fun but at some point the challenge becomes more precision.  The real difference in a pro and a sport flyer is not passion, but precision, and that comes with practice. Just my $.02 sermon.
Steve

The quest for that precision is there. Lifelong draw.
I do find it to be a challenging sense of fun.
Juggling has that same sense of precision though instead of crashing there is just chasing balls around the room.......
Shug

[Dan McEntee]

  You know, really, juggling is a lot like flying stunt. The path the balls take have to be in a certain shape or pattern each time so they end up where you want them to in order to keep the flow consistent. I think you have to have really good peripheral vision to do the stuff you do in the video, which is very cool in my opinion! ( Where is Ed Sullivan when you need him!) You have to see all the balls as they are in flight. I think in stunt, you have to see the whole maneuver as you fly the model through it, at least when I'm flying really good, that is the way it appears to me. I see the ground and the sky and both sides of the maneuver. Once you can see the ground well in your peripheral vision, that is when you can start getting bottoms down to where they need to be, and that helps open up the shapes a bit and makes for better proportions. I revert back to the old "tunnel vision" days where you only see the model and try to time the shapes. Once you learn how to apply what you already know, you will do pretty well, in my opinion. We have all seen progress already and pretty significant progress.
   Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[RknRusty]

...I think in stunt, you have to see the whole maneuver as you fly the model through it, at least when I'm flying really good, that is the way it appears to me. I see the ground and the sky and both sides of the maneuver. Once you can see the ground well in your peripheral vision, that is when you can start getting bottoms down to where they need to be, and that helps open up the shapes a bit and makes for better proportions. I revert back to the old "tunnel vision" days where you only see the model and try to time the shapes. Once you learn how to apply what you already know, you will do pretty well, in my opinion. We have all seen progress already and pretty significant progress.
   Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

Dan, you just addressed something I'm having a terrible time with. The worst problem I'm having right now is getting the bottoms the right height without bobbling tensely trying to not hit the ground, or cutting it too high. Last week, after flying the first patterns with my new contest plane, I got my old Ukey out to practice bottoms. I started simple with just inside loops, which I usually do fairly well, but with variable bottoms. After going around five or six laps doing a couple of loops each time, I pancaked it. The thing is, I was utterly flummoxed. I never saw the ground coming.

I believe I'm doing just what you said and focusing on the plane rather than the big picture. I know I've got to train myself to look through a wider field of vision. Every time I think I'm improving, I do something like this to humble... and disgust myself.  After I put the wing back on, I'll be back at it. I guess I could pick a distant reference point like the tree line??? But that varies with the flying site. Maybe I should just aim high and get point deductions while preserving my plane and wait for repeated practice to take hold and I can settle down.

The good thing is I usually don't hit the ground during plain pattern flying, not since last October in Huntersville during the first bottom loop of a Vertical 8. Shug was there to witness that. I don't know if there's any hot tips to help me, other that practice practice practice. And try not to bash my Oriental. The Ukey might be my plane for the Profile event. Just a couple of weeks from now.
Rusty... slightly rattled but still practicing

[Tim Wescott]

Hey Rusty:

I don't know how long you've been flying, but it took me about two years of concentrated practice to get to the point where I just knew where the ground was.  It wasn't from consciously trying, either -- I could try and try to see the ground, and all I ended up with was a wall-eyed gaze and crashed airplanes.  Yet, after a good long time of just practicing, I found that I could see airplane, ground and sky, and I was flying ahead of the airplane, to boot.

So I'm not sure if you can make it happen -- you may just have to practice and practice, and let it come to you.

[RknRusty]

Thanks, Tim. I started learning the Beginner pattern in the Summer of 2013 and entered my first contest in October. I managed to win it the following May, 2014 and learned the full pattern last Summer. Probably the best pattern I have ever flown was in the video I posted last week about my new Oriental. I really am having huge fun, but it sure is frustrating sometimes. I flopped the Ukey right after making that great video. Flying sure has its ups and downs.
Rusty

[Shug Emery]

Thanks, Tim. I started learning the Beginner pattern in the Summer of 2013 and entered my first contest in October. I managed to win it the following May, 2014 and learned the full pattern last Summer. Probably the best pattern I have ever flown was in the video I posted last week about my new Oriental. I really am having huge fun, but it sure is frustrating sometimes. I flopped the Ukey right after making that great video. Flying sure has its ups and downs.
Rusty

Dang Rusty....sorry to hear about the Ukie. I'm with you. This hobby sure has highs and lows.
I think it is just a matter of continuing to log time flying and of course, rebuilding. Not my favorite part.
I'd say keep the bottoms up for now and let the rest of the pattern take you.
Something about the ups and downs keeps me coming back.
Shug

[RknRusty]

Hey Shug, I made it sound worse than it is. Just a simple glue job. One foam wing did what it's supposed to do and separated. I'll be flying it again this week if the rain holds off. Now I know how it was put together, I've seen its innards. These Ukeys are great stunt trainers, just a pine stick fuselage and a foam wing with an FP25. Wayne gave this one to me.

We had a great time Sunday at Watt's field. I have a goofy movie about it crunching as I write this.
Rusty

[Wynn Robins]

practise does NOT make perfect

PERFECT practise makes perfect

you can practise and practise and practise the same mistakes over and over - unless you are doing it right in the first place - practising only engrains whatever you are doing to your muscle memory, if its wrong - its always going to be wrong.

speaking from experience here - and being a PE teacher

[Tim Wescott]

practise does NOT make perfect

PERFECT practise makes perfect

you can practise and practise and practise the same mistakes over and over - unless you are doing it right in the first place - practising only engrains whatever you are doing to your muscle memory, if its wrong - its always going to be wrong.

speaking from experience here - and being a PE teacher

Ditto music.  What you practice, you will learn, and one of the hardest things to do is to un-train a bad habit.

In stunt it's complicated by the fact that the quickest road from Beginner to Expert (at least in my opinion) goes through a patch where you're purposely flying too high (because if you always crash you'll never get a chance to learn).  So you have to intentionally be ground shy, and then spend considerable time getting your bottoms down and consistent (you can see this in my pattern -- I've been flying Expert for about a year now, and the first corner of the reverse wingover is consistently high -- but, it's coming down).

[Ted Fancher]

Don't be afraid to dedicate a whole flight to just one or two maneuvers.  It's like practicing that one difficult measure over and over on your ax -- you need to practice the thing in isolation from the rest of the piece.

I'd highly recommend that you do a whole flight of horizontal eights, or of round eights alternating with square eights.  Doing a stunt, seeing what you did wrong, and then immediately doing it again right, over and over, will really nail things down in your head.

Just remember to count how many maneuvers you've done, so you don't run out of fuel and bonk the airplane.

Tim,

I think I'd moderate that comment to suggest no more than two or three iterations of a troublesome maneuver during a flight.  remember, we burn fuel out of the front end of the airplane (i.c., of course) and thus the Center of Gravity changes over the course of a flight.  Response and recovery rates vary noticeably with CG change and practicing a single maneuver over and over for seven minutes will end up making you uncertain of the response rate when flying a competitive pattern.

Because I fly only a few times a year nowadays I generally fly repeated wingovers for about 30 seconds at the start of my first couple of warm up flights just to get my equilibrium back during overhead passes.  The last thing you'd want to do is to make your last practice flight consist of 50 or 60 wingovers, the last of which will be just plain twitchy compared to the first few, and then go out and try to fly a competitive wingover 10 minutes later with a full tank of fuel in the nose.

Again, two or three repeats of a given maneuver at their appropriate time in the flight should be about the max departure from flying the complete pattern.

Just my opinion but based on pretty solid analysis.

Ted

[Crist Rigotti]

Very good advice from Ted!  You'd do well to take it.

[Tim Wescott]

I think I'd moderate that comment to suggest no more than two or three iterations of a troublesome maneuver during a flight.  remember, we burn fuel out of the front end of the airplane (i.c., of course) and thus the Center of Gravity changes over the course of a flight.  Response and recovery rates vary noticeably with CG change and practicing a single maneuver over and over for seven minutes will end up making you uncertain of the response rate when flying a competitive pattern.

I see where you're coming from, and perhaps that's the right advice for someone who's sufficiently advanced.  Even for me, though, flying in Under Expert*, I find that the occasional flight spent just doing round loops or square eights or whatever is a help.  Yes, the airplane response changes throughout the flight -- but you do both round maneuvers and square corners throughout.  Every time that I have gritted my teeth and just gone out and flown one maneuver over and over again my scores have taken a jump.

* That's when you're too good for Advanced but not nearly good enough to trophy in Expert.

[Brett Buck]

I see where you're coming from, and perhaps that's the right advice for someone who's sufficiently advanced. 

     Take it from someone with a lot of experience on this topic - if Ted Fancher gives you some advice, you would be well-served to heed it.

    Brett

[Shug Emery]

Practice should be Practiced. Consistantly and with Focus. No matter what the sport or art or skill.
When the mind starts to drift....pack it up. Or sit and take in someone elses practice.
Shug

[john e. holliday]

That loss of concentration is why I started taking a knock a bout plane with me to the field.  Nothing like a Bi-Slob to get a person back in the groove.

[phil c]

Hi Shug,   If you're going to look at videos get a copy of Keith Renecle's stunt simulator.  I think it somewhere on this site. It does an excellent job showing what the judges and camera should be seeing.  Nothing really looks right from outside the cirlce unless you've seen the sim or done a lot of judging of the very best flyers.

Phil C

[Shug Emery]

That loss of concentration is why I started taking a knock a bout plane with me to the field.  Nothing like a Bi-Slob to get a person back in the groove.

They are a heckuvalotta fun!
Shug

Hi Shug,   If you're going to look at videos get a copy of Keith Renecle's stunt simulator.  I think it somewhere on this site. It does an excellent job showing what the judges and camera should be seeing.  Nothing really looks right from outside the cirlce unless you've seen the sim or done a lot of judging of the very best flyers.

Phil C

Hey Phil, I found the pdf of that and it is helpful. Video does skew the view but it does help me with 45s and bottoms. Also watching myself as I go through the manuevers has helped me change my body position. All a work in progress. Maybe I'll get it right when I am 65 year old.