The coaching layer
Coaching freefly
Flying well and coaching well are different skills. This part of the project covers the second one: how people learn a physical skill under time pressure, how to build a brief that survives the door, and how to run a debrief that makes someone better instead of smaller.
What this is for
Skydivers elect to pay for coaching. Nothing obliges them to, and a flyer can spend hundreds of jumps working it out with two or three friends, then book a single coached jump to demonstrate the minimum standard. Plenty take that route. So a coach's real competition is free jumping with mates.
That has consequences worth stating. Students need the standard published, not held privately, so the self-taught route at least aims at the right thing. Coaching proficiency matters in its own right, because a poor session costs a student money and enthusiasm at once and sends them back to their friends.
And the process has to be enjoyable on purpose, because an abandoned progression becomes an uncoached one, and that is a safety outcome rather than a commercial one.
The material here draws on three things: the topics a coach is examined on, coach development notes contributed by freefly coach Elliot Ng, and the sports science on how physical skills are actually learned. Where those three agree, the guidance is stated plainly. Where the popular version of an idea does not survive the evidence, that is said too.
- Principles of instruction for freefly coaches Preparation, primacy, demonstration, questioning, and why talking less works better.
- Briefing a coached jump Breakoff first, a few named phases, cues tied to what the student can see, rehearsed physically.
- The debrief Ask before you tell, coach one thing outside tolerance, and never bury a safety breach.
- Reading your student Stage of learning and load today, instead of sorting people into types.
- What a coach owns Scope, currency, conduct, responsibility, and the boundaries you enforce.
- Load organising for freefly Exit order by drift and group type, briefing a mixed load, and the authority to say no.
- Operational procedures for coaches Gear checks, altitude devices, training-jump supervision, and who to escalate to.
- Becoming a freefly coach The approval pathway in Australia, and what it looks like elsewhere.