Newer skydivers look around the dropzone and see angle flyers and free flyers going up without a jumpsuit… while their instructors insist they grab a jumpsuit from the school’s closet and wear it on every jump. Sometimes they’re clean. Sometimes they aren’t. At some dropzones, it’s been a very long time since the student jumpsuits have been cleaned. And look at all the cool kids jumping in jeans and a skydiving jersey. Who wouldn’t want to do that?
Dress for Success
With all sports, the best participants could play the game in their pajamas and perform better than almost anyone else. But is that how they dress when they compete? No. They use tools tailor made to allow them to interact with their environment at the highest possible level. We’ll come back to the sport analogy in a moment, but let’s take a quick detour to talk about some of the different disciplines in skydiving.