adding interest and complexity to Sportsman ... again and again and

[George Kennie]

 <<I'm not flying masters, I'm flying advanced, the reason is
Masters is
more difficult than I think I can reasonably fly at this time, so
I'll work my way up. >>

I respectfully disagree with your assessment of schedule difficulty.
I get the feeling that you haven't taken the time to sit down and
really study the current Master's sequence. I commend your attitude
of working your way up!!!IMHO, I find the current Master's much less
threatening than the Advanced sequence.

Somebody mentioned "going to contests without practicing", and
indeed I can remember, back in the 60's going to a contest myself
having never performed the required routine and doing quite well at
the time.However those were significantly different times and I
myself would not desire to return to the mindset of that period.It
was called a "Pattern Contest" and the attendance was probably a
couple of hundred guys, but the mindset was more like a current day
"Fun- Fly". Nobody really took it all that seriously. Somewhere
along the line, the few individuals that did have a more serious
approach organized and brought a more serious aspect to the sport
realizing that the basis for guys going out and flying a routine
that was in fact JUDGED meant that the concept must
be"COMPETITION".  I think that this is probably the reason you still
find the most heavily attended events to be "Fun-Fly's". When it
gets too serious there are a lot of guys that start to feel
threatened regarding their status within the group structure and
when the pressure becomes, in their estimation, greater than feels
comfortable to them, they gravitate to a different venue that
restores the level of comfort they deem appropriate.
The same thing seems to happen, in my judgement, with  schedule
complexity.Some of us realize that if the schedules become more and
more complex, at some point the difficulty factor will become
significant enough to threaten our currently hard won achievement
status, and indeed this is true.The decision that probably needs to
be reasoned through is,in light of this truth, should the pursuit of
excellence be sacrificed to satisfy the inadequacies of those of us
who are clammoring to maintain their elevation?
I consider myself a part of this equation and recognize my own
inadequacies, however I  also realize that this same pursuit of
excellence will not be enhanced by any concession to tilt the
playing field in my favor. Noone will be served by that tack. Least
of all ME! My flying prowess ranks somewhere between Sportsman and
Intermediate(my assessment), and though I find a couple of the FAI
maneuvers really tough to execute in a graceful manner, I still feel
that there is no maneuver that I could not learn to do and given
another 50 years of practice I might even be in a position to
challenge Jason.
It's about STRIVING guys. That's what COMPETITION is! And it's
purpose is to determine the most skilled individual, with the rest
of us rated in descending order beneath the rating of the BEST! So,
as you can see, I'm not in favor of wussing out to make things
easier for anybody who finds their position at the pinnacle
precarious(and that includes ME).
Now, all that being said, I do feel that we may have a void at the
bottom and should probably go back again and reconsider a pre-novice
class for the guy who has only been involved in the sport for 2
weeks and has never practiced flying a straight line.This shouldn't
take much additional time as the number of guys showing up to
participate in this class will indeed be very few (which begs the
question, how far do we have to concede in order to grow the
ranks?).
The Sportsman sequence I proposed a couple of days ago DOES appear
to be too difficult for some of the respondants(but not all) and
maybe the old Novice schedule should be made available for anybody
showing up to try (as a pre-novice event).I also think that the
Intermediate should introduce it's participant to the 45 downline
snap or at least a center snap on a horizontal baseline as
preparation for Advanced.
Only a bunch of opinions, guys! Don't mean I'm right!
G.



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