posted Jul 19th, 2016 - The Sun Path Products NSL News covered one of the most recent rule changes on May 15th. It was the removal of the "side-body link-up" definition that also became a topic of the TURNING POINTS column, which BLUE SKIES MAG published in the June issue of the magazine.

The article pointed out that the lack of any definitions for the formations in the FAI/IPC 4-way dive pool and the total freedom of "creative engineering" could create "anarchy".

FAI/IPC officials reacted quickly to the new situation after the rule change. Karla Cole (Chief Judge at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving), Jurate Janusauskiene (Chief Judge at the FAI Indoor World Cup) and Mark Szulmayer (Chair of the FAI Formation Skydiving Committee) recently published a statement with more details on the same topic:

IPC FS Committee Statement

As Chief Judges for the two FCE's for Formation Skydiving during 2016 it is our intent to brief our panels of judges regarding the "side-body". The FS committee has decided to take the sidebody rule out of the competition rules, so teams will not get busted anymore on formations where a sidebody grip on the same person was required and a hand on hand situation ended up as a bust.

The removal of the sidebody rule does not change the current performance requirements as stated in the FAI/IPC competition rules for FS, what is depicted and required in the dive pool diagrams:

"3.3: Performance Requirements 3.3.1: Each round consists of a sequence of formations, depicted in the dive pools of the appropriate addendum, as determined by the draw. 3.3.2: It is the responsibility of the team to clearly present the start of working time, correct scoring formations, inters and total separations to the judges."

IPC FS Committee Statement

That means, what you see on the dive pool diagrams is what is depicted and required. All the 8-way diagrams (Blocks and Randoms) show very clearly where the grip has to go, on which arm or leg and on which person. Most of the formations in a block with a sidebody position, the jumper has to take the correct grip anyway to go to the required inter.

We have realized that the 4-way dive pool diagrams are not so clearly presented as the 8-way, but most of them are still clear enough to see where the grips have to go. However there are some formations in 4-way which are not very clearly presented in the rules diagrams.

Block 22 and 19, Random K and N. All of this formations require a sidebody position and we all know what the formations should look like. For next year we will work on clearer diagrams for 4-way, as we have them now in 8-way.

IPC FS Committee Statement

In some formations the jumper in a sidebody position ends up on the same leg or arm of another jumper and the "hand on hand" grip occurs. This can happen in a double grip situation for example (see photo). In the past you would be busted for this grip, now this grip is correct.

The dive pool diagram for the Random P Sidebody shows clearly on which person the grips have to go.

To clarify the valid grip area see the below photo. The yellow line shows the area where the grip is correct, the red line is the "no grip area". The jumper with the blue star on his pack has to take a grip on the leg and the arm on the jumper with the orange star. (as depicted in the dive pool diagram). For the arm grip the valid grip area goes from the shoulder to the fingers. Because the jumper with the green star has to take a grip as well on the same arm, his hand will "melt" into the valid grip area and becomes part of it. (see the yellow line).