posted Feb 18th, 2011 - This year's activities in Florida to grow the Formation Skydiving community and introduce more skydivers to the 4-way fun had another event last weekend in DeLand, while SDC Rhythm XP members worked with the Team For A Day participants in Sebastian.

Rob Laidlaw's Skydive University organized a player coach event, which was based on the same player coaching concept that Rhythm applies in Florida, in the Paraclete XP windtunnel and at their summer home Skydive Chicago, as Arizona Frenzy offers it in Eloy and as Perris Fury has done if for years in Perris.

The recent events in Florida have been offering 1-day or weekend camps for skydivers who would like to learn more in smaller groups, while they also have the option to connect with others and form groups for new events and eventually 4-way meets in their areas.

Rob Laidlaw had coaching veteran Robert Chromy by his side, and Katie Woods offered her services, as well. She recently moved to Florida and has already become a valuable asset for the local and regional Formation Skydiving community. She is planning to stay and train and compete in an ambitious US 4-way team, and she offers her competition and coaching experiences, as well.

The participants in DeLand were organized in three different learning groups. Rob Laidlaw was coaching and jumping with Paul Neill, Jim Jacobs and Aaron Houser. This group worked on the basic skills of Formation Skydiving.

Rob Laidlaw started the day with a seminar in the morning where he explained to the participants what to expect on that training day. He said that the experience level of the whole group was between 80 and 3,000 jumps.

Robert Chromy's group worked on launching complete formations from the Skyvan ramp. Scott Nichell, Randy Cutlip and Mike Anderson enjoyed the new learning experiences with one of the longest standing Formation Skydiving coaches in the business.

Katie Woods was working with the most experienced skydivers of the whole group in DeLand. Jim Prochaska trained and competed with DeLand Dunamis in the AA Class last year and attended the USPA Nationals 2010 with his team. He had launched his 4-way career with Rookie Class team Cold Turkey in 2008 when he won the NSL Championship after a dramatic 1-point race with Carolina Groove.

He had Lynn O'Donnell and Katie Kohnen in his group that Katie Woods introduced some advanced 4-way techniques to.

NSL Championship 2008		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Round8	Round9	Round10	Total	Avg
Rank	Rookie	G,B,K	L,C,E	M,Q,D	F,O,J	H,A,B	N,P,K	C,Q,O	A,L,M	E,H,N	D,J,G	Total	Avg
1	Cold Turkey	5	8	11	16	10	7	14	13	12	6	102	10.2
2	Carolina Groove	10	6	9	15	13	8	9	13	12	6	101	10.1

The weather was perfect, as Rob Laidlaw reported, and all participants liked the format of the event. They encouraged the coaches and organizers to offer similar projects more regularly.

Two participants of Skydive U's Team For A Day last weekend are now looking for a third team member and a player coach who will guide them through their first planned 4-way competition in the Rookie Class, the Shamrock Showdown 2011.

The Shamrock Showdown draws the best 4-way teams in the world to DeLand. However, the event applies all competition classes, even though the AAA Class usually has the largest participation. Three A Class teams opened their 2010 season at the Shamrock Showdown where Jim Prochaska had his first 2010 race with DeLand 5 and AweZomeness.