Before you should even think about swooping, you should get involved in the sport in other ways. For instance, you should watch other people who are already experienced at swooping to see what they do. You should also watch swooping competitions as well. Then, you should find out what types of equipment and techniques the people in those competitions usually use. Once you have that figured out, you’ll be able to start swooping.
Only for experienced skydivers
Also, you’re going to need to have a lot of experience with regular skydiving first. While this seems obvious, not everybody realizes just how much experience they should have before they decide to take up swooping.
It’s definitely not enough to have done a few skydives before you start swooping. The average person who gets into swooping has done hundreds of dives, in a lot of cases as many as 400-1000 dives before they ever get started learning how to swoop.
The reason for this is that there are a lot of different factors that can affect you while you’re skydiving – and considering the nature of swooping, this will only get more important. With a lot of experience, you’ll be better able to react to the different situations that will affect you while you’re swooping.
The right training
Swooping, just like regular skydiving, is not something that you can just jump into (or out of) and learn on your own. Instead, you need to make sure that you find somebody who is capable of teaching you how to swoop. Before you start taking any courses, or learning from everybody, make sure you know just how much experience they have with swooping – and don’t be afraid to ask for things like credentials!
Get to know your canopy
You also should not try swooping with your new canopy right away. There are two things that you can do. Either you can learn how to swoop on your old canopy, or you can try a new canopy – doing jumps that you are familiar with. Why? Every canopy will be different, and you’d be surprised about how much you’re used to your own canopy when you jump.
Therefore, if you buy a new parachute, you should always make sure that you try it on jumps that you are very familiar with until you are used to the change. A new type of skydiving (like swooping) and a new canopy at the same time are a recipe for disaster.
If you want to start swooping, make sure that you’re careful, pay attention to all of the warnings, and have fun!