The first thing that you should take into account before you decide to do any swooping is how much skydiving experience you have. If you do not have any skydiving experience, of course you should not even consider it. However, even if you feel that you’re relatively experienced, you might not have the right amount of experience to move on to swooping first.
At least 400 jumps
Before most people try swooping, they make sure that they have at least a hundred jumps behind them, though most go for even more than that. Your best bet is to make sure that you have at least 400 jumps before you start learning how to swoop. The large amount of experience will go a long way toward helping you know what you need to do while swooping.
Become a pro-active skydiver
The other thing that you should do before you start swooping is learn how to be a pro-active skydiver. Essentially, this has to do with how you are able to react to situations when you are jumping, and you should be able to figure out when it has happened for you. Before you are a pro-active skydiver, you’ll be able to respond to things that happen while you’re in the sky (probably very competently) but not until after they have already happened. You find yourself compensating for small mistakes, or situations that you may have missed.
If you are a pro-active skydiver, then you will find yourself making the necessary adjustments before you find yourself in any trouble. This will be because your experience has taught you what the warning signs are, and what they look like far in advance.
Know your gear
If you already have a lot of experience as a skydiver, or with swooping, then the other thing you should do is to learn as much about the gear you’re using as you can. Then, you should work on learning more about your gear every time you use it, and in between each time you use it. Knowing about your gear will help you to better figure out what your limits are. Not only that, but a little more knowledge about your gear can save your life – or keep you from getting a nasty injury.