TunnelCamp.com - Coaches Corner

Basic Curriculum

Planning, Execution, Debriefing, Learning

Over the past decade, Airspeed has amassed a broad assortment of achievements and victories.  These result, in large part, from our ability to draw as much learning as possible from each endeavor.  The ethic of constant improvement surrounding this team is not accidental – it is something we have purposefully created and nurtured.  We have devoted countless hours and many thousands of dollars to developing a system that facilitates learning.  

The process or system we have developed applies equally well to all of the various challenges we face or projects we undertake; only the scale changes.  We approach a single skydive the same way we approach a training camp, or the entire training year.  We divide the process into four distinct steps – PLANNING, EXECUTION, DEBRIEFING and LEARNING.  We often use the acronym “PEDL” to refer to the entire system.  This fits well given cyclic and iterative nature of the process.  Simply put, once you get to the end, you return to the beginning and repeat.  The more often you cycle through the steps of PEDL, the better your result.  

Planning:
Our first step is to make a plan.  Different organizations create plans in different ways; no single way fits every group or situation.  Because of the nature of our endeavor and the relationships between the members of Airspeed, we create our plans by consensus.  We do this at meetings specifically scheduled for that purpose.  We start in an open-ended fashion to prevent the limiting of options or stifling of ideas.  We collect input from the quietest members of the team first.  Our natural talkers wait.  Once all suggestions have been elicited, we begin to debate and to weigh different ideas.  Eventually, we come to a consensus that we can all agree on.  In this way, everyone responsible for executing the plan has had a hand in its making.  Everyone is informed.  No one feels excluded or ignored.  All of us have ownership in the plan. 

Execution:
After we have reached agreement on a plan, we consciously transition to execution.  This requires a deliberate switching of gears for the entire team.  In this phase, we no longer formulate, discuss or consider alternative plans.  We do not question, analyze or debrief the plan.  We simply execute!  It seems simple, but most teams and workgroups we come across lack the discipline to do this.

Simply executing allows the plan a full and fair chance to succeed.  Each team member gives 100% of his effort to the success of the plan.  No one subverts the plan by consciously or unconsciously undermining it.  After having executed in this way, you truly know where you stand.  If, on the other hand, team members are “second-guessing” or debriefing during execution, when you arrive at the end of the task you never really know what lessons to draw out of the experience.  When you fail to execute purely and completely, you rob yourself of this opportunity to learn.

Separating execution from planning and debriefing is a skill that eludes most organizations, teams and working groups.  Keeping the execution pure requires a great deal of trust – trust in the system, trust in one’s teammates and trust in the collective discipline of the group.  By definition, when a group accepts a consensus plan, each team member settles for something less than the whole of what they had originally thought was best.  Human nature tempts us to “second-guess” the consensus plan as soon as things go a bit awry.  Discipline and trust get us through these tough patches.  Once we have seen the system work time and again, trust comes a bit easier.  Until that time, we urge you to rely on our past experience and to have a little faith in axiom that many heads are better than one.

Debriefing:
We schedule a formal debrief for each cycle of PEDL.  When each group member knows that a thorough debrief will be held at the conclusion of the execution phase, it allows them to set aside any criticisms or new ideas that might pop into their heads during execution.  Team members feel more comfortable “shelving” their feedback until the appropriate time and place, knowing that they are not just “sweeping it under the rug.”  The style of debrief varies depending on the subject matter.  How you do it is not as important as that you do it. 

Many business organizations that invest considerable time creating consensus plans and then seek to faithfully execute them, fail miserably at the debrief.  More than once, highly motivated, well-intentioned professionals have told us that, in the real world, there is simply no time to “sit around and talk about the work they just finished”.  Rather, they have new patients to see, code to write or buildings to design.  What they are actually saying is “we are as good as we intend to get - we have no desire to be any better at this tomorrow than we are today.”  These organizations are frozen in time, doomed to repeat the same mistakes again and again.  Somehow, in a headlong drive for short-term achievement, they have lost sight of the real reason for their existence – to improve.  Either you grow, or you die.  Skipping the debrief may get you onto the next task sooner, but in doing so you cheat yourself out of the opportunity to learn from your past performances. 

LEARNING:
If debriefing is asking oneself what happened, learning involves asking why.  There is a group component and an individual component to this.  Often we will adjourn from a debrief and agree to spend some time thinking about the new information before we meet again to make new plans.  Some of our most powerful learning comes during these times of quiet reflection. 

Again, each of us learns differently, what is important is that we ask the question why.  Why did this work?  Why did that not?  For example, if you are brainlocking repeatedly during skydives, owning up to it in a debrief is an important start but it is not enough.  You must go further and ask why.  If there are others around you in a position to help you may ask them.  If you prefer, you may engage in an inner dialog with yourself - what commonly happens before I brainlock; how was my prep; was I properly rested, etc.  If you are honest with yourself and diligent in your approach you will eventually figure it out.  You will learn and the next time around you plan will be better for it.

REPEAT:
It is important to note that this is an iterative process.  The more times we run the cycle of PEDL on an issue or on a problem the better we get at handling it.  For example, we have a very detailed and comprehensive Competition Plan covering all aspects of how we conduct ourselves right before and then during competitions.  Before each meet we restate the Competition Plan.  We then execute.  At the end, while still on site we debrief the meet.  And in the days that follow we take what we learned and revise the plan accordingly.  Each time we go to a meet, our Competition Plan gets a bit better.  That is a major reason that we attend so many.  We have “run PEDL” on our Competition Plan so many times that it is now highly refined and well adapted to our individual personalities and group dynamic.

WHERE TO APPLY PEDL:
We apply PEDL to our Training Plan, Continuity Plan, Physical Training Plan, Leadership Plan, Daily Schedule, Business Plan, and to each individual jump.  Only the length of the cycle changes.  In the single jump example, planning includes all of the time spent engineering, creeping and visualizing.  Once our feet leave the floor of the aircraft, planning is over.  From then on, all we do is execute.  During execution we stay totally connected to the task at hand.  Our thoughts are completely in the moment.  We do not think about how to tweak a particular move or what went wrong with that last block.  During execution there is no time for HOW (plan) or for WHY (debrief), there is only WHAT - what is next.  Our best performances come when we trust our preparation and simply execute.  In contrast, most brainlocking results from thinking about technique or from debriefing during the jump.  Once we land, we collect ourselves and walk back together.  We know that we have a formal debrief scheduled so we refrain from debriefing in the landing area or during the walk back.  We then conduct an orderly and frank video debrief.  From this we learn what, if anything, needs to be changed and we begin the process again.

Your Optimum Arousal Level

Arousal Level:
The term “Arousal Level” refers to your physical, emotional and mental state during a skydive.  Simply put, your arousal level describes how calm you are, how aggressive you are, how spooled up or spooled down you are at a particular moment.  It includes both psychological (aggression, confidence, anger, fear, apprehension, etc.) and physiological (heart rate, breathing, etc.) components.

Optimum Arousal Level:
Over years of training and thousands of jumps, we have found that each of us has an optimum arousal level.  By definition, your optimum arousal level is the degree of calmness/aggression at which you perform your best.  This level is different for each person.  We each have to do different things to arrive at and then maintain this level.  At your optimum arousal level, you are calm enough to see and comprehend everything going on around you.  You are totally connected to your performance.  You react and adjust at will without hesitation.  You are in absolute in control.  Some athletes have referred to this optimum arousal level as being “in the zone” or in a state of “flow”.  On Airspeed, we refer to it simply as being “on the line”. 

How To Find Yours:
To determine your optimum arousal level, you need to monitor and record your level as you jump and then compare it to your performance during the debrief.  Under canopy, or as soon as you land, briefly reflect on the jump assign a number from 1 to 10 to describe how aroused you were.  10 equates to the most pumped up, aggressive, anxious or amped you have ever been on a jump.  1 describes a person who is barely awake.  The numbers are, of course, arbitrary and it does not matter what scale you use so long as you use the same one on each jumps.  If you keep track of your arousal level on every jump and then compare it to your performance, you will soon find patterns that tell you where you perform best.   

Just about every competitor we have coached tended to err by being over rather than under the line.  Consequently, just about everyone we have worked with has noticed marked improvement by simply calming down.  Many people do not realize when they are over the line.  If you key a point that is not complete or if you key (or preload the key) when it is not your key, you are BY DEFINITION over the line!  If you are too rushed to perform each step required to properly execute a block or if you blur multiple steps together, you are over the line.

What To Do With This Information:
Once you have come up with a scale with which to measure your arousal level and have developed a fairly accurate idea what your optimum is, you can use this information to get the best out of yourself on every jump.  Start by taking yourself to this optimum level before the jump begins.  Shine a mirror on yourself during the ride to altitude and ask yourself if you are on, above or below the line.  If you are over the line, calm yourself down using meditation, visualization or some other form of self-talk.  If you are below the line, pump yourself up by re-living some powerful performance in your past or by replaying a particularly aggressive song in your head. 

 Once you have learned how to place yourself on the line before a jump, you need to learn how to stay there the entire jump (or, more accurately, how to return quickly each time you stray).  Developing this skill takes practice.  If, during the debrief, you see yourself getting over the line, make note of what you were doing immediately before.  The more frank and honest you are with yourself, the quicker you will start to see patterns.  Eventually you will identify the type of things that usually precede your getting over the line.  KEEP ONE THING CLEAR IN YOUR MIND - outside distractions cannot take you off the line; only you can do that.  The better you get at recognizing yourself getting off the line, the quicker and more smoothly you can “reset” yourself to your optimum arousal level.  [“Resetting” will be discussed in greater detail in the segment on Distraction Control]. 

Mind Maps:
Mind Maps are verbal descriptions of each person's job in each block.  We use these to record and remember what was working for us and what was not.  From years of coaching, we have learned that words alone can be imprecise and often confusing when used to describe this subject matter.  Consequently, we encourage you to use what we have posted here simply as a starting point for your own mind maps.   You will achieve the best possible result if re-write these into you own words while you train or soon thereafter.  Those with hyperlinks (in blue and underlined in most browsers) have already been posted.  Click the title to see them.  We will be posting these in groups of 4, once each week until they are all up.  

The Airspeed "Open Book":
We believe that it is best for the sport and best for ourselves to disseminate and publish new technology as soon as we develop it.  That is why you see Airspeed members coaching other teams before and even during competitions.  We further believe that teams that hoard or conceal new techniques and training methodologies weaken themselves and damage the sense of camaraderie that makes this game one worth playing.

Our sport is special in this respect.  The majority of us still believe that how you play remains more important than how you place.  We will continue to put the information out there for all to share with the confidence that those who train the hardest, and work the most, will prevail.

You will note that the information provided herein is protected by copyright.  Use of this information for commercial purposes by anyone other than the copyright holder is prohibited.  Please feel free to copy and use these pages to improve your own skydiving and to share with others intending to do the same.