Maybe you’ve seen some advanced freestyle and it seems exactly where you want to go with your parachuting. Maybe your friends are now boasting about how long they can maintain a standup or how many back loops they can make. Maybe you’re looking to add more variety to your paratroopers. Or maybe you realize that freestyle is an excellent starting point for free-flying parachuting, sea-going and other three-dimensional skydiving activities. Whatever your reasons, something has aroused your motivation to try freestyle, and now you want to know how to get started.

Freestyle is an individual discipline where aspects such as beauty, difficulty and the composition of tricks are valued within a flight set. A freestyle performance is an event for two people, since good coordination with a camera brochure is crucial to create a finished product of high quality video. Capturing a freestyle performance on video is also your responsibility. As a freestylist, you can do things to make the work of the camera brochure much easier and you can have a dramatic effect on the quality of the final video.

The flyers carry out free and obligatory routines of 60 seconds of duration. The exact number of Rounds and the composition of Rounds is specific to the only meeting. Compulsory routines require that particular movements be made, but the sequence and choreography of the routine are designed by the steering wheel.

Whichever direction you may ultimately go, here are some basic freestyle concepts that will help you with many alternative flight styles, as well as starting with freestyle. So try these.

Routines are sometimes flown to music, adding another layer of difficulty as flyers must fly in sync to the song of their choice. Creativity and difficulty are awarded in these disciplines as flyers work to amaze and impress the crowd and the judges.

Layout back loops are the starting point for many types of loop moves in freestyle. They’ll teach you timing and heading control, and how to start and stop looping moves.

Starting from belly-to-earth (or a Tee, if you’ve mastered that), bring both legs forwards and downwards as if to go into a Standup, and straighten them together so they point downwards just forwards of vertical. Simultaneously, stretch out your arms to grab air and lift your torso. As you straighten your legs, also straighten your body at the waist and hold your arms out to the sides and slightly forwards.

Hold that position as the air catches your legs and starts to flip you over backwards. Keep your body straight as you rotate, and keep your arms out sideways. Hold the layout position through several rotations, and then stop in a belly-to-earth position or a Tee by moving your arms down towards your hips as you approach horizontal. You can stop in a Standup by letting your legs go around to the vertical point, and then reaching back with your arms to catch air and stop your momentum.

If you can’t keep the loops going and you flatten out after just one rotation, make sure you’re keeping your body straight as your legs rotate upwards. Also, move your arms upwards more, over your head, after your legs have gone over the top past vertical, and as your legs come downwards, keep pushing with your arms by bringing them downward in front of you.