The Top 3 Insider Wind Tunnel Insights

If you’re starting to get stoked about tunnel flying, you’re probably ready to reach beyond the FAQs page for some useful insider tips that will help you become a better tunnel flyer. We have been precisely where you are and really want to help you achieve your windtube goals.

There’s no getting around it: flying the tubular skies costs money. If you’re doing it right (that is investing in lower-cost-per-minute blocks of time or a membership), money will go in decidedly more significant chunks than the cost of individual jump tickets. That said, the amount of freefall time you rack up in there translates to far more than what those individual skydives would represent. Work it out mathematically, and you’ll realize that tunnel time, for all its sticker shock, is a decidedly more cost-effective way to train—especially the advanced body flight maneuvers that take ages to perfect between pack jobs.

We want to help! Paraclete XP Indoor put this list together to help you get your hands on some wind tunnel tips to make your progression forward into greatness as swift and sure as possible.

Professional coaching is step No. 1 (Maybe even No. 0.5!)

The real fun in indoor skydiving is carefully fine-tuning the minute details of your skills. On a path like that, pro coaching counts for a lot. Did you know that even the highest-level tunnel flying athletes get coaching to improve?

Because we’ve been an athlete-minded indoor skydiving facility since day one, we have a proliferation of excellent coaches who call Paraclete XP home. Do yourself a favor and shop around for a coach that fits your goals and temperament precisely. You’ll definitely find one!

Take up yoga

You might immediately respond with the “I’m not flexible” excuse, but listen: If you really want to progress in the wind tunnel, you’ll need to start changing that. There are a few ways to do this (among them YouTube flexibility exercises and this good book), but yoga is the most direct, the most consistency-building route we’ve found to reach goals. Yoga will train your core, allowing you to fly strong and stable. In the wind tunnel, you can’t rely on either strength or flexibility alone to get through — you’ll have to balance the two. And hot yoga is probably the best option.

Consistency, as with everything, is the key to unlocking your hidden powers of flexibility. You’ll need to commit to flexibility practice at least three times a week.

Protect your focus

Here’s how wind tunnel training works to save skydivers money and time: it provides focused time to isolate very specific behaviors and habits in your body-flight, releasing you from their grip. After all, a skydiving dropzone is loud and full of your friends, and constantly traversed by hollering tandem students. Then, you fetch that four-way teammate who keeps catching your eye at the mockup and let’s face it, it’s really hard to be zen.

When you get to the tunnel, you can and should find that zen and tackle it. After all, the tunnel is just you, your coach and your goals. It’s amazing how much you can get done with no distractions. You owe it to yourself to check that out…so turn off your phone and let your time at the tunnel be 100% dedicated to learning how to fly.

And we’re 100% dedicated to teaching you! Stop by the wind tunnel and we’ll tell you all the other secrets to windytube mastery, too.