World's Youngest Head Down Coach

The world’s youngest IBA Head-Down Coach is… can you guess….

 

  Sixteen years old. 

Mark ‘Sparky’ Arrowsmith has been recognized as the youngest person ever to hold IBA Coach Ratings for Belly, Back, Sit and Head Down Flying.

All this, and he doesn’t even live in a country with a tunnel.

Mark is from the Isle of a Man, a tiny island in between England and Ireland, with a population of about 86,000 and miles of rugged coastline dotted with medieval castles. A beautiful place, but also a place without a wind tunnel.

Mark’s first time in the tunnel was mid-2010 when the Arrowsmiths visited Airkix Milton Keynes in the south of England. His dad, a skydiver was receiving Freefly coaching, and figured Mark would want to try his hand at flying as well. It wasn't long before he saw the instructor's doing demos at the end of the sessions. He was told that this was Freeflying/Freestyle and he wanted to do it too. Immediately.

"We had a few sessions on that first visit and I was able to fly unassisted on my belly pretty quickly, then was shown how to move up and down and to turn. It was an amazing feeling. I remember saying it would be great if I could fly cross-legged and I got the very clear explanation that that was difficult and dangerous to even think about it and I should not try. I ignored that advice, and a few minutes later, confident in my skills after my massive 6 minutes flying and overflowing with confidence, I went up as high as I could on my belly and thought “ how hard can this be?” and tried it. Only the watchful eye of Al, his quick reactions and a long arm stopped me going from an attempted transition directly to the Accident and Emergency dept of Milton Keynes hospital. I learnt a lesson there and then - the glass and the net can hurt a lot, and if you try to run before you can walk, you can end up crawling."

"In watching others, I appreciated that not everybody wants, or needs, to have the whole “science /physics” explanation for things, but others do. I did. I could see how some, especially me, would and do struggle on one thing which might be a doddle for most others, and then also breeze through stuff thought to be generally pretty ninja, but really struggle on something that most find easy. I realised quite early in my tunnel flying experience, thanks to those who taught me, that we all can learn in a different way, at a different pace, one explanation doesn’t always work for all, and there is always more than one way to solve any problem.

Like many who tunnel fly, I enjoy playing other sports, and the obvious and frequent frustration of all of us that we just can’t “get it” immediately can be hard to overcome, especially if other sports don’t seem to have the same road bumps in learning. It is easy to say this as a 16-year-old, but I can also understand that sometimes youth can be a real aid to learning new things quicker or at all - I was keen to try to work out how to learn to “ get it” and overcome challenges."

"After 2010, Airkix opened a new tunnel in Manchester, in the North of England. Manchester is much easier for us to travel to from the Isle of Man, so that’s been my tunnel home since then. We visit Airkix Manchester at least a couple of times a year and I have amassed some 30 hours of tunnel time."

"Over the following years, my Coaches have changed, as their careers have taken them to new locations, but each of them was exceptional. All different in their flying and Coaching styles and those differences showed me, yet again, that one size does not fit all. I want to thank them all, and look forward to flying with them all in the future. All the instructors at Airkix have been amazingly helpful at every stage of my flying progression, and the names below (with the locations they moved to) are those I worked with particularly, but that is not to ignore the others."

Al Gayton- Skydive Dubai, Palm

Fede Rawa- Windoor Empuriabrava

Catriona -The Cat- Adam- iFLY Seattle

Mark -TRON- Cooper- iFLY Dubai

 

"I want to improve all aspects of my flying, with the aim of having the skills necessary to complete all the dynamic dive pools. I’d really like to further my understanding of flying mechanics, by becoming a better flyer myself, so that I am able to constantly improve my coaching ability for all levels, without forgetting the humble but ambitious beginner. Ultimately I would like to work towards achieving a Dynamic Competition Coach rating. I recognise that a huge amount of improvement, and several years, is needed before I am near that level, if ever."

"Generally, I just want to fly more whenever I can, learn more from all the Instructors in any tunnel I fly at, get better and pass on what I know to others, to help them share the amazing experiences of flight. I know that I have only scratched the surface of what there is to do and learn."

 

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