Re: [outrager] Save the Russians!
Yuri! I know your name now. I am Alex, by the way. I did not realise that you are Russian at the beginning of our conversation. I started suspecting so a bit down the track, but not initially. To be honest, if I knew that from the start, I probably would not have structured my response in the way that I have.
Ratmir sent me an email thanking me for sticking up for him on the English-language forum. That is so hilarious, I never thought I’d be defending that guy publically, considering the reputation he has in Russia. To me he is trying to assume a bit of Russian Jeb Corliss image. He sent me a link to the Russian-language forum where you laid out your argument without personalised attacks and Ratmir had a chance to respond. I was not aware of that discussion as I was not on that forum. The discussion on skycenter was more on topic than here, you raised very valid questions without nominating the culprit and Ratmir took the bait and engaged in a direct conversation with you.
To be honest, that conversation should have occurred between you and Ratmir or at least should have remained on that Russian forum. But when you brought it here, to the world-wide audience and under a different sauce, I felt that you were not being fair and jumped in. Obviously you are a very experienced and probably a respected member of world-wide BASE community. I am not in the position to discuss technicalities of professional student tuition with you. And I was not.
In your Russian post you said all the right things about students’ likely inability to adequately react to a 180 situation on a Ton Sai cliff. Then you asked Ratmir how he was planning to fetch his hung up students off the cliff. Those are very good questions to put to a school. I hope that you understand that me getting involved was not to argue the validity of those questions. Which are totally right. The truth about Ratmir’s “school” is that he has two and a half friends how discover him through skydiving world in provincial Russia, where there is no one else to ask about BASE related tuition, and these few mates hang around with him and sometimes he holds onto their pilot shuts on their local antenna or they do trips together. Sometimes they give him money for it. Other times they do not. Ratmir dresses these trips up as “camps” and “FJCs” on his website with a gay name BASEGURU. He even claims that he released 50 students through his school. Ok, even if it was true and even if all of them paid the full price of about $1000 for tuition (which I think is bollocks) then over the 10 year period he made a wooping $5000 per year on his BASE “school”. Hardly enough to make a living.
So no, Ratmir is not a “school” in the American sense of the world. But if he was to become one, he would need to address those questions that you raised on the Russian forum. These were great questions that people from provincial Russia do not think about, I suppose. And good on you to raise them. But that conversation should have ended right there and then (on skycenter). For some reason you brought it out here. And here is why I think this was wrong. Despite Ratmir being a romantic that he is, despite his gay crew name, despite him dressing up regular trips as camps and FJCs on his website, he is actually pretty good. Not only that he has kind heart – as you said so yourself – but he does teach his students pretty carefully and methodically. I watched him work with his students next to us on an antenna in Russia and he came across as a very level-headed instructor. Compared to Lionya at least. lol )))) Or is that another moronic joke in your book?
Ratmir also travels extensively and flies his magic carpet around quite a bit. It would be unfair to the guy if people met him on the exit point and went: oh, you are that douchebag that everyone on the forum were bagging? Except those people won’t know the background you your and Ratmir’s beef.
outrager wrote:
You can't have it both ways. You can either be a "mentor" dropping a friend off Overhang for his first jump and laughing at Potato FJC, or you can advertise & run a commercial FJC.
Well, it turns out that you do know the guy personally. And if so, then you also know that his school is two and a half mates who hang around with him from time to time. His "school" is not like a school that Tom or Doogs run, you know what I mean? People on the Russian forum understand the context, but people out here do not.
To me it seemed like you walked into a bar and yelled out: "Hey, there is a guy outside whom I believe is doing something wrong. Let's all smash the cunt." Except that the guy did not speak English and whatever he wrote on his website is not quite what he does in real life.
Cut the cunt some slack, he is from EKB for fuck sake! Give him advice and help him, don’t bash the poor sod on an international forum and ask all the mastodons of the sport to stomp on him with ya. You know what I mean?
Anyway. I am glad that you and Ratmir had that conversation. He now has a better understanding of the cliff. It just would have been better not to drag it out here in the completely inverted context.
I still believe that it's not a crime to hold onto someone's PS if that said someone wants to jump off a cliff. But making a business plan based on this is probably going to fail sooner or later, sure.
outrager wrote:
A month earlier, at the same DZ, they had the same exact incident with a wrong freebag from another system packed into a tandem rig. The tandem streamered into the trees under un-open reserve, and by luck snagged on the branches. Lionya learned fuckle from that one.
Can you PM me the details of that incident if you have any details?
Thank you for going over the details of Lionya's last jump. I was quite aware of the details, I even comforted the girl who was dating the tandem passenger who died. Except my understanding was that the free bag was not the issue, but rather the reserve bridle which was shorter than what it should have been and as a result the reserve PS stayed under the drogue until 20m above ground.
Not sure if you know but there are videos of him exiting the a/c for the last time in his life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PpoxLvGJ-Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ4JKeP1PjA
It is difficult to discuss Lionya's actions on that day without an array of emotions. And I won’t. The young 21 year old he took with him is the saddest outcome of his attitude to equipment and procedures, of course. It is also unfortunate that the Club did not get dome by the cops, I am sure there was something they knew and could have anticipated. Especially given the tandem streamer incident you described.
Did you know him well? You seem to refer to in derogatory terms.
Lionya attracted those students that probably would not have been taken by other mentors for various reasons. And he was like a father to us. His energy was so positive that even the most saddened and depressed individuals found cure in working with him. To some extent, he was a bit too positive. My "those who survived" joke is a kind of joke that he would have used. And his attitude towards danger, I believe, gave many of his students a somewhat false sense of security. It was interesting, actually, to compare US school of teaching where actions are drilled into students head to become instincts. For money. Or Lionya's free tuition where he basically taught students to believe in themselves and to "not fuck around with your gear" as he used to say (pity he did not use his own advice!). And you know what -- both schools of thought achieved the same result. Many of his students achieved a great deal in the sport. But this philosophy is a subject of another discussion and I am not sure I want to be having this discussion with you anyway because you are an experienced old school jumper and I am a complete noob -- we would have totally different perspectives and my romantisation (is there such a word) of these observations would probably just make you mad ))))
For Lionya's 60th, we got him a brand new OSP. We got every student in our crew to pick a canopy part and colour it. The result was this amazing technicolour dream coat. He almost cried when he got it:
I'll miss the guy for the rest of my life irrespective of the stupid shit that he did.
Anyway, I hope you and Ratmir worked the stuff out and are both happy with a result. I'd like to relieve myself from continuing this somewhat pointless discussion. If you are ever in Melbournia, hit me up.
