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About the New BASE Wiki.

Mentoring

This page is a chapter in 'BASE Wiki Training'

Mentoring: The concept of mentoring is one of the reasons BASE is such a great sport. The idea that BASE is taught worldwide through unofficial student-teacher relationships, much like guilds and apprenticeships have worked through the ages, gives the sport a romantic notion that few other sports can offer.

However, the fact that BASE works with unstructured and informal training programs and no structured governing body, brings a lot of risk with it as well. Early jumpers have managed to establish a solid base on which mentors can build, but there are still many things that BASE apprenticeships worldwide can improve, both for mentors and for students.


This page discusses mentoring from both a student and a mentor’s point of view.

For students

Finding a good mentor can be difficult. Not all areas have many jumpers, let alone jumpers with the sufficient skills, knowledge, experience and inclination to teach aspiring jumpers. You don't so much choose a mentor, you show the ability, dedication, and tenacity to want to enter the sport and a mentor chooses you.

A new jumpers mentor will spend countless hours of their free time teaching the skills necessary for them to make their first BASE jump. They will teach the theory and techniques of BASE, impart technical knowledge and skills, and work to prepare the new jumper for the BASE environment, Most mentors teach others for the love of the sport and often will do so for no financial gain.

A good mentor offers the following:
  • A significant amount of experience (preferably more than 200 jumps)
  • A broad range of experience including different objects, low and terminal jumps, rigging, and a variety of locations.
  • Strong didactic skills. The best jumpers can be terrible teachers, and somebody with only a handful of jumps can be great at it.
  • Patience, for the cases where the rate at which you learn is slower than he would like.
  • Patience, to avoid taking you to sites you are not ready for yet.
  • Modesty; a teacher that realizes that a student has knowledge to offer too, and understands that a mentor can learn just as the student does.
  • High standards, meaning that the mentor will not just offer to teach BASE to anybody, but will only accept those students that have shown dedication and solid preparation.

One thing your mentor should definitely not offer is romance of any kind. BASE has a bad history of accidents that indirectly involved romance between a mentor and a student. Tom Aiello has written about it.

For mentors

BASE wiki is waiting for contributions from experienced mentors. This section should explain what mentors should do, and what they should look for in students. There might be some overlap with the section for students above, but it’s from a different point of view.



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