Interview Lynne Murray from Kaizen

So as promised, here is the first interview with Lynne Murray a long time jumper at Hibaldstow.

Copyright Andy Ford

1. Kaizen has been around since 2008 and has had quite a few changes in the lineup since then. Who was in the lineup for this year and what was your training plan?

The line up for 2013 an 2014 was Rai Ahmed, Maria Russell, Laura McLelland and myself. Rai has been a member of Kaizen since it was first born in 2008. We had a change of cameraperson from Dave Curtin to Andy Ford. The training plan for 2014 was to do close to 500 jumps. Unsurprisingly, the weather got in the way a fair bit but we did manage just over 400 jumps ahead of the World Championships. An important part of the plan was training out of the World Meet aircraft (the Let 410) on location in Czech and this was a massive help to our exits and confidence going into the
competition. 

2. Did you think from the World Cup last year in Banja Luka that you had a chance at a medal this year and did that have any impact on your training plan?
We planned our season to achieve the best result that we could (whilst still managing not to be sacked from our jobs). It's not possible to control what the other teams will do, but we knew that the opportunity to medal was there, and did all we could to grab it :-)

3. Kaizen is not a full-time team, but both the French and the US who took Gold and Silver are full time. Do you think with the right funding, you could have beaten the, whilst still being part-time? 
As a part time team, it would be really difficult to fit in any more training than what we did this year. With the help we recieved from the BPA, the money ran out at roughly the same point as the time we had available. I think the key for an amateur team to be able to compete with the full-time teams is keeping consistency in the line up so that you are always building on the hard work already done, rather that starting again. Of course, we all know that is easier said than done.

4. I believe this was your first World Championships, although you have done the World Cup last year. Was there a difference in the feel of the two competitions? Did you feel under more pressure this year?
This is my 3rd World Championships! I was lucky enough to be able to do my first one in my fist ever AAA year. However, this is the first one that I've intended with the goal of coming home with a medal. There's no doubt that there is pressure, and no matter how much you try to tell yourself that it's 'just another skydive' Round 1 of the World Championships is something special. I think we saw those nerves in many teams' round 1s in Prostejov (definitely in ours!). 

There are always unexpected factors to contend with at competitions and this year say a full day of rain on the first competition day with the 4-way teams on our first 'standby' at 7.45am. We finally managed to get round 1 around 7pm in 'borderline' conditions at the end of the day - at least as a UK team, we are well practised at that sort of thing.

5. What was it like competing out of the Turbo Let 410?
The training camps we did out of the Turbo Let were a massive help and in the end the 4-way were pretty comfortable with it. It was pretty tough-going on the camera flyers who were clinging on for dear life in the warp speed run-ins, as we sheltered on the inside as much as possible when setting up the exit (sorry Fordy :-)). Other than that, it's great as you have loads of space on the ride to altitude.

6. Now that you have returned to the UK, do you feel that the British Nationals are a bit a of an anti-climax?
Not at all. At Nationals we're back with all of our usual competition who we've competed against for years and I can't wait to get started to see how it all falls out this year. The whole team is really looking forward to enjoying our 10 rounds here.

7. After this competition, does Kaizen have any futures plans yet?
Only the Bodyflight Revenge meet. Beyond that, who knows....