A couple SSA 2020 convention presentations online...

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 12:26:31 PM UTC-5, Stephen Szikora wrote:
I’m seeing a lot of nonsense rationalization here. Any jump is better experience than no jump at all. If nothing else, you will learn to fly the canopy including judgung the flare on landing. Besides, anything you do in life is first practiced in “ideal� conditions (other than a first kiss!)

Nope, a lot of just-plain-nonsense period.

1) With an emergency chute there is no 'flare on landing'.
Most of these chutes pulling both toggles decreases the effective chute
diameter and increases your sink rate (as explained to me by the chute designer).
DO NOT TRY TO FLARE AN EMERGENCY CHUTE.

2) A practice jump will not be with an emergency round chute.
You will get some practice landing but it will be very different...

3) Ground school will include specifics of how to land,
practice landing jumping of a small platform, etc.
Not to mention the mechanics of chute deployment (ie push, not pull).

Please, go get the ground school.
If you want to take a jump, great, but most important is the ground school.

Hope that helps someone out there,
Best Regards, Dave