First IAD jump

Had some confusion and delays.  John told me and Larry to get geared up, but I honestly thought he just meant Larry because he was in line ahead of me.  So I was manifested on a load, then taken off the load, which led to a scramble to fill the load.  And then that load came down without jumping because the cloud ceiling was too low.

Got on another load later.  Larry and I were students, John S was our instructor, Josh had the radio on the ground.  I was first.  A little tough to maneuver myself from sitting next to the pilot facing backward to kneeling next to the door facing forward, but got there.

Exit was crap for so many reasons.  I got out on the step fine, but didn't reach all the way out along the strut.  Then on "Get Ready" I didn't step off the step and hang on the strut.  Instead, I basically jumped backward off the step.  I knew something wasn't right.  Focused on that and ended up bent forward at the waist instead of arching.  Arched OK just as the canopy was starting to open up, so ended up fine, just absolutely screwed up the exit.

The canopy opening without me pulling the pilot chute was very surprising.  I have 93 previous jumps and I pulled my own hacky 93 times.

I think I did great under canopy, except for some possible miscommunication at the end.  Canopy looked fine, nobody around me, did my controllability checks, then looked around to figure out where I was.  Aimed for the holding area as Josh gave me a couple of instructions.  While in the holding area, did some turns, did some practice flares, and did some rear riser turns.  Josh asked me to do one more practice flare when I was at 1,000 feet, and just as I did that, he asked me to turn left.  Since I was in deep brakes from the flare, I let my right toggle up to do the left turn.

Then the miscommunication.  I thought I was doing everything he asked, and I got a lot of confirmation that I was.  At 600 feet, I started to turn left, which was timed nicely because I was just about to cross the runway.  John wanted me to do my base leg along the area just to the side of the runway.  Josh was aiming me back to the runway.  Not 100% sure what went wrong between us there.  At the end, I kept trying to turn a little left to avoid the runway, but Josh kept directing me toward it.  He told me to flare, I did (and I think it was a good flare), and I slid into the runway rather than PLF on the tarmac.  And I was in the crosswind base leg, not upwind final leg.

Talked to John.  He said I should have landed the way I intended and ignored instructions that didn't make sense.

I'm doing this jump over again, but it really felt awesome to get back in the sky.