Top things to know/prepare for at Air Assault School?

Went through in 09 and SPC Mullins gave an excellent writeup. Make sure you pay attention and study during slingload phase, I almost got dropped as I missed some knots on the web basket thing, got it the second time but having studied before saved me. Otherwise I would've had no idea what to look for!

Oh and I forgot, have fun! AAS was a blast, hanging out with the Army rappelling and rucking around was awesome!

I went in 1985 as soon as I got to the 101st pay attention and you will be fine

I was wondering what kind of things you were studying while you were there. I'm in the National Guard and by some miracle I got an air assault slot but I have to take a pre written exam and I want to set myself up for success and I would like to know what to study

Ditto. In my 2009 course we had the majority of our failures in the same three areas. We had a couple of recycles as well who had both failed out on the sling load test.

SGT Brendan Beely, CW2 (Join to see) - I'm not 1SG Don A. Guess, but considering it's been over two years I figured I'll go ahead and answer for anyone that might be reading this. I've never had the greatest upper body strength, but rope climbing is easy for me. Learn to lock the rope between your feet. If done correctly you essentially stand on the rope exerting very little physical effort to keep yourself in place with your arms just being used to loosely hang on to the rope and keep you vertical. Next use your hands and upper body strength to get a solid grip on the rope, unlock your feet, and then use your core muscle strength to "inchworm" your feet higher. Lock your feet on the rope at their new higher elevation and "stand up." Most of your vertical gain should be achieved by using your legs to stand your body up and get a higher grip on the rope. Rinse and repeat.

1SG. I need advise on the rope climbing please. I am about to go full force with the course in less than a month.

Can we use the same technique the marine corp uses to climb a rope? 1SG Don A. Guess

Where are you going to AASLT at? My advice to you SPC, is to make sure you know how to climb a rope. For zero day, make sure you don't give up on yourself. It might suck but pain doesn't last forever, make you get your packing list inspected at least times before you go by at least three different NCOs. If they're AALST qualified, even better because they'll know what to look for. Don't over think this and sike yourself out. Put your best foot forward and believe in yourself and those wings are as good as yours

I agree with SGT Eashman in regards to ensuring you can climb a rope before you attend as the Tough One is a mandatory obstacle and failure to negotiate the rope will send you home. Aside from that, in my 1.5 years spent as an instructor, I have noticed that the two obstacles shorter individuals struggle with the most are the Low Belly Over and the Six Vaults. On the Low Belly Over there is not a whole lot you can do if you are unable to jump high enough, the Six Vaults however can be successfully negotiated through proper technique. When you practice the O-Course with your unit ensure to ask for a demonstration of the windmill technique or at the very least do so when you go through on Zero Day and are getting your obstacle briefs. Rather than having to hop over the six horizontal beams which requires a decent vertical jump this method is more of a rocking motion which I have seen prove to be successful for countless of individuals who are on the shorter side. (Besides with a 300+ PT score you may do better than you think.) After the O-Course all you need to do is maintain an attention to detail and you will do great.

Any chance you can provide some more info about the windmill technique? I'm not going to do well on the vaults...

2LT (Join to see) - I'm with the rest of the group, you need to be able to climb a rope. And attitude is everything, keep a positive attitude and tell yourself you can do this.