A perspective from someone who did it a handful of times and quit: it seems like tandem diving is the 'normal' way to start out these days? When I did it, we did static line jumps (essentially, a rope hooked to the plane that pulled your chute for you) with old military-type circular chutes. Had a full 20 minutes of ground training
..... the only thing I really retained was to NEVER look at the ground as you were about to land or you'll instinctively pull your feet up - always look at the horizon .... next thing I know I'm climbing out on a wing strut with a little foot plate welded to it (imagine climbing up on the roof of your Porsche at about 125MPH .....). This was a small Cessna capable of carrying 5-6 jumpers. The first jump scared the living ***** out of me - good thing about that static line cause I don't think I could've pulled the emergency chute prior to impact! Awesome ride down with the chute open tho. Except that I started looking around and couldn't find the friggin' airport! Then I remembered another tip from the 'instructor' - look for airplanes. Duh! So I landed, and was watching the next guy coming down. 20 feet from the ground, he looked down ...... broke both legs. Ouch. Gotta say I was on an adreneline buzz for a good 2 days after that 1st jump! Never experienced anything like it before or since.
Made a few more jumps but decided hours of prep time and flying - all for 1 dive lasting several minutes - just wasn't for me. Instant gratification thing I suppose.