level 4 AFF - control and parachute landing falls

Today I failed my very first AFF lesson.  In this lesson, our primary objective was to initiate a stable 90-degree turn.  This is to be done completely unassisted, though I can't really say that I'm flying solo just yet, I still needed to jump with one (1) instructor.

So what went wrong?  Finding stability was a strong suit of mine on the last 3 jumps, something weird was going on with this one.  When I went to initiate a right hand turn, I would start spinning left and in fact began accelerating almost uncontrollably.  I won't bore you with the details, but this was in fact the most fear I've ever experienced in a free fall.  Losing control is like losing your mind.

Control is the only reason why I would even think about taking the responsibility of skydiving into my own hands.  In many ways, control is the only rationalization behind living.  If the choices we make do nothing to affect our destiny, then control of our lives are out of hands and ultimately freedom of choice is only an illusion.  Many experienced skydivers (or participants of any thrill sport) can tell you that they no longer do it for the thrill.  Personally, I've been on 50+ different roller coasters all over the US and to be honest I can't say that I feel any fear during any portion of any part of the ride nowadays.  (This is what actually prompted me to pick up skydiving.)  The gratification from skydiving comes from not scaring your pants off every time you do it, but from being to mitigate that risk and conquer death through your own skills to which you are constantly developing.  The most control you have, the more fun it gets.  In other words, you are the sole arbiter of your own life, of your own destiny.  There aren't too many other activities (falling towards the Earth) where this fact is so clearly evident and consciously perceived.  The power and level of control inherent in skydiving is enough to excite the people that call themselves "skydivers".

Back to my freefall:  I couldn't control which why I was spinning and everything I did to stop it only made the problem deepen.  I couldn't' take it anymore, I spotted 6,000 feet on my altimeter and I waved and pulled my pilot chute.  I was supposed to pull at 5,000 feet, but I had just about enough.

To salvage the jump, I practiced stalling my parachute during my descent.  There's really quite nothing like it.  You are purposely allowing the parachute to collapse in on itself, propelling you towards the Earth back to the terminal velocity of close to 120 mph.  Fortunately the practice stalls aren't meant to last very long, and I released the brakes immediately to allow the parachute to resume flight.

As I approached the landing zone, there was a noticeable increase in my speed.  I couldn't quite figure out why this landing felt so different.  I knew that it was important not to flare (brake) too early, but I took this concept much too far.  As the ground came rushing up to fill up everything in my field of vision including my peripheral vision, I heard my coach yell  frantically, seconds before my landing, over our one-way radio, "What the hell are you doing?! FLARE NOW!!"

Too late. I hit the ground at full speed and was sent tumbling head over heels.  I'm guessing most people don't walk away from crashes like this, because people were astounded that I was getting up to pack up my parachute.  Even more astounding was that I didn't have a single scratch on me.  I have the parachute landing fall (PLF) to thank for my safety, regardless of the stupidity of the pilot using it.

I retook the lesson and passed, although barely, my problem is that I was still a bit tense and the left spinning 360 degree turn was happening again.  I was losing control. Again.  The breakthrough occurred when I was close to giving up, I relaxed every muscle in my body and finally let go.  I'm done with this.  I could feel the stability instantaneously, without hesitating I began initiating the turn and managed to do two 90 degree turns before my pull altitude.  My instructor saw the whole thing.

In order to take control, I had to let go.  I know it's cliche, but I hope to have many more lessons as important as this one.

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As a side, I wish I could write an entire post on this, but the night prior I completed my very first backflip.  (Technically called a backtuck)  It was fucking AMAZING.  I don't want to take any credit away from myself, but my first backflip was completed at an indoor trampoline park literally filled with kids at least half my age.  I brought a friend who had the same goal I did and it only took me about 15 head, neck, and shoulder landings to find my groove and stomp each and every landing thereafter.  (This is probably why I couldn't tell what got hurt during my parachute crash, I was already sore and cramped from head to toe from the failed backflip attempts.)  I can't wait to expand on this skill, more to come...

my 3rd AFF freefall session

Today is my last day having to jump with two (2) instructors on my Accelerated Free Fall (AFF) lesson.  From here on out I will only be jumping with one (1) instructor, plenty in my opinion, I will be sure to bring a larger set of balls to compensate.

Overall this lesson was pretty cool and extremely simple.  I was to do exactly as I have always done, jump out, check my altimeter constantly and control my free fall with a good arch.  This time there was a bonus: the instructors would actually let me go this time so that I was making my own damn body stable as I was falling.  Overall I was not completely 100% stable, but I was good enough to pass an go on to level 4!

I also want to make one interesting observation about today.  If you've been following my blog at all, you'd know that I am a walking contradiction and I love finding irony.  Check this out:

Most people don't realize this but the majority of the time skydiver's spend at dropzones (DZs) consists of either training on the ground or WAITING to get on your assigned plane.  In other words, the actual free falling and piloting your parachute like a badass takes up the minority of your time there.

If you don't have something to keep yourself occupied, you WILL DIE OF BOREDOM.  Don't get me wrong, there is always a flurry of activity going on with different skydiving teams, and tandems going in and out ( and up and down).  Since I'm not part of any of that I just wait my turn.  I have spent many cloudy/rainy/windy days at the DZ only to have my skydive canceled due to weather being too "extreme" for a student.

So what do you do?  Bring a laptop? Yeah I did that once, it was actually really productive of me.  Despite that, I think the best use of my time is to make new friends.  I mean fuck it, this is why it's worthwhile doing anything, the fact that you get to share your epic experiences with one another.

So on this particular day I saw this girl that was in a class for her first AFF jump.  Later on, there we are, sitting on a bench waiting for our respective planes to whisk us away.  After a few moments of waiting, I speak up by asking her if this was her first jump.

Nope, she's done two tandems already.  She's going straight to AFF level 2.

"Cool. So is my friend," I introduce her to my first jump classmate and then promptly introduce myself and proceed to ignore him the rest of the day. (Sorry dude ... fine, I'm not that sorry.)

So we hit it off pretty well, she's this super cool, rock climbing, scuba diving chick that is basically just looking for not only the next big adventure, but also looking to conquer her fear of heights.  I'm this random, just moved from Boston, motorcycle riding dude that watched just a little too much Youtube and now wants to "wingsuit it up" as soon as humanly possible.

I think after about a cool half hour of shootin' the breeze with her, I realize that this was a cool ass chick.  Man I wish there was some way I would get to talk to her again.  I glanced at the clock that counts down your boarding time for your plane, I was up next.  Damn, if I just say "peace out, it was nice chatting with you" it's possible I might not see this girl again, ever.  So should I ask her for her number?  Is that tacky/creepy/a terrible idea?  Will she burst out laughing in the middle of this crowded hangar and subsequently begin a chain reaction where everyone starts to point and laugh at me?

So I freeze up and hesitate for literal minutes about whether or not I should ask a girl I like for her phone number right before I (with absolutely no hesitation) jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet in the air hurtling towards the planet at 120 miles per hour.

What kind of paranormal logic is that?!  CONTRADICTION AND IRONY ALERT!  This is like a pedobear that doesn't like kids.  What kind of shit is that!?

Luckily I caught myself, fully recognized the irony and was like, "Listen my plane is coming up and I definitely would want to continue this convo later, here take my number (I hand her a pen) and call/text me sometime.  Also it gets kind of boring waiting around for your plane by yourself" etc etc.

Smooth Alex, smooth.  Give her YOUR number so as to take the pressure off the whole situation.  Most people aren't rude enough to refuse a phone number.  The simplest, most non-confrontational way to resolve that unwanted attention is to wait for that person to walk away and throw his desperate-ass 10 digits away.  If she is cool with my having her number, she will simply call me later (or text in today's wacky world of iPhone's and emoticons).

She takes the pen and looks at it funny, as if she wasn't sure what to fuck to do with it.  In about 2 seconds, I realize why: her cell phone is LITERALLY in the same hand she took the pen with.  So she awkwardly gives me a look, I figure it out after a second and take the pen back.

"Yeah sorry, apparently I'm still in the stone ages, people don't write numbers out anymore I guess."  **Awkward, and clearly forced chuckle**

So we sit there as she is trying to unlock her phone, which by the way picked a terrific time to go ahead and freeze on her.  It's a brand new Galaxy S3 and it's frozen at the lock pattern screen.  Never in the history of phone unlocking was the repeated swiping of the passcode more ... can I say it? ... awkward.

Picture this: My awkward ass hasn't given out a phone number to a girl that I just met in ... a very long time.  So I'm already internally hyperventilating from the massive and sudden increase of the size of my kahunas.  She's a bit awkward too because her brand new phone is malfunctioning for the first time while at the same time this quirky Asian dude is breathing down her neck more or less force-feeding her his phone number.

At some point, I regain consciousness and hand her back the pen and gave her the "I told you so/technology is unreliable/I may have a huge erection" look.  YES, they are all the same look; NO, I won't teach it to you.

She writes my number down on her training manual and I could feel everyone at the DZ breathing a sigh of relief.  Seriously, my jump master all the way across the hangar was probably about to 100 meter dash all the way across the hangar to me and this girl to write my number down for her.

So there it is, the lamest story ever told about getting a girl's phone number.  I wish I could say that I was smoother, but come on at least I got the job done.  By the way, she ended up texting me.

level 2 AFF - apparently BASE jumping is NOT safe

I was in an airplane this morning prepping myself for my second skydive. I had the good fortune to meet the only other Asian person on the plane, coincidentally also named "Alex". He asked me how many jumps I've had so far. I hold up a single finger. I asked him how many he had, "About 180".

Keep in mind we are on a loud ass, propeller-driven plane, half yelling the whole time.

"What got you into skydiving?", he asks me.
"Too much Youtube!", I respond, "I want to BASE jump off cliffs in a wingsuit in the near future!"
"You're crazy man!"
"Why!?" (I was a bit offended being called crazy by a skydiver with 179 more jumps than me.)
"Listen, put it this way: You can convince your parents on the safety of skydiving based on the statistics available. You WILL NOT be able to do that with BASE jumping. I might do it as a bucket-list thing, but once is enough."

This is where I realized he was absolutely right about me. Here was my automatic response:

"If you are looking up safety statistics, then you should NOT be BASE jumping."

ESPN - A Sport to Die For

Welcome to my dream in three short films.

Update: 09/10/12 @ 11:45pm Central Time

I've been keeping track of a BASE fatality list and noticed yesterday that it was reported a Swedish woman died from a BASE jump.  What chilled me to the bone was I was checking it again today and saw that there is already a new fatality, a male from New Zealand.  It would be prudent for me to take my 180 jump Skydiving friend a bit more seriously.

BASE Fatality List

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today a girl leaves for singapore

Some people post really innocuous, but at the same time, publicly awkward status updates on Facebook.  That's their thing, I'm cool with that.  That's how they deal.  This particular post and video is probably a bit more self-indulgent than I would normally be comfortable with, but nobody reads my blog anyways.  That's the reassuring thing about being emo in your blog, the truth is, nobody knows about it, and even if they did, nobody fucking cares.  You aren't reading this unless you've stumbled onto it by accident or you went out of your own way to look for it.  Either way, happy reading!

Yeah so this day was pretty brutal for me.  It's really to hard to put into words the type of relationship I shared with Yennej (clearly not an alias).  For sure though, it was not one of those perfect unions where people are clapping as you walk into the room in slow motion, with the trademark thumbs up and pat on the back by some random dude; which is unfortunate, because everybody deserves that kind of relationship.  Not the clapping part (and definitely not the creepy back patting dude), but the part where you are really proud of the relationship itself and very happy with the person you're with.

I chalk up the failure of our relationship to a variety of factors both inside and outside of our control.  What this post is mainly about is my role in all of this.  I can, with a great deal of certainty, attribute a ton of responsibility to myself for our breakup.  I'm a textbook commitaphobe, but to me it didn't feel like a fear of commitment.  It felt more like two people being wrong for each other and it was my duty to correct it.  With that line of thinking, I could always justify trying to end the relationship, I could justify just about anything.

But was I *really* with the wrong person?  How are you really supposed to know?  If you aren't sure what love is, then what do you do when you're with someone and all they've ever wanted was just that?

Not one to withhold credit where it is due, I have to give her some props, this was one tough chick.  I don't think I've ever given her even *one minute* of reassurances in the entire three year span we've been together that I was going to be sticking around.  I wasn't sure what I really wanted to do, and I didn't want to lie.  So when decision time came around, I opted out of the relationship every time.  The crazy thing is she continued to stick with me, to believe that things will get better.  Lesser girls would have already stabbed me in my sleep and cut off my ball-sack feeding it to wild coyotes, but not her.

I know she will laugh about this later (hell, she's probably laughing about it now) but she would actually break up with me to prove a point, or at least I think she was doing that.  My problem is that I would never quite get the message.  I would be sad, but ultimately I would self-justify that it was for the best and move on, usually just hang out at a party or two only to get a call from her that night asking "wassup?"

Wassup?  Umm aren't we broken up?  Why are you calling?  She would get SO PISSED, because apparently she was only breaking up with me to make me realize that "I really wanted to be with her and be a better boyfriend".

Oh that's why you did that? My bad. LOL.

One time, I kid you not, she did this over a powerpoint presentation (we both went to business school) and it was AMAZING.  I'm talking slide transitions, an interactive global map, like EVERYTHING.  To this day I'm still trying to get a copy of this powerpoint breakup presentation, but she won't cough up the goods on the off-chance that I use it to "reveal how crazy she is".  (What she didn't factor in is that I'd be making a blog about it cementing her infamy in the blogosphere.)

I thought it was too dangerous, to let go and just admit to someone that you care about them, maybe even love them, because what if you took it back?  That would be such a dick move.

I've come to learn that the *real* danger is thinking that you are stronger than other people because they can't hurt you; thinking that you shouldn't reveal any feelings at all because you're worried you could change your mind.  I've been doing that for 23 years, and it's great and all, except when you have a total emotional breakdown because you realize you've just been a total douche your entire life and you finally want to make things right.

Something deep within me woke up the day she told me she was going to Singapore with another guy.  It was really surreal, because one second, I'm continuing down the well worn path (by being all too ready and polite about saying goodbye) and wishing her the best of luck her on her new venture, and the next second, BAM!! I'm on a plane back to Boston to stop her from making THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF HER LIFE.  In all seriousness, who really knows if her decision is a mistake or not?  Maybe this could be the best, for the both of us.  Maybe just for her?  Maybe I will finally find the person I'm meant to be with out of all of this.  (Or maybe I'll be alone and die someday in a BASE jumping accident. Lol, I kid around but this could definitely be a possibility.  See: apparently BASE jumping is NOT safe)

Also to be completely fair, I was the one to say goodbye first when I made the decision to move to Texas.  All Yennej did was continue the spirit of my decision and tell me to screw off when I showed up to Boston eight months later.  At the time, Texas should have been a very temporary thing.  This "Texas" decision is a whole 'nother blog post so I won't get into it.

Every time I tried saying goodbye to her, it always came out screwed up somehow.  Either we are being rushed by flight times at the airport or revealing that she was more than just friends with the "other guy" and making everything about our last 30 seconds together awkward.  Maybe there isn't a clean way to ever say goodbye, maybe goodbye was never meant to be poetic and reassuring, but rather heart wrenching and unfinished.
...

By the way, the "mouth closing spell" was "Silencio!" We haven't spoken in months, in a roundabout way, I guess the spell finally worked.

One last thing: Fuck airports.