The ‘father of skydiving’ shares a glimpse into his incredible knowledge. Prepare for knowledge bombs, anecdotes, and entertainment as Bill takes you on a 50 year journey through his experience of skydiving in his renowned ‘History of Skydiving’ presentation.
Video shared from Skydive The Mag
Subject: Exchange of Aerodyne semi-stowless deployment bags supplied for Icon harness & container systems.
Status: Mandatory.
Compliance: Completed by April 30th, 2018.
Authority: Gordon Sellers, President Aerodyne Research LLC
Date of issue: December 18, 2017
Identification: All semi-stowless deployment bags, with side tuck tabs and magnetic mouth closure, sold with our Icon containers or as a spare part from June 2015 until October 31st, 2017.
This bulletin does not affect the semi-stowless deployment bags delivered after Nov. 1st, 2017, which have red stow pockets for the magnetic mouth closure system.
Background
In 2015, Aerodyne began to offer a semi-stowless deployment bag as an option. In the last year there have been reported irregularities with premature releasing of lines (known as a line dump) where this bag has been in use.
Aerodyne has thousands of Icons in the field for many years with regular deployment bags using rubber stow bands with no known issues regarding line control during deployment.
Based on these reports, Aerodyne has performed additional tests on the design of the semi-stowless bag in different conditions. These conditions accounted for a wide variety of variables such as canopy sizes related to the bag size, types of canopy fabrics, types of lines, opening speeds, and more importantly, a variation of canopy packing techniques that we understand are used in the field.
Through this additional testing we have determined that some of these conditions can exist, causing a premature release of lines from the bag. This uncontrolled deployment of lines may cause variations in opening characteristics, and could lead to lines being caught on the container or jumper.
As a result of continued development of Aerodyne’s products, an improved semi-stowless deployment bag has been designed which better addresses these issues. These bags are delivered with all new Icon containers where this option is required.
To increase safety for everyone using the semi-stowless design, Aerodyne wishes to offer every Icon owner to have the latest version of this bag.
Thus, Aerodyne has decided to offer an exchange program and upgrade all the original semi-stowless deployment bags, and remove the first version of bags from further use. This replacement bag and return shipping to you will be at no charge to the customers, and will not distinguish if the bag is in a rig that is sold second hand. Simply put, if it’s an Aerodyne semi-stowless bag, Aerodyne will exchange it to the new version free of charge.
Until users have received their new bags and wish to jump their equipment, we recommend that the packing instructions for the semi-stowless bag be noted and followed. We have experienced a variety of packing methods on the semi-stowless bags in the field, and would remind users that free stowing lines in any type of a semi-stowless bag is a technique that requires understanding and attention.
Action Required
In an effort to minimize disruption for our customers, we are in the process of manufacturing the new replacement bags and the practical exchange can start from the second week of January 2018. New semi-stowless deployment bags will be exchanged upon return of the original semi-stowless bag.
To prepare the exchange of these bags, and for Aerodyne to manage the program in the best possible manner, customers must register on Aerodyne’s website. This can be done as soon as possible.
Actions for customers to take:
Visit https://www.flyaerodyne.com/registration/ and register your request for exchange. Please note this is important, even if you don’t send in the bag straight away.
You will receive an email acknowledgement of your registration. Please keep this for your records. Please print and include a copy of this document when you return your bag for exchange.
We will start the exchange process from the second week of January.
With about 500 bags in 10 different sizes in the field, bags will be manufactured and made available in the order they are requested. The sooner you send your bag in, the earlier it will be replaced.
Bags will only be exchanged upon receipt of old bag.
If you have no need for a new bag immediately, please wait a while and let your skydiving friends who are active and maybe in a more jumpable climate get their bags first.
Exchange Centers
To aid in the process of distribution, after registration old bags – with a copy of the registration – can be returned to the nearest exchange center to you. Once received we will process a replacement and send within two weeks.
North and South America (USA Canada, Mexico, South America)
Aerodyne Research LLC,
1407 Flightline Blvd, Unit 14, Deland FL 32724
Europe
Aerodyne Research Europe c/o Herman Landsman
Hoofdweg 101, 1795 JC De Cocksdorp, Holland
Australia
Mee Loft c/o Koppel Solomon
84 Park Rd, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102
Rest of World (Africa, Far East)
Aerodyne Research Manufacturing
115 Marshall Drive, Crawdord Factories, Mount Edgecombe, South Africa 4300
We're back again for the 2017 festive season, bringing you some gift ideas for your skydiving buddies or family members. We've spoken to the guys over at ChutingStar and Para Gear, and asked them what they recommend to those looking to fill some the stockings with some skydiving gifts, while at the same time, not breaking the bank.
Full-Face Helmets - $285-$428
Get a free ChutingStar Helmet Bag with the purchase of any Full-Face Helmet on ChutingStar.com. Just put both items in your cart and the ChutingStar Helmet Bag will be discounted 100% at checkout! ChutingStar stocks full-face helmets from Cookie, Bonehead and Square1 in all sizes and colors.
Available at ChutingStar
Selection of Goggles
Provide your mate with quality eye protection, with an affordable gift of goggles. Para-Gear offers a variety of skydiving goggles to fit your price range.
Available at Para-Gear
Manufactory MX Series Shorts - $149
MX Series Skydiving Shorts are triple-needle stitched with reinforced seams and bartacks on all high stress areas. A Cordura Nylon exterior with an internal breathable mesh liner allows effortless comfort with structural integrity. Available in 4 colorways in sizes 2XS to 2XL!
Available at ChutingStar
Glow Face Alt III Galaxy - $169
Meters and Black Only. The phosphorescent face provides a background glow to assist in low light conditions. The glow lasts over 2 hours in complete darkness, and is perfect for either night jumps or those sunset loads when it starts to get dark.
The Glow Face Altimaster III Galaxy features a field replaceable lens. In case your lens gets scratched or cracked you will now be able to replace it yourself instead of having to send it to get serviced.
Available at Para-Gear
USPA Skydiving Calendar 2018 - $15
13 months of incredible 11x14-inch photographs by skydiving's best photographers! The 2018 USPA Skydiving Calendar is the perfect holiday gift.
Available at ChutingStar
Cookie G3 Helmet - $379
Welcome to the G3 headgear, Cookies latest release full-face headgear and a result of significant refinement of the previous full-face headgear.
The G3 features the original VMech Visor Locking System that works unlike any other in the industry. The system makes for easy opening and positive locking of the headgear visor.
The visor is 2mm polycarbonate and features a complex curved design for extra strength, unsurpassed field of view and an anti-fog coating.
The headgear's cinching system is simple and secure, adjustment can be made to customize the headgear fit and once locked down just throw the headgear on and jump.
Available at Para-Gear
Parachuting Flipping Santa Musical Christmas Ornament - $24
This large parachuting Santa Claus sings Jingle Bells while he performs front flips and back flips under a round parachute! The perfect skydiver Christmas ornament!
Available at ChutingStar
Power Tools - $19.95
Want a great stocking stuffer with a low price? Give your loved one a Power Tool packing tool in holiday colors!
Available at Para-Gear
Dropzone.com Picks
In addition to the products above, selected by both ChutingStar and Para-Gear, we've selected some of our own staff recommendations for gifts this season.
Turned On GoPro Status Indicator - $79
The first true hard-wired status indicator for extreme sports, tells you the exact status of your GoPro Camera while it’s mounted on your head. Its ultra-bright LEDs shine unmistakably in your peripheral vision: blue for “standby,” red for “record” and yellow for “warning/error.”
The Turned On device gets your mind back in the game -- and off your headgear-mounted GOPRO® HERO3, HERO3+ and HERO4. As you know, optimal performance in extreme sports requires an absolutely clear head (and nothing good can happen when personal safety takes a backseat to a blinking light).
Available at Para-Gear
Aluminum Personal Rig & Helmet Wall Rack -
$99
Tired of seeing your spouse's gear lying around causing a clutter? The personal rig &
helmet wall rack will provide an ideal way to store their skydiving gear in a style way that keeps their helmet and rig up on the wall.
Available at ChutingStar
Happy shopping!
How NZ Aerosports General Manager Attila Csizmadia Found His Niche
When I talk to Attila Csizmadia, he’s out of breath. He has just finished shaking down his four-year-old son for a set of puckishly “stolen” car keys, and it was a hell of a hunt.
“Sorry,” he says, “I was running around the house like crazy looking for them.”
Hidden keys are certainly not the only thing Attila runs after during the course of any given day. Since 2005, he has been the General Manager of NZ Aerosports--the central hub of operations for one of the sport’s most innovative, prolific and beloved parachute manufacturers. This is a dream job for a lot of skydivers, naturally, but it didn’t come easily. Indeed, one can’t help but think that running an office staffed with 30 to 40 staff is excellent preparation for the rigors of parenthood. The four-year-old is one of Attila’s two; the other is 13 years old--not far off from the age Attila was when he first started skydiving.
“I am not sure if [my sons] will skydive or not,” he muses. “If they want to and they ask me for it, then I’m going to make it happen. It’s up to them.”
It’s worth mentioning that if Attila’s boys start jumping, they’ll be a third-generation legacy. His own father was a skydiver and, though he stopped jumping when Attila was born, he’s much of the reason that Attila dove into the parachuting industry.
“He was jumping in Hungary, where we’re from,” Attila explains. “He was old-school, a military guy. As I was growing up, he was in keeping contact with his friends that were still jumping, and they were always talking about skydiving, even when I was a little kid. Then, when I was about 14 years old, I was talking to one of his friends who was still jumping; listening to his skydiving stories. I remember saying--and meaning it--that I could never skydive. But then a friend of mine brought it up. He’d just watched a record attempt or something on TV. He begged me to try it with him, and I agreed. He stopped after five jumps; it changed my life.”
“For me as a 16-year-old, getting into that group of people was just perfect,” Atilla remembers. “I was in school. It was all boys. I didn’t enjoy it. But then I went out to the dropzone and there was this friendly, crazy bunch. I was like, this is totally me. It felt like coming home.”
It was 1988. At the time, Hungary was still Communist country. Everyone skydiver in the country jumped really old, really dodgy military gear that was “15 years behind the rest of the world,” and every skydiver in the country knew every other skydiver in the country.
In 1991, the World Championships were held in what was then Czechoslovakia. They brought out some helicopters for the event, and the German, French and Italian 4-way team all came to Hungary to train.
“They were jumping these square parachutes that we’d never seen in real life before,” Attila laughs. “These guys were swooping, and we were just, like: what is happening here?! It was like watching spaceships land. We didn’t know what was possible. When these guys came here in these jumpsuits and small gear and like awesome canopy work, we were blown away. And I was inspired to start doing 4-way and competing.”
A few years of hard work later, Hungary had a young team.
“Because it was a new sport in Hungary,” he grins, “We won the Nationals pretty easily. Then we were the national team for a long time--almost 10 years. I was burning to get out there and travel and to jump everywhere I could overseas and to get a better rig and just do more.” He split his time between the US and Hungary for about five years, studiously avoiding European winters; he switched his seasonal pattern to Australia when he went to the World Championships there in 1999. To date, in fact, he has competed in no less than seven world championships.
“The last time I tried it, I couldn’t extend my visa,” he explains. “So there I was, facing returning to the middle of a European winter. I just couldn’t do it; there was nothing for me there.”
His solution: Hop the channel to New Zealand. He got a work visa and picked up a job at a dropzone throwing drogues and teaching AFF. He soon joined the NZ 4-way team. Everything was going well--but then the tone changed.
“My boss at the DZ was becoming a real a**hole,” he explains, “And I just desperately wanted to leave, but no one was hiring. Everybody had their staff. I needed to keep that work visa or I was going to be thrown right back to Hungary.”
As a last-ditch effort, he asked a couple of friends who worked for NZ Aerosports and if they were hiring. They were. It was 2005. Attila went right to work making line sets and cutting canopies.
“When I started working here, I thought I knew a lot about parachutes because I had been flying them a lot,” he says, wryly. “But when I got into the manufacturing side of it, I realized how little I actually knew. I found it really interesting and wanted to learn more and more.”
He found a peerless mentor in NZ Aerosports’ legendary founder/mad scientist/gear innovator/party animal, Paul ‘Jyro’ Martin.
“Jyro enjoyed that I was really interested in this stuff, and he just gave me so much information,” Attila says. “Then the guy who was managing the company at that time left. Jyro asked me if I wanted to do it. Of course I said yes.” It had been just six months since Attila had first accepted the job.
At the time, NZ Aerosports was a much smaller company. They only made six canopies at that time, and they had two sewing machinists. When Attila started managing, he was still the one cutting all the canopies. As he did so, he’d always have the office phone on him, taking orders; he’d be sorting out emails and charging credit cards with one hand and shipping out the canopies with the other. The work was, to put it mildly, intense. “One of my main tasks,” he laughs, “Was making sure the beer fridge was always full.”
“At the beginning it was really hard,” he relates. “I didn’t have any background in the business and hardly knew anything about it. English is a second language for me, so that made it a little bit harder too. I had to pretty much figure out everything for myself. At a certain point, I almost gave up because it was so stressful and things were not going really well. But then we pulled ourselves together with the manufacturing and started developing some new canopies. First, we released the JFX. We hired some new people, which brought in a nice newenergy. Then we met Julien [Peelman, Aerodynamics Engineer], and we started working on some of the really new canopies. There was no way I was leaving after that.”
Now, the NZ Aerosports office buzzes with the work (and play) of about forty people, all of whom report to Attila.
“It was a big learning curve, figuring out how to manage such a large number of people and deal with personal issues so that they still enjoy working together with all their differences-- the cultural gaps, the religious gaps and the age gaps between them. We have a big range. The youngest [staffers] are fresh out of school, and then we have some 60-something-year-old people working right next to them. We have people from Fiji...Canada...from all around the world, really. It’s like a dropzone.”
If you talk to anybody at NZ Aerosports, they’ll tell you that much of that vibrant energy came from Jyro’s influence--and, in March of 2017, we lost him. The loss of “the soul of the company” took a massive toll on the community that had formed at his feet, and Attila had to work even harder through his mourning. However, the spirit that Jyro instilled--in Attila, in his team at large and in the business--kept it from coming unglued.
“It is good to make some money, sure, but Jyro made sure it has never been our number-one motivation,” Attila explains. “You can see that the team is here all day, every day, working hard, and we always wanted to create a really nice environment for them that they truly enjoy working in. Because of that, people don’t really leave here. We’ve hardly changed any staff since I got here in 2005, and I think it’s because this is just a really good place to be. We all really pulled together when we lost Jyro. I think that’s what saved us--the people here, and our customers’ faith.”
Attila insists that that faith--the passionate support of the NZ Aerosports fan base--is the phenomenon that really drives the machine.
“I think that people respond to the fact that we are always trying new stuff; that we’re always improving,” he says. “That’s the part that’s interesting for us. We aren’t just developing new products. We actually want to make better products, and so we’re always searching for improvements on the designs. We have like 20 skydivers working here, so it is not just about driving revenue. I think that’s why people relate to it so strongly. This has always been more of a lifestyle than a business.”
If NZ Aerosports is indeed about lifestyle, Attila is great evidence that they’ve nailed the art.
“I think I found what I was trying to find in my personal life--a balance between family, the hobby and the business--in NZA,” he smiles. “I think that was always my goal, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Right now I feel that I’m in a really good place, and I’m ready for whatever comes next.”
Exit at Mother City Skydiving. Image by Christopher Teague
If the long flight puts you off--or if you’re new to the whole African-continent thing--let me be the first to tell you to get over it and get down here. You’ll be so glad you did. When the skydiving season is literally cooling off in the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere is just heating up. And it gets good.
While December-friendly dropzones in the States tend to be one-trick ponies (I’m looking at you, middle-of-the-desert DZs), their South African counterparts offer more than drafty hangars and lukewarm swimming pools for your landside entertainment. Much, much more. In fact, this author insists that every skydiver in the Northern Hemisphere should get a gear bag together and abandon bad weather for points south. (Spoiler: Sure, it’s about the jumping--but it’s about so much more than the jumping. When it comes to adventures, Africa never disappoints.)
Reason #1: Trip-of-a-lifetime ways to get your boogie on.
December is smack-dab in the middle of the summer boogie season in South Africa, so skydivers have even more incentive to book the trip. Skydive Mossel Bay, for instance, is planning some seriously sweet turbine-fueled freefly shenanigans for December 16-31. You can expect gold-medal coaching, all the organized jumps your fluttery little heart desires, a flurry of exotic aircraft, landing after landing on the bay’s powdered-sugar beach and a South-African-style party you’ll be talking about for years (if you register in time). If that’s not enough, point your navel at the ground and make some shapes at the belly-themed JBay Boogie, where you’ll jump with a view of the world-famous righthand pointbreak that is Jeffrey’s Bay. (Pro tip: Book both boogies and bring all your swimwear.)
View of the Cape Town area, with Table Mountain, as seen from Signal Hill. Image by Bryn De Kocks
If you end up in-country in November instead, don’t despair: There’s the Tonto Boogie up in Johannesburg from November 25-27. Sure, there’s no jaw-dropping ocean view--but there are plenty of planes, plenty of organizers, plenty of new friends and plenty of good vibes to make up the difference, and the “braai” (bar-b-que) is legendary AF.
Reason #2: (You guessed it.) Animals.
Want to wake up on the right side of the bed for a long day of jumping? Try taking a private open-air shower while listening to lions make big-kitty noises on the ridges nearby. That’s totally possible at Skydive Mossel Bay, which is just down the road from five-star safari digs at Botlierskop Private Game Reserve. If you feel like taking a coastal drive to explore around Mossel, do it with a purpose: You’re just a couple of hours from canoodling with pachyderms at the Knysna Elephant Park.
African Penguins along the Western Cape coast.
If you end up heading inland to do some jumping at Skydive Robertson, take a day to explore the “kloofing” (hiking) around McGregor village, where several beautiful conservation areas provide many miles of baboon-dodging along your route between the various waterfalls and bushman’s caves. And if you’re kicking around Mother City, take a long afternoon to swim with the penguins, go dassie-spotting on Table Mountain or stroll around Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. (Insider tip: Don’t miss the summer concert series.)
Reason #3: Chain restaurants and sorry Mexican food? Nopey nopey nope.
The exchange rate is currently favorable enough to turn your dropzone food strategy into a downright white-tablecloth affair, so don’t miss the opportunity. Skydive Mossel Bay sits right next to some of the best beachside braai spots in the country, as well as a couple of standout oyster bars and several coffee shops that are well worth a visit. Skydive Robertson’s choice spot in the Robertson Wine Valley puts a posh spin on the green light, offering up dozens of tasting rooms for your boozy perusal. Then, of course, there’s Mother City Skydiving--which is less than an hour from what is (in this author’s opinion as well as the Telegraph’s) the world’s best city, replete with gastronomic stunners, artisanal cocktails served in suitably slinky venues and pop-up supper clubs.
Reason #4: You’ve always wanted to.
You’ve wanted to see Africa for yourself since you first saw ‘The Lion King.’ (C’mon. You know damn well that’s true.) And now, as a mostly-grown-up skydiver, you have the perfect excuse to finally go: Staying current. There’s a nice bonus, too, for the moment: With the exchange rate being what it is, your USD--or GBP, if that’s your thing--are going to go surprisingly far towards those bucket-list African adventures. (Y’know: shark diving; cheetah snuggling; dancing around with the kids in an actual-factual village.)
...So it’s settled then. I’ll see you in December up in the big, blue African sky.
Right?
Right.
Last June a new European head up record was set. 43 skydivers (plus 2
cameramen) in the sky of Empuriabrava broke the previous 21-way record. Fly
Warriors, a team of 4 talented freeflyers, was behind that achievement. Three of
them, David Nimmo, Luis Adolfo Lopez-Mendez and Gustavo Cabana visited the
Belgian sky during the Flanders Boogie. I had the opportunity to interview them
and get some insight of how this was done. After thanking them for accepting
the interview, this is how the conversation went like.
Who are Fly Warriors? Tell me a bit of your history, previous teams, how you've gotten together...Nimmo: Luis and I were both members of Babylon freefly for
many many years. Around 2015 this was coming to an end, the end of an era, and
being still very keen to push the sport and not to pull back the reins in and
slow down, we combined with a 3rd guy -Raph Coudray-. He had just finished competing in VFS in one back to back world championship. It was kind of a natural
thing forming something together. And then we added a couple of young guys -Leo and Gyzmo- into
the team with similar ideas and did a 4 way dynamic team, which actually won the
world championship together. That kind of was the first year. Then Leo and Gyzmo wanted to focus on tunneling. And with Gus, we needed
video with obviously steady imaging and high quality. His level in freefly has
improved a lot in the last years, he has put a lot of effort on in, and we
asked him to join. And that's how we've got on. Real
professionals, independent, autonomous, all of us doing our own thing, but we
come together to do advanced and worthy stuff. So these jumps (head up European record) is how we do it.
Luis: One of the rules to become a Fly Warrior is that you need to be
over 40 (laughs).
Damian: So if you guys meet somebody young but really great... he
simply has to wait.
Nimmo: Too immature. At 40 you start to be a man maybe (laughs).
Fly
Warriors (From left to right: Gustavo Cabana, Raphael Coudray, Luis Adolfo Lopez-Mendez, David
Nimmo) with the record holders and the rest of the crew. Photo: Mariana
Franceschetto
Empuria seems to be
Europe's skydiving capital. What is the reason for that, what makes it so
special in your opinion?Gustavo Cabana: Empuria has over 30 years of history and during that time
they had many events and teams who train there because of the
weather and the aircrafts. It is just the best place in Europe to skydive, the
weather, the aircrafts...
Luis: And the location.
Gustavo: And the location! The location is incredible. I think it is
the only dropzone in the world that is in the town. It is not in an airfield,
in the middle of nowhere, it is really in the side of the town. Every time
you go away to jump somewhere else and you come back you can't believe that.
As a photographer to have the chance to jump there, to have the sea, the mountains,
you know, it is kind of the perfect background.
You were the
organizing team for the recent European head up record. Congratulations for
that fantastic achievement. What drove you to take on that challenge? At which
point did you decide "we have to do this"?Luis: Nimmo and myself, when we were in Babylon, we were involved in
other European records, head down. Head up started to wake up and become what it
is today (with respect to records). So when we went from Babylon to the
Fly Warriors Nimmo said to me that we should organize a head up record. And so
we decided to start with the first one, two years ago. We did a 21 way.
The problem is that the capacity of the planes is
limited. It is too expensive to have that many planes and to make it happen. So
being in Empuria with 3 planes made it easier to organize and we decided to put
the full fleet into work. And then we were thinking in starting a bit smaller,
but the two camps we organize in Empuria were really good and big and then the
feedback and registration for the record... we had to tell people to stop,
there was a waiting list. So we went for go big or go home, and we started with
slots and 2 camera flyers, which is the capability of the planes.
Nimmo: We basically maxed it out. To go any bigger we
would have to find money for other aircraft or another location. Europe or South
America don't have 5 Twin Otters or 7 Skyvans in the garage like in Eloy. So, it
is harder go to massiver. Shame.
How did you
organize the try-outs to attract jumpers from all over Europe? How was the
process of organizing the try-outs to select who is going to be part of it or
not. Was it enough with the camps you had in Empuria, or did you try to have
other people that you trust to organize some other camps, somewhere else in
Europe?Nimmo: To try and make it work, there is some smooth out. We had
different areas within Europe, like the German speaking section, the
Scandinavians, the English, the French... and for each area we had a team
captain. He was allowed to do some kind of trials to find out people of
this area that he would recommend to come to the record. So those 5 guys that
were part of that team had their job to do in the jump, and also to bring
people to us. It's helped to some degree but the biggest thing we did was some
try-out camps last year and 2 camps this year. We had a big interest in people
wanted to do head up, and we had the capacity maxed out in those camps. Most
people came from there. It worked out well. The
dropzone wants to do formation records. That's an offer than other places can't
do, that's a premium product that we have, and they are happy to that in the
future. So of course in the future if we can we will keep doing this up to 40
ways.
Base exiting from Twin Otter. Photo: Gustavo Cabana
The level has to be
super high once you select jumpers in the try-outs. How do you organize the
jump then? How do you decide who goes in which airplane, who is on base, who is
gonna sting it...?Luis: We try to find a slot for specific qualities. Maybe you are a
heavy person and fly strong, so we put you in the base. The first stingers are
people that can fly fast to get there. And then who closes
the pod needs to have the ability to grab 2 hands and then give shape to the pod. So we kind of
assess the people and give them a slot. We also had Antonio Aria taking care of
the bench. He is a very good organizer and part of the world record crew. And
in the last world record met with Raph Coudray and David Nimmo in Eloy. So that, combined with
our experience, the experience of the world record, and Antonio taking care of
the bench helped us to take decisions. When we needed to have a change we would come to Antonio and
say "we need a second stinger", and he would say "ok, from the
bench, this guy is rock solid. Now. Today". Because sometimes you have the
issue that you know people that are good flyers, but maybe they are having a
bad week or a bad day. And there is some other people that might not be that
strong, in paper, but that day they are on and then get on it. We had issues
with some flyers that were really good, but they had to be cut off, which it
was a surprise for me, and for sure for him. But then other people did their
job and at the end it is not a personal thing, we have a job to be done, and is
to get a record. It is a common goal
and not a personal goal. Which sometimes people don't understand. At the end,
after every record I tell Nimmo I won't never do this again -and then we do
another one-. Because you have 45 people that love you, then 15 that understand
that they had a very good training with the bench group, and 10 that don't like you
Damian: I guess it is also difficult if you have the level to be
there but are kicked out because you are not being consistent enough, I
guess... you know, it has to hurt your ego as well.
Luis: That's the biggest problem in skydiving at the end.
Damian: Ego?
Luis: Ego. Ego is a bitch. And it can kill you.
How did you decide
in other factors like altitude (did you take it as high as possible, decided to
do something lower...), speed (does the base accelerates or slows down, how
much...), shape of the formation, number of people on base, number of people on
base during exit.... How do you decide about all those details?Nimmo: Experience. We have done it enough and we trust that gut.
The formation is just a standard formation, a round thing with
round things attached to it. The base of whatever size and then you connect
pods like doing Lego. So there is nothing really to think about. And with Luis'
experience and Raph's, we look at people and we decide where they are gonna be.
Then you make mistakes and they might not be in their best place so you move
them around. But the most important thing for me is that we had a good base.
This is the key. If you have planes doing their job, the base doing
its job then you just have to take the picture. That's it. If the planes make a
mistake, they are too far away, whatever. The timing of the exit. Or the base
makes a mistake. Then for sure I guarantee nothing is gonna happen.
Luis: But everything starts from the number of people we are gonna
use. Nimmo and myself were discussing for a few months already about how much
people we are going to have in the base, if it is going to be 6 or 8 or 10. If
we have enough people to do that base, to do the pods, what is going to be the
shape... Like he says, we kind of go with the feeling. We can do this and we
put it on paper. We do on the first attempt what we think is best, and then you
realize that this person can be better here or there. So you start moving
pieces around so the structure is more solid.
Nimmo: We had a struggle with the beat. We did 6 jumps a day, which
is a lot to 18000 feet. In the 2 and a half days that took us to do the record
we did 16 attempts. Which is a lot of fucking work. So we really pushed it when
we had the conditions. We could have problems with the weather... there
are so many variables.
Gustavo: The thing with a record is that you need more time, no? So
why don't you go to 20000 or 25000? The problem when you go past 15000 is that
there is less oxygen and people are more prone to have hypoxia. For that we use
oxygen onboard, which helps you to keep sharp. But also because the planes need to climb
in formation, it takes longer to go up and it is kind of... I think we found
over the years that going to 18000 or 19000 maximum is a good compromise between
the effort to climb and what you are going to get for the extra time in
freefall. Also in the head down and head up world records we went to 18000-19000.
The challengers getting together during one of the attempts. Photo: Gustavo Cabana
It took 16 jumps to
get the formation completed. How was the atmosphere before that? Were you
absolutely confident you would make it?Nimmo: I mean, yeah. For sure the last 2 jumps... in the last one
too... we were flying very strong. We knew we would get a record. We started to
cut. We said 45... now we need to get a result. 44. We didn't get it. 43. Done.
The head up world
record is a 72 way, done in Skydive Arizona. Do you see that as an attainable
number in Europe? Or are we limited because of the size of the dropzones and
the number of planes there?Nimmo: It is logistics. You need to get sponsors that say "fuck
let's make this happen, here you have 20 grand, two more planes". Hell
yeah. But otherwise we have to pay. We, as the flyers. And there is a point
where you go "I rather spend that money doing other cool shit". The
record is very cool and it goes in the history books. It is an
achievement for all the participants. But you are still limited by how much you
have to pay for that. So yes, it is possible, but you need some extra sponsors.
Gustavo: 3 years ago we did a world
record with 106 people (FS sequential). But the thing is that bringing the
planes there is super expensive. And if that money has to come from the pocket
of the skydivers... it is too much money. It is really expensive to fly a plane
to a dropzone.
Luis: And it was happening, this 100+ way because Dubai helped financially to make it happen.
Gustavo: If not it is impossible.
Nimmo: It is possible, but we need someone to support it. But, why not?
Shall we look? Maybe we get hungry in a year or two.
Luis: That's why we stopped with the head down once. Basically.
Nimmo: Logistics. That's about flying at the end of the day. Because
if you have to choose between logistics and not flying you go "fuck this,
I want to fly". So there is also that trade off in the equation as well.
How much you want to work on the ground to make it happen, but all you want to
do is flying.
Luis: There is a lot of work behind the scenes. Registrations,
payments, getting everything done... The good thing about our team is that
everyone has a speciallity. And we combined them, and we do whatever we do
strong. We are lucky that we have a very experienced camera flyer plus he is
really experience with oxygen. So we have that part covered. Nimmo and me don't
have to think about it. Nimmo has a lot of experience organizing big ways. And that experience helps you to do the
things. Me and Nimmo are taking care of the administration as well. Receiving
and sending emails. Nimmo was talking to the captains, I was organizing the
payments...
Nimmo: Judges, T-shirts.... Bullshits that are just as important. And
we all do that without effort. You don't have to grab anyone and tell them
"do this" like a child. It is just "Hey, could you do this?
-Yeah, sure". And it gets done. So this
also makes the team mature enough to realize you have to do something to make it
work and to do that without having to be hit with a stick.
Luis: And how it works, I don't know. Because we are 4 alpha...
Nimmo: Yeah, 4 alpha males, and we don't kill each other, that's rough.
Damian: That's already an achievement (laughs).
Luis: That's an achievement right there.
Nimmo: Because we are more than 40. After 40 you can work together.
Luis: But I think that's the key, you know? You have things that
bother you about each other, because we are humans. But we are old enough to
either talk about it or understand that no one is perfect and you have to deal
with humanity.
Initial
attempt diagram. 44 and 45 were cut off for the final record.
One of the mottos
of the record was "make head up great again". Why did you came up
with it? When did it stop being great?Nimmo: That was because head up was kind of neglected. Head down
records started in whatever it was... 21-way in Florida in 2001... when the 1st
head up world record was in 2015 or something. That's 14 years neglected. For
no reason. Head down has got massive, 164. Head up was nothing. So I was
talking with Steve Curtis, a good friend of mine from Eloy. He thought "let's do a 30 way" the first one. They
did 52! You couldn't believe it! Because it was just left on the
shelf, blow the dust off and it was ready to go. So make head up great, bring
it to the level it deserves. It is even more fun to fly, easier visually, it is
more of human kind of orientation, it is better, for sure, its fun.
Damian: That's funny that you chose the word "neglected"
because I had a follow up question that used that word. Do you think it has
been neglected in favor of head down?
Nimmo: Head down is easier to build. Head up for sure its hard. You have to get
in there, be humble and give it a try, and you have to work much harder. But
visually it is easier, its more natural. People look like human beings not
assholes and feet (laughs). But to be
there you have to put a lot of work. Work really hard. But then it is super
good. And it is so small! There is the 72-way, so we can get a head up record
every year to get it up to 150 or something. I mean, it won't be like that
but...
What was in your
opinion the biggest challenge of the record? What's the part that you've found
more difficult? Was it the flying, finding the right people, nothing of it was
really a challenge?Nimmo: The whole thing is this one big fucking package. So you just
have to do it all. Was this harder than that? It doesn't matter, you have to do
it anyway.
Luis: The situation with the record is that it doesn't matter if we
flew 42 way for 20 seconds and one person is missing. There is no record. Or 43
flew for one minute but the camera didn't work, you know? Or 2 planes were
super good and then one plane just lost it and people don't arrive. So at the
end everything has to work, like Nimmo says. The pilots need to work together
so we have a good drop, then the base has to be solid and then from there you
start to construct. The camera needs to be in the right place, take the right
shot so the judges can validate it. So, I would say, there is nothing more
important than other things, because without the pilots we could not do it,
without the base we could not do it, without stingers we could not do it,
without the second stingers we could not do it, without the pod closers as
well, without the cameras you can not, without the oxygen....
Nimmo: Just before, until
Sunday it was fucked up weather. And then hallelujah, we had blue sky. We were blessed with the
weather. Again, that's another factor and you can't control it. But it would
have been very frustrating that being the fucked up. But it wasn't.
Luis: And then everyday you need a lot of work after the jump and
before the jump. At nights, Gus can tell you, how much work he has to do to
prepare the planes to be ready to go.
Gustavo: Yes, because after every couple of jumps we need to exchange the
oxygen bottles. Attach them to the plane, the regulators. And sometimes the plane runs out of oxygen,
and people are waiting... It is kind of stressing, but at the
end of the day you have to do it, and when it works it is very satisfactory.
I was on the boarding area with my rig and I had to
check and make sure that every airplane had oxygen to go up. Because I've been
in many occasions in other records when you go to altitude, and they cancel the
jump because one plane run out of oxygen. And we had all to come down. It
happened many times. Minimum 4 times in 4 different events.
Damian: It has to be frustrating.
Gustavo: Specially if you are the responsible for that. Everybody
wants to kill you (laughs).
43-way formation completed. Photo: Gustavo Cabana
Who do you think is
going to organize the record that will break yours? When and by how much? If
that happens!Luis: What do you mean? In Europe?
Damian: Yes.
Luis: We will try to organize all the records in Europe.
Nimmo: This is the best you could do. So if somebody wants to do it
again... well, show me. In the history of records normally the dropzone or
group that organized the previous one they do it again. The Arizona crew do the head up records.
Rook Nelson does it with the head down records. Not because nobody else can do it,
but because these guys really do it. If Rook said "fuck head down I am not going
to do it" for sure someone will pick it up and try to run with it. But
then, they don't have the experience. So it also makes sense to go with the
guys who have done it once, twice, or five, six times.
If somebody else tried to organize it I would never try to do anything against it, you've got to
respect it. But the record is coming together, unified. We have to work
together or we are going to get nothing. Unified, together, big. Not your own
little shit.
Question for Gus.
The record is 43 people, plus cameramen. Gustavo, you were the wizard behind
the lens -with Will Penny as second cameraman-. You were also in other records.
How did you live each one of them?Gustavo: I always think that the cameramen are under pressure, but
not the same kind of pressure as the participants. Normally in a record we
have several cameras, so if one fucks up, the other one can have the shot. But
in the formation if one fucks up there is no record. Our pressure is more about
trying to be happy with us, with our job. The participants need to do their job
to get the record, and I feel like I need to take the best picture I can to be
happy with me. Also, I've been involved in records since many years, and what I
like about them is that everyone come together, to do something together. It
is not like in a competition where people compete against each other, and some
are going to be happy and some are going to be losers. And not only jumpers,
also people on the ground are helping you, your wife, your girlfriend, your
boyfriend, whatever, are there to help you to make it happen. The feeling you
have when is done is very unique. The feeling of unity and working together. I shoot almost every
discipline in skydiving: Belly, canopy formation, head down and head up. And at
the end I think that everyone has his own pace and feelings, but one feeling
that for sure is great is that you are taking a picture of the best skydivers
at that time in history. And it is a very good feeling to be part of that. It
is cool. Everyone there worked hard to be there. It is not like "I want to
do a record because I want to be cool". No, you need to work your ass off
to be a record holder.
European HeadUp Record 43 Way, June 23th 2017, Skydive Empuriabrava, Spain from Gustavo Cabana
Assuming each one
of these records is special, what made this one special for you?Gustavo: For me the most important record is the next one. It is not
like this one is special, and the other one was less special. The record
happened and it happened, it is in the past. Now you are looking forward to do
something more. I think all of us are looking for that, looking to improve, to
do it better, or bigger, or whatever, but looking forward, not backwards.
Damian: Do you still see room for improvements, seeing that you are
current record holders, that you have so much experience, and you are among the
best in the world, do you still see room for improvement for what you do? Gus
behind the camera, you guys load organizing...
Nimmo: 100% man
Luis: 100%
Gustavo: If not you quit.
Nimmo: We don't know shit. 20000 jumps and we feel like we know
nothing. Sure.
Luis: I learn everyday, even in these events (boogies). From the
people, what I am doing. How did it work? What line I chose? Why I did that?
How can I make it better, get it tighter? And that's how we do it, we think how
to improve it, make it better, more efficient, we can dive better, we can build
better, how can the base fly better, how can we fly better. Everyone for sure
is looking at themselves in that video. And you are like "ok, I could have
done this better, I shouldn't have gone that far, I need to do it earlier, the
transition later". So I think everyone is criticizing themselves. At least
me. I am looking at myself. I am looking at the picture, but I am looking at
myself to see if I did a good job. How can I do it better next time?
Nimmo: When you stop that shit you are getting old, and next step is
death. So I am not going to stop that (laughs). You must keep doing this or you
die.
Luis: Or retire.
Nimmo: Or retire. Play golf or some shit.
Luis: And then you think about your swing (laughs).
So, after this
record, what is next? Is there any other challenge in the pipeline? Or are you
taking a break? Was it enough for the moment?Nimmo: We never take a break, we are constantly freeflying and along
the way we do these things. What is the next thing? I don't know, but there is
always something coming up.
Luis: I would say that record wise probably Nimmo would like to go to
the next head down record. Not me, I don't like head down
anymore. But for head up, when they decide to organize another world record I
think we are going to put an effort, probably the whole team, to go there and
be part of it.
Damian: I suppose that being the organizers of the European record
it is kind of natural for Fly Warriors to be part of the world record if
they organize it somewhere else.
Luis: Yes, well, we did a try-out camp for the world record in
Empuria. In partnership with Steve Curtis, Sara Curtis and Antonio Aria.
We saw how they organize it, and they saw us. And I think we've learned a lot. And they invited us to go there and help them organize. I didn't go, because I had other priorities financially at that moment, but the dropzone supported us. Nimmo and Raph went there and they were part of the organization of the world record. So I think that yes, we are going to be involved as Fly Warriors, even if it is only one or two.
Gustavo: Or 4
Nimmo: Gus shot the fucking record. So it was 3 out of 4 of us in the
record. I still like head down. Raph has lost a bit of the interest in big
stuff. You've done it, you've done it. But there is always another one to do.
You can always go a little bigger. Same shit, different day. Make it a bit better.
I missed one and wish I've gone. So if they do another one for sure, I'll try
to go. If I am not broke I'll go.
Gustavo: The plan I think it is 200 for the head down next year. And
the following year they are going to do a 100 for head up, for sure. One thing
funny about freefly is that they never did a round number. In belly it was 100,
200, 300 and 400 which is the last one. But in freefly they went with 108,
one hundred forty something, 164?. I hope this time they will do a fucking 200 and fucking
100. Why they can't be like the normal people? (laughs). Hopefully, let's hope
for the best.
The last question:
Would you like to say something that I haven't asked about?Nimmo: We've been talking for a long time here. It is good that we
are finished (laughs).
Gustavo: It is the longest interview ever (more laughs).
When Copenhagen hosts parachuting's inaugural Swoop Freestyle FAI World Championship August 25th & 26th, not only will it set the scene for the best athletes in the world but turn one of the oldest and most historic European capitals into an urban sports festival.
Combining world class sport with DJ's, live music, street food, air shows and various activities for all ages, will create a great festival feel around the World Championships. It is expected that over 200,000 spectators will visit the event at Peblinge Lake, downtown Copenhagen during the two event days. It will be possible to try tandem jumping over the city, bungee jumping, virtual reality parachuting and running across the lake in Fun Ballz.
"We want to create a festival feel around a world class sport by offering a host of activities and giving the audience a full Swoop Freestyle event experience. With different activations and touch points, the spectators will get opportunities to connect with the sport in an engaging way. We believe that by mixing world class sport with, great activities, music and street food, it will set the scene for future events in major cities where a broad activation is key," says George Blythe, CEO of A. Sports, the organizer of the Swoop Freestyle FAI World Championships.
Adrenaline packed sports festival in the heart of major cities
By taking the sport of parachuting, which is usually performed in small air fields, and bringing it into major cities, it gives the host city and local partners a great opportunity to work with potential clients and businesses.
Highlights from the 2016 CPH Invitational
"With the help from one of our partners, all spectators can download an app and send out their own live feed experience with a chance to be featured in different videos with other spectators both on the big screen at the venue and at the live feed going out to millions around the world," George Blythe adds and points out the mission for Swoop Freestyle: To build a world championship series in major cities worldwide such as Formula 1.
"The Swoop Freestyle FAI World Championship 2017 will not only be the first ever World Championship in urban parachuting in the heart of Copenhagen – it will also form the basis of a genuine festive celebration combining sport and spectators with a festival of side activities embracing the championship – an approach which is typically Danish," says Lars Lundov, CEO, Sport Event Denmark, the national sporting event organization that partners the event.
THE ATHLETES:
18 pilots from 10 different countries and with a total of 150,000 jumps between them:
#1 Curt Bartholomew, 31 years old, USA, 8000 jumps
#2 Nick Batsch, 35 years old, USA, 8500 jumps
#3 Claudio Cagnasso, 28 years old, Venezuela, 6500 jumps
#4 Ian Bobo, 46 years old, USA, 20000 jumps
#5 Cornelia Mihai, 32 years old, UAE, 10000 jumps
#6 Pablo Hernandez, 31 years old, Spain, 15000 jumps
#7 David Ludvik Junior, 38 years old, USA, 16000 jumps
#8 Marco Fürst, 26 years old, Austria, 4000 jumps
#9 Tom Baker, 27 years old, USA, 7000 jumps
#10 Chris Stewart, 28 years old, New Zealand, 7000 jumps
#11 Aurel Marquet, 34 years old, France, 2900 jumps
#12 Ulisse Idra, 27 years old, Italy, 7000 jumps
#13 Jeannie Bartholomew, 36 years old, USA, 4000 jumps
#14 Max Manow, 28 years old, Germany, 5000 jumps
#15 Mario Fattoruso, 30 years old, Italy, 6000 jumps
#16 Christian Webber, 30 years old, Denmark, 3400 jumps
#17 Abdulbari Qubaisi, 29 years old, UAE, 6300 jumps
#18 Travis Mills, 35 years old, USA, 13500 jumps
PROGRAM - FAI Swoop Freestyle World Championship 2017:
Friday August 25th - Swoop Training and Swoop Night Lights
3.00-3.30pm (15.00-15.30): Highlights from 2016 on big screen
4.00-6.00pm (16.00-18.00): Swoop Training - Round 1 and 2
6.00-6.15pm (18.00-18.15): Fly Boards show
6.15-9.00pm (18.15-21.00): Swoop Sessions, live music
9.15-9.45pm (21.15-21.45) - Swoop Night Lights (airshow with night jumps, lighted suits and pyro)
Saturday August 26th - Swoop Qualifying of Swoop Finals
12.00-12.30pm: Swoop Sessions, live music
12.30-12.45pm: Fly Boards show
1.00-3.00pm (13.00-15.00): Swoop Qualifying, Round 1 and 2
3.30-3.45pm (15.30-15.45): Show with wingsuits, BASE and Acro paragliding
4.00-6.00pm (16.00-18.00): Swoop Finals, Round 1 and 2 + medal ceremony. Who will be the first world champion?
6.15-9.00pm (18.15-21.00): Swoop Sessions live music, and meet'n'greet with the athletes
Other activities both days:
Tandem jumps over Copenhagen (For booking link and prices - click here)
Water blob (rental)
Floading couches (rental)
Fun ballz (rental)
Virtual Reality parachuting (rental)
Bungeejump (rental)
FAI Swoop Freestyle World Championships 2017
Training and Swoop Night Lights Friday August 25, Qualifying and Finals Saturday August 26 2017.
Location: Peblinge Lake, Queen Louise's Bridge, central Copenhagen.
18 parachute pilots from 10 countries.
It's the first swoop freestyle world championships ever in freestyle swooping (canopy piloting), sanctioned under the FAI, Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
Website and social media:
Website: http://www.swoopfreestyle.com
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/swoopfreestyle/
Instagram: instagram.com/swoopfreestyle
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1888604534750053/
FAI Swoop Freestyle World Championships 2017 will be the first ever World Championships in the urban parachuting discipline, freestyle swooping, and it will take place in the heart of Denmark's capital, Copenhagen, August 25 and 26 2017 - making this the premiere of a whole new urban world championship settings: Taking world class air sport to the people in the middle of great cities.
18 of the best canopy piloting athletes in the world will battle it out for the first ever world championship title in the freestyle discipline over two phenomenal days of high octane parachuting athleticism in the centre of Copenhagen. Over 100.000 spectators will be watching the event live with millions watching online and behind the screens worldwide.
The event format is the idea of two Danish entrepreneurs and in only three years, the event has grown massively and has revolutionised the sport.
Swooping is the new darling of parachuting and the freestyle discipline is the most spectator friendly and adrenaline seeking within human flight.The high-impact, adrenalin-fuelled discipline of Freestyle Canopy Piloting is known as Swooping, and involves parachutists flying at high-speed across a ‘Swooping Pond’ to score points based on style and execution.
Canopy pilots jump out of a plane or helicopter in 1,500 m/5,000 feet altitude, release the canopy straight away and start to navigate towards the surface immediately. To gain great speed, they make a series of turns before reaching ground level, and right before they make contact with the surface, they straighten out and with speeds up to 150 km/90 miles per hour, they do their freestyle trick on the water surface before landing on a platform on the water right in front of the spectators.
From local pilot project to official world championships
With the world championship stamp from the The World Air Sports Federation, FAI, the Danish organizers have gone from an idea and a pilot project to an official world championship in only three years.
"In the space of three years we have gone from an idea and pilot project with 10,000 spectators to an internationally recognised platform with hundreds of thousands now following live and behind screens across the globe. We have taken the sport on a journey, with the athletes now seeing themselves in a professional light and professional settings in the heart of major cities whereas they before were used to competing in small airports without spectators or media coverage. We have managed to bring the environment and talent together in a major project within the city and now with official recognition and the World Championship we are a step closer to realising our dream of a World Series," George Blythe, CEO of A. Sports, the organisers of the FAI Swoop Freestyle World Championships says.
International federation: We could not have a better venue than Copenhagen
"Freestyle Swooping really is one of the most exciting and dynamic air sports to watch. So it is very exciting, and my genuine pleasure, to welcome the athletes to the very first FAI Swoop Freestyle World Championships in Copenhagen. There couldn’t be a better venue than in the heart of this great city. It really is unique, and will help bring this rapidly growing sport to thousands of spectators both in the city and through the media. I would like to wish all the competitors, organisers, and volunteers a fun, safe and fair competition. I am looking forward to following this amazing event," FAI President Frits Brink said.
"The FAI Swoop Freestyle World Championships adds another dimension to our work with sporting events. Here we are talking about an event that has been developed in Denmark and now has been appointed official world championships. That fact is a cadeau to the organisers and the partners behind," says Lars Lundov, CEO, Sport Event Denmark which partners the event.
FACTS:
FAI Swoop Freestyle World Championships 2017
Training and Swoop Night Lights Friday August 25, Qualifying and Finals Saturday August 26 2017.
Location: Peblinge Lake, Queen Louise's Bridge, central Copenhagen.
18 parachute pilots from 12 countries.
It's the first swoop freestyle world championships ever in freestyle swooping (canopy piloting).
Website
Facebook page
Instagram
Facebook event
A jump ship at Perris airport was involved in a collision with a fuel truck on Wednesday 24 May 2017. According to official reports, the plane was in the process of landing when it hit the fuel truck, causing damage to the front and the wing of the plane. The aircraft then spun out of control, stopping just short of one of the building structures.
Despite a hard collision with the truck, and extensive damage to the plane, there was no fuel leakage from the truck after the incident.
Only minor injuries were reported by one of the two individuals on board, both of whom declined any medical treatment at the scene. The situation could have been different had the fuel tanker leaked, or had the plane been going any faster.
The 1976 de Havilland “Twin Otter” DHC-6 suffered severe damage to both the right wing and the nose of the aircraft. It wasn't immediately clear whether the aircraft was being rented by the dropzone or whether it is owned by Perris.
After the series of plane crashes in the past 2 years, this incident will go down as a best case scenario, with no fatalities or severe injuries.
The information as to exactly what happened to cause the plane to collide with the tanker wasn't immediately published, and would likely warrant an investigation prior to any public information being released.
Emma Tranter has helped airsports athletes get on--and stay on--the mat for 16 years. You’re next.
So, full disclosure:
This author has been practicing yoga for many years. I deeply believe that I couldn’t jump or fly without using yoga as a tool to undergird those activities, but it was so difficult to explain why that I generally deflected the conversation. After all, it used to be that chats involving yoga on the dropzone would end awkwardly (usually, with someone trying to fold themselves into lotus pose and falling off a barstool).
These days, other airsports athletes tend to be much more receptive--but they often insist they simply can’t do yoga themselves, always calling in one (or more) of these three reasons:
I don’t have time.
I’m not flexible.
I already work out enough.
But what if I told you that these are all dismantlable barriers? That you can--and very much should--knock them down? And that it’ll measurably increase your sports performance?
You certainly don’t have to take my word for it. Take Emma Tranter’s.
Emma is a force of nature in our sport. A longtime-professional-skydiver-and-traveller-turned-extensively-educated-yoga-teacher, Emma has over 16 years of experience melding these two seemly opposing practices (and understands firsthand, the desires, aversions and excuses of the adventure-seeker. If you’ve spent time at Skydive DeLand, you know Emma for her yoga studio: The Yoga Shed, so close to Skydive DeLand that a well-thrown baseball will easily make the journey from the dropzone parking lot to the studio’s front door. Along with running her yoga studio, Emma currently travels the globe from her home base to facilitate Fusion Flow wellness retreats at various wind tunnels around the world, She does this with her twin sister, peak performance health coach, Lucie Charping.
Arguably, Emma has the world’s most substantial experience in working with airsports athletes as they develop and advance a yoga practice. If anyone can break down the barriers between you and a yoga mat, it’s gonna be her.
So let’s get started, shall we?
ALO: Emma, tell us your abridged life story in the sky and on the mat.
Emma: I made my first jump at home in New Zealand in 1994. I was professionally skydiving for many years--traveling all over the world for the sport. I eventually came to DeLand and stayed.
I started teaching yoga in 2000, but I was still primarily a skydiver--packing parachutes and coaching at Skydive University and all of that kinda stuff. The balance shifted around 2003, when I completed a thousand-hour course in Precision Alignment Yoga. It was a two year training. It was awesome; I am still with those teachers.
As the early 2000s went by, I started to get more more dedicated and committed to yoga. I transitioned out of professional skydiving but I stayed very active in the community, and I still fly regularly in the tunnel. The tunnel gives me more space in my life to dedicate to yoga, and teaching yoga is undoubtedly what I am supposed to be doing with my life.
This is the sixth year of the Yoga Shed. Opening it in 2011 right next to the dropzone just seemed like the most natural choice in the world. I love to teach skydivers; they’re my people. And what skydivers find in a yoga practice is uniquely helpful to them.
ALO: Does it still feel to you like people in these sports have the wrong idea about yoga?
Emma: Oh yeah. A lot of airsports people--like the general public, I guess--still have the conception that yoga is about bending yourself into a pretzel or sitting on a cushion and omming. I mean, it is in some practices, but this is a very limited view.
Airsports people tirelessly seek a state of flow. When you jump out of a plane or off a cliff and you’re not in that flow state, then that’s usually when things go wrong. When things go really right, it’s when your consciousness is in alignment; when you are fully present and not affected by your ego, when you aren’t thinking about what happened before or what’s coming in the future. You are just in that moment. Yoga gets you there.
Airsports athletes make really good yogis because, once they actually establish the habit, they see the immediate, enormous benefits of the practice. They know what that particular flow feeling is when they meet it on the mat because it’s one of the central reasons they jump. The great news is that--once you’ve got the concentration required, when you can align the body and align the mind--then you start to experience that nowness that we all love in airsports whenever you want to. The trick is just to start doing it.
ALO: Okay, Emma: I don’t have enough time.
Emma: The first thing you have to do is be realistic as far as time goes. I always suggest the same question: How much time is realistic for you to dedicate to your health and wellness practices in order to support your flying, your skydiving, your BASE jumping...whatever it is that you love to do? Is it 10 minutes? 15 minutes? Half an hour? Most people will be, like, okay, I could definitely do 15 minutes. I take longer than that in the shower.
Then I’ll say, “Okay. Let’s make this a 15-minute practice. How many days a week do you realistically think you will dedicate 15 minutes to do this practice? Twice a week? Three times a week? Fifteen minutes, three times a week, is very doable.
I usually encourage my students to do their practice in the morning, before the day gets going and distractions come along. Can you get up 15 minutes earlier and fit it in before your shower? Do you see that as something that’s realistically possible? The majority of people discover that it’s quite easy to do. It’s more beneficial for people to do a 10- or 15-minute home practice every day than go take a class once a week for an hour and a half.
When people start with a 10-minute or 15-minute practice and dedicate to it, that practice gradually lengthens in time. Suddenly that 10-minute practice that they were just going to get out of the way is 15 minutes long. And then, a month later, it is 20 minutes long, because they just felt like staying in it a little bit longer. In time, it grows and grows from within. But If you expect yourself to do a one-and-a-half hour practice, three times a week, right off the bat--if that’s unrealistic, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.
If it’s that easy, why isn’t everybody doing it already? Find out in the next installment--as well as the reason “I’m not flexible” is the worst-ever reason not to take up yoga.