Negative reactions to the sport

[NorrinRadd 0]

Over the weekend I received my very first truly negative comment about my interest in diving into the sky. So far most of the opinions have been either they think it is great and tell me they have always wanted to try it, or that they have no interest in it, and think it is a little crazy. But this time I actually had someone tear into me telling me how I am obviously effing crazy and how stupid I was. I obviously don't really care about their opinion on the matter, and this person was not a terribly close friend anyways. But still, it was a little shocking... caught me off guard. Do you folks ever get these?

Why drive myself crazy trying to be normal, when I am already at crazy?

[ridebmxbikes 0]

Yeah my old boss use to tear into me about it saying I was gonna die n stuff and I was crazy. Its amazing how people talk to you when they think you have a death wish and you're totally insane. I think they're the crazy ones!

[Zlew 0]

Ask a whuffo how many jumps between the average fatality in skydiving. The most common answer I used to get was between 50 and 100.

People fear what they don't understand.

For most people, their only real exposure to skydiving is the sensationalized stories they hear on the news "MAN DIES after parachute FAILS to open and he plummets to his death from a 2 miles high!!!". Or from war stories from grandpa from WW2 and Vietnam. Everyone has a buddy that saw a guy go in, broken legs, lucky they landed in a swamp.. .etc. etc. So the idea of being able to be in our extreme sport, and make thousands of jumps...jump for decades is totally foreign.

Further, whuffos tend to think every jump is the "fear" adrenaline rush. They think each time you jump it is that crazy, scary, oh shit I'm going to die, heart doing 180BPM kinda rush. They don't understand that the rush as you keep jumping is that you are flying... you are in control... you get to do what people dream about, instead of overcoming a basic human fear of immanent death.

They don't understand how far the sport has come. Most people will default to fear of falling (which is normal) and project their own fears. Don't expect a whuffo to get it...they usually will not.

[Deisel 35]

Well understand that there will be reactions accross the spectrum. Just as people are drawn to different interests for different reasons, the opposite is true as well. There will always be a group of folks that have an emotional reaction of sorts. And for people that just can't understand why I would intentionally throw myself out of a perfectly good airplane, I usually respond with something like - why is it that you can watch dudes make left turns for 5 hours? To each their own, I say.

The brave may not live forever, but the timid never live at all.

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

Yes. Those people are projecting their fear onto you. They are so terrified of the idea that your ability to face it is incomprehensible to them. By proxy, you have dragged them along for your jump, and they react violently to it.

Just look them in the eye and quietly tell them "I am not afraid."

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

[PixieUK 0]

I'm too new to skydiving to have had any really harsh comments yet, but I've certainly had the same said to me about motorcycling, indoor and outdoor rock climbing, sailing yachts and dinghies and even Tae Bo kickboxing (which is non-contact!).

It says far more about the person who expresses the comment than about anyone who pursues the activity in question. As someone else said, it is a projection of their fears onto you and the strength of their reaction is very likely to be proportionate to the strength of their fear / phobia / experience / or whatever trigger it's provoked.

People generally fear the unknown and many people do not challenge those fears in a rational manner, merely continue to respond with the reactions of their subconscious. I find it highly ironic in some ways that I am scared of jumping out of a plane with my own means of landing safely, yet I am perfectly happy to be flown thousands of miles in what is essentially a very heavy metal box, across oceans / mountains / highly built up areas etc and trust that all those thousands of tonnes will not just fall out of the sky randomly.

The fear of falling is instinctive and as the subconscious mind cannot be 'reasoned with', it only 'learns' from repeated experience so it is only by pushing the fear factor, that the subconscious can be retrained.
From my experiences with doing fall practice whilst indoor rock climbing, I know familiarity will largely allay my instinctive fears so long as that experience is built up in a controlled manner. If I leave it too long in between practice sessions, instinct kicks back in and it becomes almost impossible to drop a couple of metres off the wall on a safety line.

But to try and explain that to someone who has never pushed any of their limits into the fear factor and beyond, is almost impossible. And it is those people who I have found tend to react most aggressively to my 'extreme' activities, even though I am actually a very cautious person, definitely not an adrenaline junkie and I wouldn't do anything that my logical mind hadn't reasoned out to be safe.

Edit: By "safe" in the last sentence, I mean an acceptable risk. Driving to work on the motorway every day is far more unsafe than most of the other so-called 'risky' activities I undertake

A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

[dthames 0]

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The fear of falling is instinctive and as the subconscious mind cannot be 'reasoned with', it only 'learns' from repeated experience so it is only by pushing the fear factor, that the subconscious can be retrained.
From my experiences with doing fall practice whilst indoor rock climbing, I know familiarity will largely allay my instinctive fears so long as that experience is built up in a controlled manner. If I leave it too long in between practice sessions, instinct kicks back in and it becomes almost impossible to drop a couple of metres off the wall on a safety line.

I have never considered diving off of a 3 meter board "falling". I have not considered jumping from a plane with two parachutes "falling" either. Both are planned decents.

Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

[NorrinRadd 0]

dthames

I have never considered diving off of a 3 meter board "falling". I have not considered jumping from a plane with two parachutes "falling" either. Both are planned decents.

+1

Why drive myself crazy trying to be normal, when I am already at crazy?

[Di0 1]

dthames

I have never considered diving off of a 3 meter board "falling". I have not considered jumping from a plane with two parachutes "falling" either. Both are planned decents.

It would be a "descent" only if you also had a way to perform an "ascent", but since you have only one option and it is to go down, all you can do is slow your fall to level where it becomes safe, technically speaking, yep, it is falling.
It can be slow or fast, but I would use the word "descent", which is a very contextualized word, only if there was the relative option to control it and going back up.
At least, my 2c. :)

That being said, attacking another person for an hobby that really can only hurt themselves it's the wrong approach no matter how you want to look at it.


I do respect people who say that in their views it is crazy, pointless, unnecessary, and so on. We can seat here and call them whuffos all day long, they won't change and we won't, but I admit that most of them do have a point.
As long as they respect mine when I say my life would feel emptier without it.

And as for those that are used to live so vicariously that they feel the need to verbally attack people who have the courage to go out of the bounds of ordinary every day life, wake up, coffe, go to work, go home, dinner, sleep, and decide to chase a dream instead, it's sad for them.

But that being said, the comments I get for the most part and from girls are "wow, hot, amazing, please bring me with you".


So, see, we win again. :D




Again, just my 2c...

I'm standing on the edge
With a vision in my head
My body screams release me
My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

[GooniesKid 0]

NorrinRadd

Over the weekend I received my very first truly negative comment about my interest in diving into the sky. So far most of the opinions have been either they think it is great and tell me they have always wanted to try it, or that they have no interest in it, and think it is a little crazy. But this time I actually had someone tear into me telling me how I am obviously effing crazy and how stupid I was. I obviously don't really care about their opinion on the matter, and this person was not a terribly close friend anyways. But still, it was a little shocking... caught me off guard. Do you folks ever get these?

I have not gotten anything like that. If anything i get the usual "you're crazy", "that's awesome", "you da man", "i wish i could do that", "i wish i can be like you", "i want you to be the father of my kids", "it's something i wanted to do but didn't have the guts".

[nadominhoca 0]

"Further, whuffos tend to think every jump is the "fear" adrenaline rush. They think each time you jump it is that crazy, scary, oh shit I'm going to die, heart doing 180BPM kinda rush. They don't understand that the rush as you keep jumping is that you are flying... you are in control... you get to do what people dream about, instead of overcoming a basic human fear of immanent death."

Couldn't agree more!!

[jackwallace 3]

Just give them the bowling speech. As in- I skydive, cause it only takes one ball to go bowling.

U only make 2 jumps: the first one for some weird reason and the last one that you lived through. The rest are just filler.
scr 316

[malooper 0]

With my new interest in the sport, I haven't encountered extreme negative reactions yet. I'm preparing myself for it though because I'm a girl and I live in a state that's ultra conservative and has it's idea of what's the norm for women. That being said, I have a great family and friends that support me even when they think I've lost my mind.

I've had a few conversations with others that are shocked I'm interested in it and sometimes slightly hesitant to reveal it since I work with kids. I had a conversation with a neighbor that I'm attracted to and noticed myself trying to explain "I'm really not a crazy girl." He said he wanted to try it but also "there's gotta be some small part of you that is crazy." When I did my second tandem and had my long list of questions, one of the guys came up and poked fun at me, telling my tandem instructor and my joking response was "well, I wanna make sure there's no defect in me that's gonna get me killed!" And my tandem instructor responded "Well, there is! You're crazy!"

The city I live in has absolutely horrible drivers and I talked to my brother who loves motocross and we agreed that it's probably safer for me to jump out of a plane than drive home from work.

Anyways, all that to say what everyone else is saying. Different reactions but just gotta shrug it off. Harder for some, easier for others. And just maybe I need to accept that I might be a "little" crazy after all.

Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
-Raymond Lindquist

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

jackwallace

Just give them the bowling speech. As in- I skydive, cause it only takes one ball to go bowling.

I'm totally stealing that.

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

malooper

And just maybe I need to accept that I might be a "little" crazy after all.

It often seems to me like society likes to revel in its fear. The media is always trying to whip people up into hysterics. If "Normal" is being a frightened sheep so paralyzed by fear you can't act to save your own life in the face of danger, I'd rather be crazy. At least I'm in good company.

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

[3mpire 0]

dude I don't even bring jumping up anymore in conversation, it's a waste of time.

I just don't mention it. If someone asks if I jump I'll just say "yes" and don't say anything else unless they ask follow up questions and seem actually interested.

If after saying "yes" they go on a rant about how it's unsafe or that I'm somehow crazy I just patiently let them get it out of their system and say "it's not for everyone" and nothing else.

Ultimately you'll save yourself a lot of grief and effort that way.

1 out of a 100 times someone will actually be interested and ask good questions and you can elaborate a bit for them. I never encourage them to try jumping unless they say they'd like to try it without me prompting them.

I find this approach works great for me.

[dthames 0]

Di0

***
I have never considered diving off of a 3 meter board "falling". I have not considered jumping from a plane with two parachutes "falling" either. Both are planned decents.

It would be a "descent" only if you also had a way to perform an "ascent", but since you have only one option and it is to go down, all you can do is slow your fall to level where it becomes safe, technically speaking, yep, it is falling.
It can be slow or fast, but I would use the word "descent", which is a very contextualized word, only if there was the relative option to control it and going back up.
At least, my 2c. :)



By your point of view the Space Shuttle landing, hang gliding, sail planes, and parachute flight would all be “falling”. A planned, controlled decent and falling are two different things. They certainly have an different effect on a person’s emotional state, at least most of the time.

Consider a sailplane flight and landing. Consider a light aircraft losing power and landing. You might enjoy the sailplane but might be freaked out should the C-182 loose power at 5,000 feet over the field. But a planned engine off landing in the same plane, under planned conditions might/should have a totally different effect on the same person.

We wear some very carefully designed gear and we make a planned decent. We have not instinct to be afraid of descending with control.

But if a scare ride is what you want, okay you are falling.

Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

[GooniesKid 0]

3mpire

dude I don't even bring jumping up anymore in conversation, it's a waste of time.

I just don't mention it. If someone asks if I jump I'll just say "yes" and don't say anything else unless they ask follow up questions and seem actually interested.

If after saying "yes" they go on a rant about how it's unsafe or that I'm somehow crazy I just patiently let them get it out of their system and say "it's not for everyone" and nothing else.

Ultimately you'll save yourself a lot of grief and effort that way.

1 out of a 100 times someone will actually be interested and ask good questions and you can elaborate a bit for them. I never encourage them to try jumping unless they say they'd like to try it without me prompting them.

I find this approach works great for me.

im quite the opposite, but the approach works for me. For me, i tell everyone that i can that i skydive. I tell my co-workers, my family, my friends of friends and i do get the proverbial "you are crazy". But sometimes i do get the few that are kinda interested and start asking questions like "what happens if...".

But what's really cool is that all the prospects I tell that I skydive is they get really intrigued and say something like "oh wow, I would have never known you're that kind of adventurous guy (i wanna really have your baby now)" kind of response.

[format 0]

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I obviously don't really care about their opinion on the matter, and this person was not a terribly close friend anyways. But still, it was a little shocking... caught me off guard.

When you get that, do The Step.

What goes around, comes later.

[NorrinRadd 0]

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I obviously don't really care about their opinion on the matter, and this person was not a terribly close friend anyways. But still, it was a little shocking... caught me off guard.

When you get that, do The Step.

LMAO

Why drive myself crazy trying to be normal, when I am already at crazy?

[Erwinna1943 0]

Sir, my third and current wife was 7 years old when I starting hanging around Steve Snyder's operation at Valley Forge. Never did sport jumping in 1959, because my parents wouldn't approve, so I started with the most glamorous military things, tossed in jumping (along with being in the 82nd their first time in combat since WW2), was the 1st member of the 82nd to carry a Thompson in combat since WW2, added aviation/commercial airplane and helicopter certificate, was one of the earliest Cobra pilots, had an international aviation career and did other "babe magnet" things, including a 20 year plus mil career of NEVER having a duty assignment where I didn't draw a hazardous duty pay (demolition, aviation, or parachute).
Yes, it works.
But, this isn't about me, nor is it about you.
It's about the value of the homes we buy when we play the cards.
Maybe I should say rent, or should rent rather than buy.
Then, one doesn't cry over the seven figure homes gone in settlement.

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[Bignugget 0]

FlyingRhenquest

***Just give them the bowling speech. As in- I skydive, cause it only takes one ball to go bowling.

I'm totally stealing that.


Lol, cracked me up.

[tristansdad 0]

Don’t worry about it, they’re just ignorant and afraid to come out of their ESPN bullshit comfort zone. They want to live forever on a sofa with a remote control the size of a shoe box within arms reach at all times. I don’t even talk about skydiving around whuffos because they don’t get it. Guys at my work talk about golf and I glaze over because I don’t get it. See the point I’m making? Let them idolize and drool at over paid athletes who are followed around by the masses of under achievers who would sell their wives into slavery to hump the leg of some pro football or basketball player.

[Di0 1]

dthames

By your point of view the Space Shuttle landing, hang gliding, sail planes, and parachute flight would all be “falling”. A planned, controlled decent and falling are two different things. They certainly have an different effect on a person’s emotional state, at least most of the time.

Consider a sailplane flight and landing. Consider a light aircraft losing power and landing. You might enjoy the sailplane but might be freaked out should the C-182 loose power at 5,000 feet over the field. But a planned engine off landing in the same plane, under planned conditions might/should have a totally different effect on the same person.

We wear some very carefully designed gear and we make a planned decent. We have not instinct to be afraid of descending with control.

But if a scare ride is what you want, okay you are falling.

I see your point and it's a good one. As I said, that is how I approach the problem, from my point of view, which is not supported by any hard fact or "golden book of aeronautical definition" but just by how I see things, using the word descent without a mean of "ascent" is a little of a stretch, but then again... you made a very good point, so... agree to disagree? :)

On the other hand, I totally understand what you mean, when under canopy I'm not in for the scare-rush, damn if done right canopy flight is actually quite relaxing, if anything that was the freefall and after all the efforts I put in controlling and fighting that fear, I don't certainly want to go back in that stage.

Mine was more of a, quite pointless, arguing over term usage. Does english have the expression "splitting the hair in four"? Because that's exactly what I was doing in a totally lighthearted mood... :)

I'm standing on the edge
With a vision in my head
My body screams release me
My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

[Bluhdow 31]

We just say "splitting hairs." I think splitting hairs is unnessecary, no matter how many parts you divide them into.

Apex BASE
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