wellsheet

Thanks everyone for the responses. @PixieUK - I'm thinking that's how it was. I didn't really get to know whether I locked up or not. Obviously had it been 5 seconds (or more) of refusing to cutaway before the canopy calmed down then that would have been clear sign of I shouldn't be doing this. Its good to know that other people have experienced the same thing in other life-threatening situations and yet have gone onto perform their training. I guess it's the animal brain freaking out before the automatic training kicks in. @Bertt and Koric101 - that's good advice. It is pretty shocking and sudden when it happens and is a "rare" event, so I guess its pretty normal to have a sudden panicky and weird emotional reaction in the first second. @Ron - I like the grenade quote. A malfunctioning canopy is not my friend! I'll work on changing my feelings towards looking forward to a malfunction: it's probably going to happen at some point so enjoy it! Thankfully the experience has given me an anchor point for the fear when a canopy starts looking unlandable - it will help me to visualise the event and then visualise myself snapping out of it and performing my EPs. Thanks all

Bit of a shitty situation recently. I'm a student, very well versed in my EPs - know exactly what to do and have been in "dodgy" situations before: i.e. I've been blown backwards towards power lines and landed off thanks to sudden high winds but I kept my cool and did the right things. BUT, recently I had an opening that threw me around a little and started spinning me around. My first instinctive reaction was "shit I don't want to cut away, I'll ride this to the ground" Literally shocked myself - it was like it wasn't me thinking it but some part of my brain that I didn't realise was there. The canopy then just sorted itself out - this all happened within 1 second max. Like, open, throw around, grab risers "shit don't wanna cutaway il ride this one down, oh its fine, what the fuck was that about not cutting away!" What worries me is that if that had been a malfunction would I have cut away or would I have still just been scared to do anything! It wasn't a rational thought - rationally I know I need to cutaway if my canopy doesn't pass the tests, I'm prepared to and I practice constantly. I know my reserve is the best fucking canopy on my back, and it's packed to perfection. But my instinctive reaction in that first split second was pure terror (understandable and normal) and then a refusal to cutaway (completely irrational, not normal and fucking dangerous/lethal). The only thing I can think of is that because there was a complete canopy over my head I must of subconsciously thought "oh it won't be as dangerous to stick with it than to trust a yet unopened canopy". I think my thought process would have been a lot different with an absolutely unsurvivable malfunction (like a bag lock). What does worry me is that I don't know if it had continued to spin out of control whether I would have fixed up and cutaway. Has anyone else had a similar irrational and completely unexpected thought before cutting away a "slow" malfunction? Everyone I've spoken to seems to say that they didn't have to think, it was instinctive and they weren't scared. I'm hoping that it was just one of those stupid irrational thoughts that would have cleared up had the canopy actually being malfunctioning. Because if not I need to quit this sport before I kill myself. Anyone got any advice/similar story? I don't want to quit but if I'm going to lock up in an emergency I need to get the fuck out. There are too many people who have died because they haven't cutaway.