Golden Ticket

Before I really start, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has congratulated me and wished me well. I cannot say how much the support means to me. This sport always reminds me of my connections to friends from every discipline, from dropzones all over.

In case you haven’t heard, I got a golden ticket. I’ve been cordially invited to participate in the Vertical World Record (the VWR). I’m going to get in the air with 199 other people on our heads (with ~4 camera flyers too), hold hands, and try our damndest to set a world record this year. I’m over the moon. I’m ecstatic. I’m baffled and blown away and in awe. I’m stoked. I didn’t really know if I’d get here. In fact, I sort of ended up here by accident. (But just know, from here on out, there won’t be any accident in me being on that record. Get ready for an excessive amount of blogs about how I’m preparing.)

You ready for a story?

I wish I could tell you that I’m driven by benevolent ends, by inspiration and joy and starry-eyed dreams and plans. I wish. But this story starts with much juicier emotions: spite, vindictiveness, fiery rage. This story starts with embers burning in my gut because people didn’t believe in me. And it doesn’t even start with freeflying.

So let’s go back.

It starts with me getting an unceremonious boot from XPG4. Actually, it starts slightly before that. It starts with me winning silver in Intermediate 4way FS in 2019 in Raeford. Apparently, my flying caught the attention of the powers that be, and I got invited to try out for XPG4. For y’all who aren’t in the belly world, before I even tried out, I knew XPG4 was going to be the team that took on the French women’s team, fighting to be World Champions at the next Mondial. They had the funding, some talent, and ruthless ambition. And they wanted me to try out. So, I did. And I got the slot.

But, after just a single indoor season, I got the boot more or less.
I think the direct quote was “we don’t think you have what it takes.”

Who knows? Maybe I didn’t. Maybe at the time, I was too green. Maybe I wasn’t meant to fly tail. Maybe I just didn’t perform my best under such poor leadership. Maybe maybe maybe. Maybe so many things.

All I can tell you for sure, was that I was furious. But I was also lost. I walked away from 4way FS totally disillusioned with discipline. I’d climbed the ladder, only to fall off it. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I had no interest in belly.

So What Next?

So I set my eyes on freeflying and P19. I decided to get on P19. The pandemic actually came at a great time and gave me a chance to catch up. So I worked really hard, with hopes and plans to get an invite to P19. As 2020 turned into 2021 and into 2022, it became clear that the try-outs for P19 would overlap with the VWR try-outs. If I was going to the effort of trying out for P19, why not try out for the VWR too?

If y’all read my posts, you remember that I didn’t have high ambitions for my first camp in Eloy. I honestly didn’t have high hopes for this one either. I mainly was going because I already had decided to go. I spent a lot of last week leading up to the Sebastian camp wondering if this entire record cycle would be a whole bunch of spending big money to go to camps with only Personal Growth to show for it. I kept reminding myself that this camp would be great: I love two plane shots. I would get to see my friends from the middle of the country and the East coast peeps. I’d get to go jump at Sebastian again, which is gorgeous.

The Camp

Friday: 20 ways

I was part of Rook’s group. I was hoping to have an organizer that I already knew, to put me a little more at ease. Until this weekend, I had literally only ever seen Rook, whereas I have actually gotten a little coaching here and there from some of the other organizers: Dusty has coached me in Utah. Sam helped out my VFS team @ Nationals, J. Russ spent hours of a weather hold at Summerfest talking VFS with my team. (Yes, my VFS Team trained @ Summerfest & I still maintain that it was a brilliant plan). But no dice; I didn’t have a familiar face as an organizer.

At first, I felt a little jealous of all my friends, many of whom were in a groups together. I only knew a couple people in my group which made me uneasy. As someone who loves team training largely due to the consistency it brings to my jumping, the uncertainty that comes from jumping with unknown quantities makes me nervous. It’s like the kind of nerves you get when you walk into a party and you don’t know anyone. But I was super pleased to realize Matt Congdon was in my group; I was glad to have a friendly face and someone with a ton of experience there.

Most of the people in my group were actually from elsewhere, as in from other countries. It turned out to be awesome! I made a lot of new friends, especially Bert from France. In our downtime, I had a lot of material for questions: “What’s jumping like there? What aircraft do you fly? How’s the weather? How’s the fun jump scene?” Jumping with people who flew across an ocean to tryout at this camp gave me a whole newfound appreciation for skydiving in the U.S and especially CA. Often 2 or 3 plane shots happen in my backyard. I decided to tryout in FL mostly as a lark: to visit FL, to have a travel excuse to see my long distance man-friend, to see some East coast pals. Knowing that people cross oceans to come jump here makes me grateful for the skydiving that is at my fingertips.

I am SO proud of my flying Friday. It was my best day of the camp. At this point, I’m really comfortable with 20ish-ways so I was relaxed. Plus we had a lightly loaded skyvan so exits were a piece of pie. I just felt calm and happy on all the jumps. Bonus: the fall rate was pretty reasonable. As a tall, limby person without too much weight on me (and my jumpsuit is way too flappy), I can really psych myself out if I hear that the fall rate is going to be ballistic. I flew 2 jumps as a left hand 1st stinger (generally a strong choice for me), and then 2 jumps right hand 2nd stinger. For our last jump, we did an everyone-floats “speed star” where we chunked a 2way base out of the skyvan last and everyone floated up to meet it. (But instead of a true speed star, we were going for precision and control instead of speed). I put myself nice and in the middle… honestly, I didn’t want too much of a challenge. My flying Friday is the best flying I have ever done in my life. I can’t wait to get the videos back from that day.

Saturday:

I was part of Brad and Garret’s group. Again, I didn’t really know either organizer. I believe I met Garret ad Brad while doing the women’s head down record in WI this summer at Skydive Midwest. I did know quite a few more people on my group for the 40ish ways but that’s to be expected when you double the group size. The weather was poo. Friday night, we already bumped our start time back to 10am. We waited for the pea soup clouds to clear for hours. I enjoyed the ground time catching up with friends from the other side of the U.S., but I was ready to jump.

Because of weather we only got two jumps in. I was pod closing behind Brad. I had my favorite exit slot in the otter- front float. I’d spent all day with a vague anxiety, worrying about pod closing every time I thought about it – so I avoided thinking about it. As a pod closer, you have to do TWO things. One thing for each hand, holding hand with people on your left and right who may not be on the same level. Also, you are expected to have excellent levels AND keep your pod lined up squarely behind the person in the base. AND you need to shape out, pushing out the grips strongly to give your pod stability as well as giving whackers and bridge line folks a nice place to grip. In short, it’s a slot for ninjas. I was a haystack of nerves. (I did manage to ignore them all day up until it was about at a 10 minute call.)

The first jump went pretty well… obviously I nit pick my flying. I could have better levels and I could have flown quieter but I gave myself a pass for nerves. However, I walked away from jump two feeling pretty pooey. Our second jump was at sunset. Weird things happen at sunset. The start of the jump seemed fine. I approached, docked and tried to shape out the pod. I adjusted my levels only to find that I was drifting and couldn’t stay behind Brad. After fixing the pod alignment, I had to fight to get on level again, only to find myself on level but not behind Brad again. I couldn’t seem to do all of my duties at the same time. I was so confused; why was nothing working? I landed, beating myself up. Only after landing did I realize the entire formation had noticeable spin and was nuking towards the earth, and I felt a little better for not being able to really nail the pod closer slot the way I hoped to.

Sunday:

I initially planned to leave early on Sunday; I didn’t think I’d be flying in particularly well or poorly so I didn’t think missing a jump would be a problem. However, I’d been getting compliments on my flying, even from people in different groups. I started to feel the spark of potential, but I didn’t want to hope too hard. I resolved to stay for all the jumps, even if I missed my flight.

We fit in four jumps. The first two I was in the base. While I live in fear of having to fly super fast, I like being in the base. You get to focus on your form, your stability, and your awareness in the skydive. On jumps 3 and 4, I approached from the R trail otter to be a left hand 1st stinger on the base. The 3rd jump went solidly fine. No more, no less. Instability in the formation behind me forced me to really focus on my levels. The 4th jump, the superfloat from the sky van went before the trail plane was ready so the whole trail otter had a wicked dive. I got there fine but was so rattled by the dive that I stressed and didn’t take a great dock. Like Chazi says, “Step 1: Panic”. It made me realize that I really need to spend time visualizing non-optimal scenarios in big ways to prepare. I landed, laughing. Historically, my last jump of a team training camp or other skills camp goes Not As Planned. It’s just fitting that my big way try-out camp goes the same way.

I was so pleased with this camp on so many levels. Richo, Chip, Pitts and I squeezed in a 4way freefly jump doing a customary HU round exit but smashing Pitt’s head on the door. (She’s a-Okay; thanks G4!) People hung around to shoot the shit after and everyone seemed pretty pleased- a job well done. The camp was run really well with useful debriefs, effective dirt dives, and good pacing (outside of uncontrollable weather). Good people, good attitudes. Good days, good jumps.

Sunday Night:

We were driving back toward the airport and Richo got his score card pretty quickly. As the minutes ticked past, I took it as confirmation of how well I’d flown. I realized that I was actually being considered. I still didn’t really believe I’d get an invite. There were so, so, so many excellent flyers there. What chance did I even have to out fly that many people? But, all of a sudden, I get an email. And I got an invite.

The Aftermath

I sit here on Wednesday night, still in awe of it all. I can’t hardly believe it. I have so, so much work to do. Currently, I’m laying out my training plain. I’m still going to the Eloy camp in March and the Houston camp in April. I’m seriously thinking about the last chance camp in June if there is room. (Anyone want to buddy up to share a car and lodging??) In the mean time, I’ll stay busy load organizing in Socal, fun jumping at Skydive Cal in Tracy, and hitting the tunnel in between. I’m laying out my plan for visualizing skydives, aiming to visualize every day and to watch videos a couple times a week, to both debrief myself and other on jumps. Tune in to future blogs for updates. If you’re interested in what I do to train and prepare, let me know. I can promise you, it’s a lot.

I don’t feel like I’ve had time to really reflect on it fully. Am I surprised that I got an invite to the VWR? A little. I’m surprised I got one at this camp. I’m not surprised I got one. If I set my mind to something, there is very little that will get in my way. I wanted to be good enough to be an obvious choice to be on the Project 19 102way; I figured that would get me good enough to qualify for the outskirts of a 200way. But I assumed that I’d be duking it out for one of the last remaining slots at the Last Chance camp. But I’m happy I got one now. I feel justified completely diving in to prepare for this, without reservations. I know I would have had doubts before every camps, wondering if it’s worth the money, the time, the effort, to not get an invite. Now I know that every shred of effort is going to be worth it so that when I arrive at the VWR, I can say I’ve done every single thing possible to prepare, never second guessing that I didn’t do enough.

How do I feel?

Vindicated. I can’t help thinking “Woe unto anyone who doesn’t believe in me. That’s def going to be your loss.” (Sucks to suck, XPG4. I would have been a killer tail if you’d kept me around. Guess I’ll go get on a world record instead.) Intimidated. I feel intimidated for sure. The people who are already invited are legends. The other people who will be invited are legends. How did I get here? Grateful. Just happy to be here. Thankful for all the friends I’ve made along the way, thankful for the coaches I’ve had, the path that’s gotten me here. So, so, so, so thankful for my person, my significant other, for all his support. I could write volumes about the way Richo supports me and believes in me. I won’t bore you, but he deserves the Manfriend of the Year Award for his patience, support, humor in putting up with the chaos of me. (Yes. Manfriend. Because he’s a man, not a boy) Proud. Proud of myself. Proud with a healthy dose of realism. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I know that this is a huge accomplishment for me. But does anyone else in the rest of the world care? Not really. I’m doing this for me, not to impress the rest of the world. I’m chasing these records for myself.

Mid-2020, my best friend in skydiving up and croaked out of the blue from heart failure. I never saw it coming. But Kellie was my biggest advocate. She believed in me, unquestioningly. I miss her all the time. How do I feel about getting this invite? I wish she was around, so I could tell her all about it. That’s the thought that’s gone through my brain the most in the last few days. Only followed by “Holy shit. I have so much work to do.”

What’s Next?

Let me know if you hear of any 2 or 3 plane shots happening. Let me know if you want to fly in the tunnel. Let me know if you’re interested in coming to single plane shots, if I try to organize something in the SoCal region (purely selfishly, for my own practice). Gotta stay on my A Game!

Teaser for my next blog: Guess who is going to cheer on their zoom-boy when he goes to Australia to compete in canopy piloting Nationals there? Hint: it’s me. Also, I’ll write about the rest of my Florida trip soon too. Just so many things going on!!