Bigway Update
If you want to know how my bigway journey is going, well, I just registered for the AZ Sector Camp this upcoming weekend. Now, I’m chanting “I’m doing everything I can to be successful at the record” and “Getting a roommate for just one month will pay off this camp” to make myself feel better. So that’s how it’s going. But I’ll see y’all at Eloy next weekend!
I often look at my last few years and think about the fact that, with all the money I spent on teams & training, Nationals, tunnel, bigway events and gear, I could have put a pretty hefty downpayment on a house or I could have put away a big nest egg. Then, my insides squirm in turmoil. My pragmatic Midwestern soul places a value judgement on what brings me happiness (which is an absurd amount of skydiving and my pursuit of skills/distinctions/achievements in the sport) and I despair, questioning why I dump so much time, effort, and money into such a silly goal. Well, it’s because I love the sport. I love the sport to an irrational level.
This post is a potpourri of thoughts from my skydiving lately, so enjoy.
How long will you be skydiving?
This question came up this weekend while riding on the plane with a rather aged 16way belly group jumping at Elsinore this weekend. While on the plane with them, waiting to taxi, I asked one of group, “What’s the cumulative years of skydiving experience on this 16way?” He estimated 16 people with approximately 30 years of skydiving each; that’s 480 years of skydiving experience, which is probably on the low end. The guy I talked to said he’s been jumping since 1968: 53 years of skydiving. So I turned to my friend in her mid-30’s and asked, “Will you be jumping in 53 years? She said, “Hell no!” (“I’ll be dead.)
It got me thinking: How long will I be skydiving? I have no idea. I’m in my early 30’s and I haven’t been doing this a full decade. I think this year will be my 8th year skydiving. How long could I reasonably do this? I would love to skydive until I’m 7,000 years old, like Dan BC. But who am I kidding? I would have to take much better care of myself, force myself to stay in shape, and skydive my butt off year after year so as to stay safe and relevant in the sport. I’m not sure I have that kind of stamina. Plus, I would have to be a badass in the first place like him too, which, I’m not. If I can be 1/4 as awesome of a skydiver as him, I’d be psyched. So maybe 7,000 years is out of the question for me.
But how long will I be in the sport? More than 20 probably; less than 50. Anyway, it was a weird thought. I’d never really sat down and pondered it before. But now I want to ask everyone else how long they expect they’ll be in the sport. I didn’t do a tandem, thinking I’d become a skydiver. I didn’t get my A License with any plan in mind. I didn’t get a belly suit thinking I’d be a competition freak and I didn’t get into freefly initially thinking I’d get into bigways. I just keep stumbling deeper and deeper into skydiving. Who knows how far into it I’ll stumble.
Doing All the Things
I both respect and find myself interested in or find myself enjoying pretty much any aspect of skydiving I try. I’ve enjoyed belly: LOing, event organizing, competition and coaching. (Guess who got on an 8way team for Nationals this year!? I’m so excited! 8way is my favorite belly event.) I enjoy freefly competition, bigways and LOing as well too. I even enjoyed my one day of CRW and I am stoked for more. I would have gotten on a lady 4way rotations team this year if MFS didn’t overlap with CRW at Nationals. (The only thing that hasn’t stuck was using my Tandem rating…)
Taking a Hard Right into Wingsuiting Land:
In addition to all the facets of skydiving I already like, I am really enjoying my new pursuit in wangsuiting, as well. Now, when I say I’m a skydiver to people and they obviously respond with “You ever tried one of them squirrel suits?”, I can say yes. Up until now, I haven’t tried it for several reasons: 1) I didn’t have enough jumps 2) When I did have enough jumps, I had a pull-out rig 3) When I got a throw-out, I didn’t want to pay for the suit and a separate wing and the training because I’m cheap. But now, Richo wants another wingsuit buddy for the days when his preferred wingsuit buddies can’t come out and play. So, I’m trying wingsuiting.
My first jump, I started with a Phantom suit borrowed from Tracy. I literally have no memory of anything anyone told me about the suit, but I can tell you it was small, both in wing-size and relative to me. I felt a little crunched when I tried to extend my legs in it. After my 3rd jump in it, I’d decided I hated wingsuiting because flying in the suit just felt… Bad. But then Richo talked me into putting on a Carve wingsuit, (also borrowed and slightly better fit for my height). And, boy howdy, did my opinions change. I liked it a lot! Turns out, if you don’t feel like your ankles are shackled together, you might enjoy yourself more. Plus, the shortness factor of the Phantom felt too.. constricted. So, anyway, I’m a wingsuiter now, ish. (I still need to land laughably far off the dropzone before I’m a real wingsuiter. I’ll work on that.) I’m in search of a 150 or a 135 wingsuit canopy. Anyone know of anything bopping around?
Back to Doing all the Things
Getting back to how I can really appreciate a lot of disciplines, I’m nurturing a growing interest in angles and swooping. Also, I’ve always been interested in getting my AFFI. Actually, I just started working through the pre-reqs to get mine. (I sat through an FJC Sunday for a pre-req; whew that was a lot of information). I’m also interested in getting my rigger’s ticket and I’d like to be a USPA competition judge too. So much to do, so little time.
Every time I try a new discipline in skydiving, I have even more respect for it. I tried doing my reserve pack job under Rigger Richo’s supervision once; it was dreadfully hard. My one day of CRW this winter made me realize it’s both very challenging and rather butt-puckering to be intentionally wrapping your limbs in your friends lines. Also, repeatedly trying to land a Lightning with slightly more grace than a somersaulting rhinoceros eluded me; I landed like a sack of potatoes most of the jumps. MFS is straight-up hard. After flying it at Nationals, I have even more awe for the teams that both score well and also make it look good, not clunking and flailing through the dive flows the way my team did last year at Nationals. It makes me sad to hear peoplefrom each discipline dis other disciplines; I know it sounds so corny but it’s all skydiving. Y’all should be nicer.
Load Organizing at Elsinore
Also, I love LOing. I just love it. I’m so thankful that Elsinore is so close by and that they really do want, need, and appreciate load organizers. I just.. I love it. I love organizing jumps for my friends and for noobs. I love ambitiously trying jumps that probably won’t work and I love smashing out a super successful skydive too. I love when I introduce rad people at the dropzone that I’m organizing. I love when people get excited about their skydiving successes, no matter how big or small. I love seeing people get better. I love jumping with people having a great time. I wish I could LO every weekend at Elsinore. But alas, life and chasing skydiving goals steals my time. So I’ll have to just content myself with once a month. I’m just so glad I get to LO at all.
Even worse than never having time for it, I’ll be moving up to NorCal pretty soon to jump at Skydive California where they don’t really need LOs, so I won’t be LOing at my home DZ. I’m anticipating putting together a regular tunnel/VFS night, so maybe that’ll scratch the itch. I’m also still planning on coming down to Elsinore about once a month if I can, to keep LOing here. I just would miss the DZ and all my pals too much to abandon it.
I have been mulling around putting together some guidelines to How I Organize. Note: I am not trying to toot my own horn. However, I have had a number of people tell me they like how I organize, both when I’ve belly LO’d and freefly LO’d. I’d really like to make a Tam’s Guide to LOing, but I don’t want to sink too much time into something that wouldn’t be useful. Would that be of use to anyone? Does that spark any interest for anyone? Maybe I’ll try a rough pass at it anyway.
ISO: Old Parachute Lines, for crafting
Lastly! I realized that old parachute lines crochet nicely into little baskets. If 1) You want a cute little crocheted basket out of parachute lines, let me know. I often just need crafts to keep my hands busy so I make a lot of things then have nothing to do with them. 2) If you’re getting a reline and want to send me the old ragged-out lines, I would love that! I am not due for a reline for a bit, and I’m out of the last set of old lines. I need more raw materials for crocheting.
Anyway, that’s my mental meandering for the week, re: skydiving. Blue Skies.