I know it has been a while, but I haven’t been taking care of this list. I’m back at it and ready to knock a few of these out soon….
Everyone has had that dream. The one where you are falling and there is nothing you can do about. Today I made the choice to jump out of a perfectly good plane and begin that high speed decent toward the earth.
Any time people think about what they want to do before they die, skydiving is one of those things that is always thought of. I believe that skydiving makes that list every time because its that one thing that everybody can agree on as being one of the craziest things you can do, but hey since when has the danger in an activity ever deterred me?
So the fun begins when upon arrival to jump school we are ushered into a small room with a tv in the corner. They weigh us in and hand us a large packet to read and sign. I thought when I went to “jump school” that it wasn’t so much about reading like grad school, but more about learning to jump out of a plane. However, after reading the packet about as big as my text books I signed my life away for the chance to free fall from 12,500 feet. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself when the bearded man on the little tv in the corner told me all about how I couldn’t sue them for anything, including “if [I] were to be walking through the parking lot on [my] way out and were to slip and fall on a banana peel, that would be considered a skydiving related activity.” I just don’t know where they came up with the example of slipping and falling on a banana peel, but hey if you are going to sign every one of your rights away, you might as well beware the banana peels hanging out in the parking lot. So after signing my name and initials about 100 times, I got to make a video about not suing anyone ever. Not sure how many ways I can say I understand the risk of skydiving before they believe it, but hey they arent even insured anyways.
Life signed away, it was time to suit up and step out of a perfectly good plane. I am given a sweet bright blue jumpsuit to wear, but something just doesn’t feel right when the zipper is in front (all you surfers out there know what I mean). So geared up and no instruction in hand we load on up in the sketchy little plane and head out for our fifteen minute ride to 12,500 feet. On our way up one of the formation jumpers on our plane was asking my instructor about how his blacking out in the air was going, that’s always something that gives you confidence when you are about to leap out of a plane with this person. The time comes we slide to the edge and the first moment of being nervous hits me as I look out the edge of the plane at 12,500 feet to the ground. This only lasts a moment because the next thing I know I am leaping out of the plane and hurtling toward the earth at 130 miles an hour. It’s the greatest rush I have ever experienced in my life. Heading out the plane there is no way to really explain what it feels like to fall at such a speed unless you have been there yourself. 5,000 feet hits and I pull the rip cord, in an instant we go from a free fall to a nice and easy drift. I get handed the controls to the chute and I go crazy going left to right and right to left, even the little things can be tons of fun. I hand the controls back over and we come in for a nice easy landing. I did it, went from 12,500 feet to sea level in about 5 minutes. I can only hope I hop on the accelerated free fall program and 9 jumps later I am ready to ride solo like Iyaz. If this isn’t really living, then I don’t know what is….
