We’ve all been there or maybe we’re currently there: Skydiving has pretty much become your life.
It’s what you think about throughout the day, it’s really become the only thing you spend your money on, your only friends nowadays are at the dropzone and you find yourself scouring gear pages on Facebook, even though you’re fully equipped. Because it’s become “fun” to look at gear. What has happened to you?!
We’ve heard all of the stories before. The stories that make you wonder why we all love this sport so much and can’t get away from it. Someone in the corporate world for twenty years finds skydiving and drops everything. A mother with three kids finally getting out of her marriage who has always wanted to skydive gives back to herself by going through Freefall University. An 18 year old girl goes on her first tandem and in between college classes, somehow finds a way and is skydiving any free time she can get while getting a degree. Once, I had a 21 year old student who had just overcome cancer and his way of giving the middle finger to it was by skydiving solo.
We’re all so different, from all walks of life, but we’ve all fallen head over heels (figuratively and literally on landing) for the same thing and I’ve wondered to myself: Why? What makes us always wanting more?
I think this question could be answered in a thousand different ways. Every person has their own personal reason why their heart has spoken up over their mind that is trying to tell them “no” and decided to go chase clouds anyways. But, that might be the reason we started skydiving. What makes us keep doing it?
Aside from what we all know and love like the community and the temporary escape from the harsh reality of the world… and not to mention the free beer, I think one possibility of why we keep doing it is that you’ll never master the sport. I was just talking about this with a friend the other day when we were discussing all of the other disciplines we want to work on. Not even the shredders that we watch and look up to will ever say they have nothing else to learn! It’s one of the most rare experiences that I can think of in life.
We’ve convinced ourselves it’s normal to try mastering multiple different variations of body flight while plummeting to Earth with other people at a minimum of 100 miles per hour and the craziest part? In one minute. Let me reiterate how crazy that is. 60 seconds! And that’s if you’re lucky. *This is when Flockers and CRW tell you to start doing it their way because they make the most of their money and time*
I can’t think of anything else that we try to learn in one minute intervals, let alone with all of the other moving parts that factor into it. Other people also moving at incredibly fast rates of speed with you? Gear? Emergency procedures? Spotting? Watching altitude? We’re focusing on all of this and still completing (or at least trying to) an entire diveflow? I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty super human if you ask me.
Skydiving for a sport keeps you always on your toes, always striving to be better, always wanting to try something new and always being humbled again and again. This sport brings you up and breaks you down, but always brings you back up again. Don’t forget that part. I think these are just some of the reasons why we can’t seem to stop ourselves from coming back; it’s an art that can’t be mastered, but we’re going to try anyway.
What are your thoughts? What do you think it is that keeps us jumping and learning? What are the reasons you keep coming back? We want to know your thoughts! All of us here at CSC will geek out anytime on these topics! We’ll see ya’ at the dropzone!
