I’ve started spreading the word about my new hobby, SKYDIVING BABY!!! The response has either been one of two things “AWESOME!!” or “ARE YOU CRAZY?!?!”. hahahha I love it

So how did I get this crazy idea to jump out of airplanes? Well anybody who’s known me for a long time knows that I have always wanted to “fly like the birds”, flight has always intrigued me but since I can’t even go on roller coasters without getting motion sickness I never really pursued anything in the air except as a passenger on commercial flights.

I’ve always been the quiet person just having fun not doing anything crazy. I’ve never been an ‘out there’ type of person. Since I’ve started loosing weight and getting into shape I’ve moved myself out from behind the TV and getting more active outside. I started hiking again and that was a blast. Then I saw my Dad do his first skydiving tandem. He had a great time and it looked really fun.

After spending some time at the dropzone taking pictures and getting to know the people I started to get more and more interested. Human nature is to fear what they do not understand. And skydiving is no exception to that rule. There is a lot about the sport that the general public just doesn’t know, and neither did I at the time. All you can think of is what if the parachute doesn’t open?!?! So one night while I was drugged up on migraine pain killers and awake until 4am I started doing my research and “thinking”. I was looking for an active outdoor hobby that I could sink my teeth into that would force me to get into shape and keep me on track to stay in shape. Sure there are lots of outdoor activities that I could have chosen that are really fun. I enjoy hiking - when I want a calm peaceful getaway from society it’s perfect, nice and quite slow paced outdoor fun. But it was time to add some excitement, and skydiving looked really fun!

I have a very analytical mind, I’m sure my parents and sisters can remember from a very early age I always wanted to know how things worked. Taking apart a typewriter just to see what made it tick, then attempting to put it back together and forgetting all the springs hahahaha. Anything I could get my hands on I disassembled to learn from it.

First things first - skydiving is a dangerous extreme sport. I had to come to terms with that, I could seriously hurt myself or die, every single jump. I am the only one who can save my life every single jump. Ok let’s get grounded here (no pun intended), can I scare the shit out of myself enough to prevent me from trying it? I spent a lot of time on youtube/google searching for skydiving gone wrong, exposing myself to the bad side of the sport. There were a lot of accidents that were caused because someone did something stupid for whatever reason. Ok I can handle that reality, it is not a forgiving sport, do something stupid and I’ll pay for it with broken bones or my life. But there are also things that went wrong even if the jumper did everything right. Shit happens… Hmm I felt like Number 5 “need input, more input Stephanie!” Can I learn enough about the sport to feel reasonable comfortable that I can get my ass out of a jam when the shit hits the fan while I’m falling to earth at terminal velocity?

Even before getting into training I started reading the SIM (Skydiver’s Information Manual) and looking over the training material available online. Bit by bit I started learning about the gear and the procedures for fixing/dealing with the problems that can happen.

I had it set in my mind that I wouldn’t be at a target weight to start skydiving until next season, maybe I would be able to get into the wind tunnel during the winter. Well to my surprise the weight came off way ahead of schedule, my upper back was feeling the best it has in years, and as my sister said it “there’s nothing preventing you from going NOW”. So we scheduled my tandem a few weeks out and I was on my way!

Unless something went terribly wrong either with the jump or with my motion sickness or back I would have called it quits after the tandem. It was the test to see if I could take it. Well if you’ve seen the pictures and video you know from the thumbs up and grin from ear to ear that I was hooked!

Tags: skydiving