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Frames of Reference 5 of 5 - (Some of) the Skydance Poems
Posted Sat 1998-10-24
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For a while the Gulch Spirit of innovation, play and exploration prospered
and even expanded at Pope Valley. Then in 1977 some of the USFET people
wanted to form a team and compete in the new 8 way event. BJ, Jim Captain,
Matt Farmer and I would be the center four. We held a meeting at Rande
DeLuca's house.
For me it was agony. These were my best friends. I really wanted to jump
with them. But competition would be an assembly line death trap. BJ and
Captain wanted to do it. Matt and I had reservations. In the following
days I went round and round and round with myself.
And then one night I sat down and wrote this Analyze poem in my logbook.
It came out in one non stop outpouring.
I had taken the other fork in the road.
BJ and Captain and others went on to form Mirror Image. Matt went back
to the Gulch. And I was now conscious of the Competition Borg as a real
and dangerous entity.
(Several of the terms refer to dives and events that we had in common
(and I will do a little glossary at the end if this hasn't become too
(long by then.
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Analyze
Nexus - Nexus -
And the time winds wail -
Analyze -
What teams do to get good -
With their daily doses of balanced diet -
Donutize, backin & hopover ... -
The basic ingredients -
And the timing practice for crosses & weaves -
And analyze -
Those special times past -
When the fantasy flowed and the dives were hot -
The USFET magic was a frame of mind -
There because we believed in it -
Analyze -
The quadra bipole flash -
And the mood components of organized dives -
Analyze, too -
The (dao) - the path - the ASC -
The jump run feeling of tuning in -
And that explosive expansion of awareness -
When you're still going fast -
And the world slows down -
To canopy speed -
Analyze -
Competition -
The energy trap -
The price of that edge -
Is a focus too narrow -
No fantasy -
How good a donut -
Do you really want to make -
Analyze -
Journeys and goals and equating the two -
And the multiplex balance -
Of practice and challenge -
Focus - variety -
Choosing and drifting -
On an edge -
Not out -
But in -
Analyze -
The air flow and yours -
Swooping and swarming and all that milling -
Valences - Slaloms - Infinities - Pulsars -
Lurk loads - Maneuver flakes -
Lounge exits - Air flow days -
Demo dives
And coordination boogies -
Analyze -
Until ... -
It's time -
You'll have to pardon me now -
But I'm getting off here -
It was fun writing here -
Analyzing with you -
But that's dirt dive off ramp -
And I've a fantasy to do -
Skr -
5-5-77
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Mirror Image was like a seed crystal in a super saturated solution.
All the creative energy that had been flowering suddenly crystalized
into 8 way teams. So I pushed onwards with a few kindred spirits and
a lot of students.
For organizing around vibes and feelings students are actually the most
fertile ground. That's mostly who I jump with these days, the young and
innocent, people in their first few hundred jumps.
It's clearer now, 20 years later, but at the time it was easy to get lost.
The 8 way people had a clear cut form and were looking for ways to get
better at it.
I was trying to go somewhere while deliberately avoiding a form because
as soon as you have a form it is subject to measurement and is then
vulnerable to the Competition Borg assimilation trap.
It was easy to get lost and I finally wrote this Skydance Approach poem
to myself as a concise statement and set of directions. A couple months
later a second version, That Skydiving Wind, popped out. It was a very
interesting experience, I suddenly just started writing, I had no idea
what was coming.
Of course Skydance is itself a form, even if a non measurable one, and
I got trapped in it for quite a while before letting it go. These days
I mostly just skydive. Sometimes with an agenda but a lot of the times
not.
OK, just a couple more things here and I'll let this go.
One is that I've tried a few times to write a book about this, but it
doesn't seem to happen so this post is probably it.
The other is a couple things Kevin Shea said to me.
One is that "Skydiving is the doorway.
We are the experience."
The other was at Z'hills 1976. There were about a zillion locals wandering
around, getting in the way, starting fights, causing trouble. I was
complaining to Kevin that they were just out hoping to see someone go in.
He said "No.
They don't come out to watch us die.
They come out to see us live."
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The Skydance Approach
The Skydance approach to Boogie Mechanics means that
you view skydiving as a doorway into human experience.
And organizing dives means building Human Radios
trying to tune into that cosmic dance wavelength.
You create dive patterns by combining basic moves -
the swoop, the hop, the zoom, the lurk, the mesh, the weave ...
to suit the situation purpose mood of the moment.
And you deal with wide ranges of experience by
varying the choice of moves from slot to slot.
Including students with nonessential slots.
Look at our dirt dives
with a whuffo's wide eyes.
And realize with finality
that a plan
is just a tangent vector on the manifold of reality.
How ... ?
You can't just say
"Let it be done."
You have to think
What it really is
What it really is
is a state of mind
And the question now
is How ... ?
How do you create the consciousness for the Skydance dives?
Put your good where it will do the most?
Lead. Without leading?
.
.
.
.
*from the
Boogie Mechanic's Handbook
Fantasy Press Unhinged
12-29-77 skr sst xyz lsd
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That Skydiving Wind
Creation re creation
.
.
.
Return & re learn
(Time & numbers bad trip)
The raw experience itself
That skydiving wind
Empty
Mind empty
Of all the distractions
Slow it down
Way down
To the experience
Itself
And then it will go
And then it will flow
Fast ones & slow ones
Graceful & rowdy
Intricate simplicity
The fantasy of dance
Relax
Or you won't feel a thing
Skr
2-9-78
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