Who are you going to be?

Posted to rec.skydiving 1995-6-15

One day a young lady named Shannessa posted an article
about her discomfort with the grim, white knuckle approach
to skydiving that she was experiencing and wanted some
re assurance that she could just go out and feel free.

The question really resonated with me and I thought:

    What's common to every jump?
    What do you really have to do because you're making a jump?

    And what's free to be any way you want?


From: (Shannessa)
Subject: sorta bored with RW

>does this happen to everyone sometime in their careers, or is it just me. 

>them, and spend the whole time struggling to make more than just one dock.

>make sure my legs are on my butt on the exit from the V-- wishing that I
>could just go out there and do some back loops.  They always did say that

>comments for me?

Yes .. The prevailing wisdom for thousands of years has been to follow
your heart. Go do the backloops.

There is very little in jumping that you really have to do

Keep an eye on the ground
Pull your ripcord
Watch out for other people
Don't land on sharp, pointy things
(Don't land on expensive stuff either :-)

Make a genuine effort to get your parachuting skills together
Rigging packing spotting tracking canopy control & emergency stuff

The rest is all yours
An opportunity to ask
Who am I
What do I really like to do
What's possible

When I was very young I was basically a college student
2 blue jeans, 35 books, 6 mains & 3 reserves stashed under my bed
Jumping on my own
And figuring out a lot of things for myself
You can figure stuff out too
It's not all known yet by any means

Teachers can help
If they're the right kind
Some people teach by forcing you into their mold
Others teach by helping you to see for your self

Some crusty old style and accuracy jumper may be just right
for learning parachuting skills

I learned more from Bob Sinclair than anybody
about parachuting, and perspective
I learned from Richard Economy about beautiful flying

If you follow your own path you'll often take a lot of fire

"You Goddamn fun jumpers are ruining *our* sport"
or
"You can't do that .. That's not skydiving"
or
"Fun jumping is for people who can't handle competition"
or

Pretty painful stuff sometimes
But who're you going to be
If you're Shannessa you can't be someone else
You have to be whoever Shannessa is

So keep an eye on the ground
Pull your ripcord
Watch out for other people
Don't land on sharp, pointy things

And tell us some of your jump stories from time to time :-) :-)

Skratch 95-6-15

Who Ya Gonna Be?