Jumping for fun

[crwper 7]

I started jumping BASE jumping in the spring of 2000. My jumping history has been full of ups and downs, like many I think. Being a fairly philosophical person, I tend to look at these ups and downs and try to extract some kind of "meaning" from them--something that will help me grow as a human being. This isn't always possible, but sometimes I stumble across a lesson in BASE which gets its fingers pretty well into my whole life. This is a story about one of those lessons.

To some extent, I think we all make a calculation of risk versus reward for any jump we do (or walk away from). The measure of these two factors seems to be a very individual thing, and even for one person it can change over time. When I started jumping, I think the bulk of the reward came from overcoming fear. I still remember how deep I had to dig to get my feet off that first span. It's hard to say exactly where that fear came from, and it's probably best just to leave it at a "deep fear" with which many of you are probably familiar.

I remember this fear continuing for a very long time. I suppose that when I started skydiving, I felt a similar fear. But in skydiving, it didn't take long before that fear melted into the excitement of learning new skills. Probably within my first 30 skydives, stepping off the plane was no longer an issue. But even after 100 BASE jumps, the exit point was still a scary place for me.

In the summer of 2002, with 135 jumps, I took a six-month sabbatical from BASE jumping. I had started to look at everything in terms of whether or not it was jumpable. I felt somehow guilty if I wasn't out jumping when the winds were calm. I decided to take a break, until I could look at a cliff and see something other than landing possibilities, appropriate delays, etc. I returned to jumping one weekend in the following winter, when I felt inspired to join some friends on a trip to the local static-line span.

Sometime around 150 jumps, three years after I started, I began to feel a bit ambivalent about jumping. This ambivalence has continued more or less to the present day. I've gone on trips where I could have done maybe 10 or 15 jumps, but I did 2 or 3 instead. My heart just wasn't in it, but this fact was masked by my reasoning that 1) I'm not really a big numbers person and 2) I wanted to enjoy each jump, not just pound off a whole lot of them.

About six months ago, I made a trip to a local free-stander with a couple of friends. I've done this jump many times, and nothing felt different about this time. In fact, it felt decidedly boring. Why?

Something occured to me very recently. Suppose I had become accustomed to measuring the reward of a jump in terms of the fear overcome. I think this is the sort of thing we might do habitually, long after it has outlived its usefulness. Over time, it seems natural that fear will subside. We can always take our jumping to a new level, but even that level will eventually appear less risky. There are two scenarios I see unfolding from this. In one, I could continually search for new fears to be overcome. After a while I think this path becomes dangerous, particularly if I am raising the bar on every jump. In the second scenario, I would continue to do jumps in which I am not overcoming any particular fear, but these jumps would seem less and less fulfilling, until eventually the risk outweighed the reward.

I think this is exactly the path I've been walking. I've done fewer and fewer jumps because of a general feeling of apathy, while the jumps that I have done seem often to have involved a heightened component of risk (which, I suppose, brings with it enough fear to balance things out).

A solution has also occured to me. "Solution" seems like the wrong word, actually, since I don't quite believe that these kinds of things have a solution. Perhaps I should call it an "experiment" whose outcome is not yet known. It seems to me that often we might become so accustomed to pursuing a particular goal (say, overcoming fear) that when we finally achieve the goal, we forget what has habitually been driving us. Without a new direction, we wind up bound by our pursuit of the original goal.

What's got me excited about jumping again is the idea of jumping "for fun". While this may sound obvious to some, it really isn't obvious to me. I've been jumping so long to overcome fear, that relinquishing fear is not at all a trivial thing. I think it's necessary, here, to separate the ideas of "fear" and "caution". Certainly I think it's possible to let go of fear while retaining a healthy sense of what can go wrong. Somehow, it seems to me there is more to fear than just the awareness of risk.

I had my first opportunity today to test this theory. To be honest, I wasn't sure it would hold up in the real world. It's one thing to sit at home and philosophize, "What I'm going to do, is I'm going to let go of my fear and just have fun." It's a whole other thing to feel it at the exit point. But I did feel it. I'm not saying I've ascended to a new level or anything. It never really works like that. But standing at the exit point, I told myself, "I'm doing this for fun," and it actually rang true.

Michael

[lifewithoutanet 0]

Bravo, mate.
I see this in a few of the people I jump with. We all jump for different reasons and those reasons are bound to change over time.
I used to ice-climb. It started out as a cold, miserable, scary fcuking experience that wasn't fun until I was done and back on terra firma. And then it was exhilarating. I climbed for how I would feel, not for how it felt at the time. That changed over time. Looking forward to my own evolutions in BASE, as well.
Again, bravo.
-C.

[valentin 0]

Hi

Interresting thought definitely.
Especially for me, I just start jumping last month (20 jump at 480 feet bridge) and I was wondering when I will really enjoy base jumping.
I am 20 years into teaching outdoor sport, so what I mean, is each time I landed, I yell, I shout and I am happy, but I know that what I really enjoyd is to have overcome my fear and ... to be alive.
In the first few jump , I can't even remember much of it and even in the next, I don't think that I had really any controle on what was going on , except the automatisme I had learnd (count, jump, count , throw, arch and wait to go for the riser)
One of the reason if the fear past faster in sky diving is simply because we can cumulate jump and air time, so we can build a truct into it. When I stop sky dive for 6 month , I need around 10 jump to rebuild this trust and be habile to enjoy my skydive.
It's difficult with base jump, but I guess if you could base 5/6 time day for 2 weeks, your level of fear will drop and you could enjoy it more, your confidence would increase, but becareful your level of awarness wil drop IN THE SAME TIME THAN YOUT FEAR.
-Raising the bar is definiltely a wrong choice and It's infortunately the road on which too many base jumper are, looking for more adrenaline. The point is by doing that you end up to reduce your safety margin, and that cannot last very long.
-About the connection fear/ safety, I believe that a human living in nature (and doing natural stuff) have a level of fear which is just right to protect him.
Infortunately we live in a societe which spoil our natural reflex so our fear /protection systeme doesn't work properly anymore and also human is not naturally equiped for things like base jump which is one the most antinatural things you can do.
-An other last point , I fully aggred about this number things , too many people in Skydiving especially are just going for the number (I was in Russia last summer, most people was jumping 15 time / day, some 20 with 2 rigs because the jump was 9 dollars...I was jumping as usual 5/8 time a day.
So yes some people come to base jump with the same atitude. When I was by my own after the course, I could jump only one in the morning, one in the evening because I was too warn out...
Good jump every one
Christophe

[freakydiver 0]

I wrote a similar article in response to a posting - the bottom line is if you aren't doing something because you love it truly, you will lose interst. Jumping for fun is probably the best reason out there. I know way too many people in base and skydiving that are way to wrapped up in the show-off aspect of it and are not in it for the right reasons.

-- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." --

[DrewEckhardt 0]

I get a lot of joy jumping from cliffs in the 300-400' range and when the approach/landing area is tight.

I started that way at the legal span in Idaho although now it's in the same league as a nice swoop or tree run on a snowboard.

[crwper 7]

Quote

Especially for me, I just start jumping last month (20 jump at 480 feet bridge) and I was wondering when I will really enjoy base jumping.

I think sometimes that takes a conscious effort. You can become so used to seeing the jump as a scary thing, that even when it shouldn't be so scary any more you continue to see it that way, habitually.

I once did a series of jumps from a 480 foot bridge (could it be the same one?) in which I'd climb over the rail, and then take a good long time to look under my feet at the structure. I looked side to side at where it attached to the canyon walls, and down at the river below. What I wanted to do was to take a moment to be in the environment. Then I'd look up, take a breath, and jump into that environment. I didn't bother counting the delay--I just took another breath and then pulled. The whole point was to get out of my head.

So, as I said, this adventure has not been without ups and downs. I think if you can't do much better than to keep in mind what you want out of it, and design your jumps to work toward that.

Michael

[SBCmac 0]

CRWPER (Michael),

Thanks for your post... Your post put a smile on my face because I now know that I'm not the only one that struggles to make sure that I'm on the right path with BASE...

I too have evolved my thoughts about BASE over time. I have experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly with BASE (good = amazing jumps, bad = I've been arrested and in the hospital, ugly = watched my best friend die on a BASE jump). With that said, all of my experiences in BASE have molded what I think about BASE today. For a while after watching my friend die, it took me a lot to step off of exit point. I had a hard time with BASE for many obvious reasons, but primarily because of the pain BASE causes other people, family and friends, when shit goes wrong in BASE. So for a very long time, my journey was to find BASE again, more or less meaning finding myself again. I don't know how we all get trapped in the #'s game we create around BASE and skydiving. But you’re absolutely right... "Jumping for fun" is my new approach to BASE… Meaning, I now BASE when I want to BASE and not because the winds are calm or because I think I should be doing it on any given day. All in all, I have found peace and the beauty in BASE again... It just happened one day on a train trestle that I was opening… It's a long story but it was with out a doubt a jump that will remain one of my most cherished BASE journeys.

Not to mention, my new found peace in BASE has mainly come from the awesome people that I jump with and the people that I continue meet in BASE. I have to give special thanks to my friend Heather that helped me open that train trestle that day… I’m not sure she knows how much that day changed my life… Just an amazing day!!! And I have to thank KMonster (Katie), Dexter (Chad), Steve (A.K.A Heather’s HotMan), and TVHigley (Todd) for them being great people and sharing amazing experiences with me. And I of course have to thank Valentin (Christophe) for hanging out with me, Heather, Steve, and Brian at Perrine. Other than Christophe just being an awesome person, he stopped everything that day to help me fix my tear in my canopy. Cristophe saved my weekend at Perrine :)…

Anyway, I have so many people to thank but I don’t want to write a book here… So one BIG THANKS to all my friends…

Ok… I’m going to stop rambling now and just say… I fell like we are the luckiest bastards in the whole world to experience and grow with such an amazing sport like BASE…

…

Michael

BATMAN - (A.K.A. SBCmac ...)

[crwper 7]

Michael,

One of the best pieces of advice I've heard, given from one friend of mine to another when he started jumping (off of stuff), was to be ready for a lot of ups and downs. I'm not sure he really knew what this meant at the time, but I know he's got it now. I haven't yet been injured, or watched any of my friends die in this sport. I've heard these things are inevitable, if you stick around long enough. I've been caught once, but walked away with a stern warning that, "This is danger."

I'd love to hear a bit more about your journey, if you're into telling the story.

Michael

[NickDG 23]

The Goober . . .

I think your experience is similar to other thinking BASE jumpers. I believe that even as we smile and look cool BASE jumping really scares most of us. In the early days it was common for BASE jumpers to say, "We are here for the fear."

I never arrived at the same comfort level in BASE jumping that I achieved in skydiving, and I'm pretty sure I never will.

On some BASE jumps I managed to push the fear away and just have fun, but every time I did that, I come away thinking I got away with something. When I meet people who never exhibit fear or doubt about BASE jumping I think they are wired differently than me.

Something that's changed since the old days is the amount of BASE jumps some people have at certain sites. I would guess some can jump from the potato bridge with a certain amount of comfort because they do it so often. This is something not so common just a few years ago. BASE jumps are funny things in that the goal is always the same but from object to object they are all very different. This is what makes that comfort level so hard to achieve.

The underlying problem with BASE, and the real goober of it all, is BASE jumping is a wonderful thing, but it's not worth your life. That's the thing we must maneuver around every time we jump. I realize that people who start BASE now may feel they are playing catch up, but don't. In terms of what may happen in the next hundred years I'm not really sure we know anymore now than we did twenty years ago. One day soon BASE 1000 will be as archaic as BASE 1 is now.
Carl Boenish left us a clue for those willing to heed it. BASE jumps aren't meant to be gulped down like skydives, they are special jumps, to be savored and planned for like a once a month Sushi dinner.

There is, like in any endeavor, that rare breed. The Mike Alderman's, the Slim's, and the Dwain Westons', the ones who take it to another level leaving only something for the rest of us to shoot at, but two of three of them are on the List. That's the goober . . .

NickD BASE 194

[leroydb 0]

Quote

There is, like in any endeavor, that rare breed. The Mike Alderman's, the Slim's, and the Dwain Westons', the ones who take it to another level leaving only something for the rest of us to shoot at, but two of three of them are on the List. That's the goober . . .

now that's a real gem! good one

Leroy


..I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw my bath toys were a toaster and a radio...