Greetings from rainy European autumn

[Mann 0]

I figured I might as well introduce myself, as I've spent hours going through these forums anyway. So here it goes.

Hi everyone, my name is Maria. I'm a little Estonian, 23 years old, and started with skydiving this season, only a couple of months ago. Right now I've got only 15 jumps under my skin and as we're doing IAD courses (instead of AFF) I'm still learning my turns, exiting at 5000 feet and have a long way to go.

My first jump on June 22nd didn't leave me with much of an impression. Although my heart was racing as I was putting on the gear, everything became calm as soon as the plane took off. Man, was I surprised!

I don't know if I didn't have any fear or I just didn't know what to be afraid of, but I just sat in that cramped space (our jump-plane is a tiny Britten Norman Islander, 10 people altogether) and ran through my jump-process, over and over and over again. "I get on the door, put my left hand here and right one there, look at my instructor, he asks "Are you ready?", I shout "Ready!", he says "Go!", I push my body out, spread my hands, arch..."

When the time came, I just did it. I didn't contemplate, didn't look down, didn't even think about it - I just crawled to the door, did what I had trained myself to do and went.

After 2 seconds the fall was over.

A couple of line twists and a steering control later I was sitting in the harness, still 4200 feet high, and I couldn't see the beauty in it. Yeah, the sun was low and I could see miles away, but there was no depth perception: I was sitting above a map and that was it. "So what exactly makes it fun?" I asked myself and decided to go on with my training program until I was allowed into a freefall - and if that didn't give me a kick I expected, I promised I'd find something better to do.

Looking back - boy oh boy was my life about to change.

6 weeks later I was doing my first 5 seconds. Some bad weather and my own stupidity (I got my ankle stuck under a motorcycle, so it was blue and swollen for quite a bit of time) had made the process slow and long, but finally the time was there: I was ready to go.

The way I came back to the packing area says a lot about the outcome. I was overflowing with all the excitement and one of our older guys hollered: "So was it better than sex?" and I answered: "Better than some, yes."

The next jump was supposed to be 10 seconds, but it turned into "altimeter awareness opening" instead, because I lost my count after 3 and not knowing where 10 seconds ends flew until the usual student deployment altitude, 3600 feet. It was awesome! I screamed and shouted and laughed, the air filled my mouth and made my cheeks wobble. Surprisingly enough, I flew on my belly the whole way down, probably because I remembered a friend's advice: "As soon as you relax, it works."

Coming back to the packing area that older guy came up to me and asked, this time quietly: "So was it better than sex now?" - "Yes, now it was better than sex. Period." And it was!

Now, after 15 jumps, I'm struggling with unintentional turning, but I'll get through it, no worries.

Right now I'm going through a stage most of us have experienced - that I-never-shut-up-about-skydiving thing. I'm ready to talk my friends to death!

Luckily enough, they understand and appreciate my need to share the experience. It's not even that much about skydiving itself as it is about the people: the amount of great personalities in unbelievable!

Somebody described it very well on dropzone.com. I don't remember the exact phrase nor can I find it (I tried, but there's way too much information on these forums), but it went something like this: "At the beginning we are so overwhelmed by the sport that we annoy all of our friends, because all we talk about is skydiving: how great it is and how we like the people we've met. It isn't before skydiving becomes something we do - instead of being something we are - that we truly start to understand it."

I might be overdoing it, of course, because I only remember the impression that post left me with, not the text itself. It doesn't matter, though, because the point remains the same: it will take time before I start understanding what skydiving is ABOUT.

The bad thing about skydiving in Estonia is our climate. The autumn is here already! Constant raining, low clouds and strong winds don't get along well with skydiving. Our season is more or less over and it won't be before April or May that skydivers get their spark back.

I've already asked them to train me to become a rigger (there's a lot of time for that when the winter darkness is here ;)) and meanwhile, I'm enjoying my life and everything. Skydiving has opened some kind of channel of energy I wasn't aware of before.

We lost a dear friend this summer, first fatality in 10 years our club has existed. I felt awkward in a situation where people were grieving and everybody was trying to stay quiet (except our press agent) until media had found something else to pick about.

Weirdly, it made me closer to them. I don't perceive it as a shock, if anything, it made me appreciate the opportunity of flying even more. I can't say that I hadn't enjoyed life to the fullest before I got involved, but it sure gave me a kick in the ass: "Don't get comfortable, you know!"

I'm planning on going back to Alaska this coming summer (I've got a habit of working abroad as a way of vacationing or something), but I'm also thinking if I should contact some dropzone instead and spend a summer learning to fly. I don't know yet, we'll see.

PS. My 12th jump (altitude awareness a.k.a "fly until you hit the deployment altitude") is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYcygmvuy3Y - I'm the first one to leave.

And my last jump, 15th (turning a.k.a "learn how to stop spinning left") is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyNe5IH_M9A - I'm the first one to leave again.

[Peej 0]

Hey Maria, welcome to the forums! Sounds like you are doing well, stick with it

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[skymama 37]

Welcome to the forums!

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[Mann 0]

Just to let you know: my spinning problem is gone. Gone! =D

We got a beautiful sunny day today, first one in weeks, so of course we spent it jumping. It might as well have been our last this season.

Yesterday I read a quote at skydivingmovies.com where somebody was describing his instructor: "I was nervous and he told me "Everybody says to relax. It doesn't work. It's like telling someone not to think of a blue elephant. Just think 'smile'"

It sounded good, so I decided to try it out. I set it up as my agenda for the day to just get out of that plane and smile from the very first second. And it worked! It really worked!

No more spinning, guys. It's (and I am) getting better jump by jump.