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You have the equivalent grand total of seven minutes of skydiving. Tell me any other sport aht you can spend seven minutes in and be proficient (Please don't try downhill skiing.) It's going to take you at least 50 - 100 jumps (50-100 minutes) in the sky to feel any kind of comfort in your abilities. The tunnel will accelerate that, but man - you got to give more time than seven minutes. Story: I knew a highly decorated Vietnam pilot (as in 43 air medals). He was all over the sky the first day of flying at flight school. He thought he was horrible at flying. His Instructor told him - try to remember everything you did today, because once you find the "hover button" you'll never be able to do what you did today. And, the Instructor was right - once he learned to hover he had to think really hard about how to do some of the aerobatics he did on his first day. Same thing in skydiving - you know how many of us didn't have the benefit of tunnel and had to go out theri and flail for 20, 30 40 jumps until we found our "hover button?" (Hell, there are some national champions that will tell you - never thought I'd be in the nationals much less win anything) Or before other skydivers would even jump with us? Then one day; it happens. You find your "hover button." You no longer have to think about the mechanics of turning; you just just "think" turn and it happens. Please don't give up after seven minutes.

I don't know if it will help you, but unless you are stupid you will find acceptance at the DZ. As long as you skydive the only thing that is not tolerated is stupidity. Other than that everyone is welcomed.

Welcome to our already DYSFUNCTIONAL family. "We" come from a wide variety of backgrounds in this sport. Embrace your weird, it makes you, YOU! Just be honest with the people around you, we get it... There is a reason many call this "sky therapy"! ~Tim

Nice. Thanks for the honest and thoughtful reply. Your posting style here seems to have mellowed out a bit. Have you been drinking that Kava stuff I recommended? ; )

haha chilling is the hardest thing for me I need to do some serious work on the relaxation clearly.

In retrospect I think my reasoning was in error. I argued that she was a poor example owing to her behavior at the UN. When comparing her various speeches it seemed apparent, to me, that she is also a bit of a construct. Skydekker then took me to task for ignoring the role her disability played in her demeanor on different occasions. While I think he overplayed the accusation, and while I did not claim it was all an act as many do, after some study I must agree that I should have more seriously considered the effects of Aspbergers on her changing demeanor. But the main problem was not seeing how enduring and effective her message, as she presents it, would be. Whatever I like or don't like about her or her message is beside the point as should have been whatever I like or don't like about her delivery. The reality is that she's a winner.

I can NOT believe you just gender assigned my imaginary pet dinosaur clone therapy animal thing.

We need more Canadians like this: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/24/entertainment/neil-young-us-citizen-trnd/index.html The Canadian citizen moved to Los Angeles to pursue his music career 54 years ago. He says he started his journey to US citizenship several months ago because he wanted to vote against President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Hi stins, About 10 yrs ago, my son did a tandem in New Zealand with a TI shorter than you. Jerry Baumchen

?? He, in fact, did pull the US out of that. For proof of that, look at the country's GDP. For the first year we saw the fallout of the Bush recession, with negative GDP numbers. After that we saw it go positive and average around 2%. So is Trump - he's averaging around 2% as well. Meanwhile, yes, Trump did have a 3.2% quarter. Obama had a 4% quarter. So, if you believe that the president has a direct effect on the economy, Obama did far better (at his best) than Trump has ever done. Trump can't hold a candle to Obama in terms of GDP growth. Any president who spends all his time cutting taxes and racking up record levels of debt while ignoring issues of justice, foreign affairs, environmental protection, education and fiscal responsibility is a shortsighted fool. Period.

You will have company when the time comes.