Tag: Adrenaline

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What are you truly passionate about?

take-your-passion

 

Earlier today, someone asked me a question that got me thinking…

He asked me what I was passionate about… Immediately, I replied “Skydiving”. To which he then asked “why?” sell me on your passion.

Six hours later, I find myself still thinking about the question. I didn’t have a hard time answering him at all, but it got me to thinking do we all truly feel the way I do? Does every other skydiver who’s passionate about the sport truly sold the same way I am? Or maybe I’m the one who’s not as obsessive as they are. Some skydivers I’ve met told me that I was stupid to take time off to rest my sprained knee while others just said “that sucks”.

In life, not everyone finds something to be passionate about, some people spend their entire lives searching for this passion while others know it early on in life. I stumbled upon it randomly while on a “yes man” challenge.

I had spent a year as a yes man starting in January 2009 where my best friend and I would say yes to any and all invitations to participate in activities, go to events, learn things, travel, etc… Obviously, we had to use logic in our endeavors (I did however give a lift to a homeless person, which looking back on it, probably wasn’t the brightest idea, but he did show me a spot where I could park my car for free downtown any night).

That year lead me to learning Salsa dancing, traveling to Cuba, New York, Boston and the Bahamas, bungee jumping, doing my tandem and many many many other things. It probably was one of the best years of my life.
After having done my tandem, I had approached the owners of the DZ and asked them about doing my AFF to which one of them replied “that’s what they all say” and laughed. He did proceed to offer me to join them in Zhills for my AFF course and the rest is history.

Fast forward 4 years and I’m now a sponsored skydiver as well as an equipment dealer and I find myself a big part of the skydive community in Quebec. A lot can change in such a short period of time when you love what you do… So what are you passionate about?

 

Blue ones!

Adam

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I. HATE. RAIN.

So for any of you who have been around Quebec… Or actually eastern Canada for that matter, you’ve probably noticed the erratic weather that’s been going on.
During the week it’s extremely sunny, come Friday, they’re announcing thunder showers and huge winds.
It’s hurricane season in the Caribbean and we suffer the consequences. That being said, every one of the past few weeks (Including the CRW weekend) have been canceled due to weather.

This coming weekend, I’ll be attempting to mess with the system and go to Voltige on Monday. Hopefully since it’s a weekday, the weather will cooperate. If not, I’ll be celebrating Parachutisme Atmosphair’s 20th anniversary!!!

Skydive Addiction along with UPT and NZ Aerosports are proud sponsors of the event.

THEY ARE OFFERING 20$ JUMP TICKETS ALL WEEKEND LONG!!!!!

That’s a HUGE deal for a Quebec DZ.

I’ll be there all weekend giving out prizes and random surprises, so keep your eyes peeled for me!

Blue skies everyone!

Adam

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Slow start to the season…

Hey everyone!

 

No, I haven’t disappeared, and no skydive addiction isn’t dead… I simply haven’t had the time to go skydive yet =(.

I’ve been working crazy hours at the office + have been taking scuba diving lessons during the week with Genevieve, so it’s been hectic.

I’ll be at Voltige 2001 this weekend, so I promise to have an update done!

PS: Be on the lookout for me at Parachutisme Atmosphair’s 20th anniversary, I”ll be giving out prizes!!!!!

Blue ones!

Adam

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The winter is long…

So thanks to our long winter, most of the Dropzones around here have postponed opening for another week to clean up the snow that’s been left over and wait for warmer weather.

That part kind of sucks… But while I was waiting for the season to start up, I took advantage to do some wind tunnel training with Andrew Toman at Skyventure Montreal.
Andrew was my first instructor when I first learned to skydive. He was the one who did the ground school, he was also the one who gave me my 1st 20 minute coaching in the tunnel.

He didn’t join us in Florida for the AFF course, but he followed up later on by giving me a good portion of the lessons for my A license.

Now comes the time to learn to back fly and the basics of sit flying.
2 weeks ago and this past week, I had booked a total of 40 minutes of tunnel time with him to work on my back flying.
And work we did… I haven’t had to do it since my B license, so it was quite fun to see myself during the first debrief when I nearly kicked Andrew in the face haha.

In the first 2-4 minutes, we did mostly work in low wind with me simply trying to keep control and move around on the net while learning to change to sit position.
For the rest of the 10 minutes we progressed onto slightly higher wind so that I could work on controlling my fall rate.

In debrief, he showed me what I was doing wrong and we worked on improving that (I was really stiff and flew large, but flew my upper body fairly small….)
so for the next 10 minutes, we worked at improving that and then worked more on holding myself in the sit position.

The following week (this past Monday), I went back to the tunnel to do the second half of the 40 minute block with him.
Armed with some comfort in the back fly position, we went on to see how much I remembered and how I flew now.
I was much more stable, but still had some polishing to do, but we didn’t focus much on that.
Instead, Andrew had me working on my transitions to sit fly and started working on my stability, my turns, my movement forwards, backwards, up and down.
It was VERY awkward… Being that I was someone who had always said that I wasn’t interested in learning to freefly yet as I wanted to focus more on CReW, I was quite surprised to say that I enjoyed it.
A LOT.

I asked Andrew to find me another 10 minutes of time to do some more training, so I’m excited to see how that pans out.

Also: Francois Huot accepted to let me join his CRW seminar in June over the long weekend, so I’m SUPER excited about that!
We’ll be sponsoring a few events this summer as well as showing up with gifts at some boogies, so keep your eyes open for us!

Blue skies everyone!Adam

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20th Anniversary of Parachutisme Atmosphair!

Bonjour tout le monde!

 

Nos amis à Parachutisme Atmosphair célèbrent leur 20e anniversaire cet année.

Pour fêter ceci, ils font un concours mensuel ou ils donnent soit un saut Tandem, un rabais de 15% sur un cours de parachutisme ou des sauts gratuits dépendant de votre statut comme parachutiste.

Je vous suggère fortement de mettre vos noms!

Bonne chance!

Hey Everyone!

So our friends at Parachutisme Atmosphair are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year.

To highlight this momentous occasion, they are having a monthly draw giving away either a tandem skydive, a 15% discount on skydive lessons or some free jump tickets depending on your status as a skydiver.

I strongly suggest that you all sign up!

Being that it’s in Quebec City, it’s all in French, but just to sum it up:
You fill in the details, (Last name, first name, e-mail) then the same for a friend you’d like to refer.

Good luck and Blue Skies!

Adam


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Ever heard of Parabatics? Neither did we!

So once again, Nick in Florida has surprized us with a new video.

At first peek, it doesn’t look like anything special, but once you realize what’s actually going on…
Just check it out:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxKKWmxVWMk[/youtube]

I asked Nick to do a quick write up about his experience, here it is:

One of my more recent ventures in skydiving has been learning parabatics or acrobatic flying of 2-4 canopies and pilots linked together either via leg lock or straps. My friend Bob told me that only about 3% of Skydivers actually get into CReW as a primary discipline within our sport and that only about 1% of those 3% every consider or get into parabatics. For me parabatics are a total release. It requires focus, the ability to stay calm and think quickly, and absolute trust of the other person or people connected to the straps with you. Something as simple as turning the canopies left or right is now a combined effort once attached via the straps making coordination between the pilots paramount. My overall learning curve has been quite steep and in 5 jumps I’m told that I’m doing better than most with far more jumps than I have. To be quite honest it almost feels natural to me like its something I am supposed to be doing. For me parabatics has brought me closer to recapturing the feeling of that first skydive many moons ago. Most of our jumps end with a final downplane that we ride to about 1000 feet before severing the strap connection. If there are any other canopies still in the air it forces us to end sooner and if conditions are right the downplane can be ridden conceivably as low as 100 feet giving both pilots ample time to safely land their canopies (something I’m looking forward to doing when the time and place is right). Hope you enjoyed a view into what I like to do under canopy!

Cheers
Nick

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Nuit Blanche 2 – Skyventure

Hello Ladies and Germs!

This coming weekend is take 2 of Skyventure Montreal’s Nuit Blanche event. It’s been booked solid for 2 months now as usual, but we’ll be onsite to give you the dirty.

I’ll be doing some 4 way RW  (Relative work) with some strangers, so this should be quite fun!

 

Also: The Quebec Invasion tour is heading to PST again this year, I unfortunately won’t be present, but if all works out, I should have the videos from their trip. Buffalo Wild Wings seems to be sponsoring the event again.

 

I’ll keep all of you posted about that too!

 

Blue Ones!

 

Adam

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Will you raise the bar?

 

Hey everyone!

The off season’s half over, with that, Sebastian Bos at GoSkydive UK got in touch with me and wrote up a post about this past year’s accomplishments… What do YOU have planned for 2013? Think you can raise the bar higher?

 

A new breed of heroes have raised the bar in 2012

By Sebastian Bos

It’s been a tough few years for sports fans who’ve had to watch a succession of their favourite sporting idols fall from grace. First it was Tiger, then came Lance and the final admission that brought an end to the slow puncture of his reputation. Michael Schumacher’s return to Formula 1 was chequered at best, while the old master Roger Federer began to show signs that his reign at the top of the tennis world may be coming to an end. And, of course, footballers continued to be more trouble than they were worth.

Can we consider 2012 to be a changing of the guard then? Bradley Wiggins won the Yellow Jersey clean at the Tour de France; Team GB inspired a nation with their feats of strength, speed, intelligence, coordination and determination at the Olympics; and both Andy Murray and Rory McIllroy played their part in creating the most memorable year in British sporting history.

But across the pond in America, one man’s achievement rose above them all – quite literally. In record breaking Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner, the world was presented with an adventurer who was prepared to push the boundaries of human technology to the limit and test the laws of physics like no one before him. Leaping to the earth from the edge of space isn’t something most people can get their heads around, but by bringing skydiving into the limelight from 24 miles up, Baumgartner demonstrated what makes it the pinnacle of adventure sports. How else could you enjoy the stunning views of the world from thousands of feet up with absolute freedom while travelling at over 100mph – or in Felix’s case nearer 800mph? In becoming one of the most viewed moments of 2012 across the world, Fearless Felix allowed us all to share in that sense of excitement and anticipation that comes with being courageous enough to make that leap. Skydivers often speak about their love of the adrenaline rush that they get from freefalling and the sense of empowerment that they get from facing up to a challenge and proving that they can do anything.

If you’d like to try something different and push yourself out of your comfort zone, why not try a Skydive (http://www.goskydive.com) out for yourself? At GOskydive thrill seekers are offered the best training and equipment available to make your skydiving experience an unforgettable one.

 

If you aren’t in the UK, but are planning a trip there, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the people at GOskydive. If you’re simply looking for general info about the dropzones in your area, send us an email and we’ll be glad to help out.

 

Blue skies everyone!

 

Adam

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How can you skydive? That’s crazy? No it isn’t…. This is crazy!

So over the years, people have told me that I’m crazy for skydiving, they said that I was crazy for jumping off of planes, they said I was crazy for wanting to do it day in, day out.

Then, when I decided that I wanted to learn CRW (Canopy relative work – AKA: Parachute formations) I was told by even more people that I was crazy… Some of these people are skydivers themselves!
Geneviève has always supported the fact that I want to fly CRW but she herself refuses to do it claiming that it’s crazy to “play in each others’ lines”.

When I was in Florida at Skydive Sebastian, I mentioned that I got to fly with a guy named Nick. Well Nick and I have kept contact and yesterday, he went a step above simple CRW….
Yesterday, he and a friend decided to attempt a jump using his Sabre2 150 loaded at 1.34 and a Velocity 90 loaded at 2.5.
He calls this Crazy CRW, I agree with him… On that note though, I want to try this!

Check it out:

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHgHO0buCww&list=UU1s3Dldm_XS5qNMvGceDocw&index=1&feature=plcp[/youtube]

 

(Image above by Eric Bernetzke from a 25 way CRW record in Wisconsin)

Blue skies everyone!

 

 

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What is the first thing that went through your head when you went skydiving?

 

 

Yesterday, I spoke about what skydiving feels like because it’s a pretty common question. Today, I figured I’d go about another quite common question I get…

What is the first thing that you thought when you went skydiving?

Well, the truth is, it’s the same thing that went through my head when I went bungee jumping… I though to myself “Why do I always put myself through these things?”
I don’t mean to say that it was a bad though, simply a confused one, I wondered to myself why it is that I always participate in adrenaline sports, what attracts me to them. Why do I feel the need to do them.

For me, it’s pretty simple. Without even discussing the whole psychological aspect to it, I’m an adrenaline junky. My common sense often tells me that these things may not be a good idea, but then once I get a feel of them, I simply go through with it. Never have I regretted listening to my adventurous side…. Ok, maybe once in Spain when I got hit by a truck, but aside from that, I’ve never regretted it.

 

What goes through your mind when you’re about to do something “crazy”?