the natural history of a skydiver- static line era

Skydiving in ... subsidized rate, training+jump and many other cool looking thing was announced in the ad. It looked cool to me. Besides I recently saw some ads like 'skydivers, join a rescue operation ... ' etc. Moreover, I am a bit impulsive at the edge of anything - Overall, I was wooed. However, took me time to join the gang, and it began. I officially entered the world of skydiving, I was confident and sure that this is going to be cool. Other students of the gang was excited, and was shouting all around. They were too excited, yes that was it.

The instructor made a comment: 'too much adrenaline'. I never had my adrenaline rushing in my veins. In fact I felt that I am alienated from the rest as they are shouting 'skydiving … skydiving ..' and I am sitting on the pavement with a dry face, watching how the almost winter sun burn tiny amount of my skin, and little wind occasionally kick my hair.

I performed some formality as in signing some papers. I took a theoretical class, which I kinda enjoyed. I went up. I got out. I remembered that I have to perform some chores. Till now everything is a chore, a chore, yet refreshing. Then I hit the clouds, enter the cloud mass, and and loose visibility. This is something new. In my everyday life I am sunk in an ocean of air. I am covered with a blanket of air. But when I enter the clouds, it's cloud on my skin, I am completely encapsulated by cloud. There is nothing between cloud and my face. In my everyday life dust settles on my face, but this time it's real, airborne cloud settling on my face.

I have been thinking, with a little worry, "now what, I can't see nothing, where am I heading to" etc .. However, I am soon out of the cloud, and I make a landing. Soon comes down the other students. And when they touch ground, they are visibly worn off, and exhausted – like a great pressure went away from them. They just let them lie away on the grass, till the instructor pulls them up. They start describing how afraid they were, as they thought they are going to die. Honestly, I never thought about dieing. I was only thinking that I shouldn't make a mistake, I shouldn't make a mistake. That is the only thing I am afraid of in my life: to make a mistake! However, for me, in contrast, the whole thing was very refreshing, as refreshing as a moderate length run along a tropical ocean shoreline in a monsoon morning. I decided I will do it again, and continue.

I did one more jump soon, and that too was refreshing – I decided to continue. Little did I know that this decision and consequent actions will start shaping me and my outlooks.

My third jump was not easy. My flights have been canceled couple of times. I was complaining – my instructor walked up to me and grabbed my shoulder and said: "Come on, this is skydiving, it might go wrong at any time." Yes, I knew things might go wrong.

My fourth jump – This was entirely chaotic. I struck something, made couple of errors and so on... While debriefing, I was sad. He came to me, sat by my side, and said: "look, you are a sportsman..." At the end of my adolescence, I was very very confused with myself. He gave me a new identity, I am a sportsman! I told him that some people asked me where I am going before I arrived in the club. When I told I am going to skydive, they termed me as insane and nuts. He said, "if you are a skydiver, and NOT nuts, something is wrong .." I felt bad with myself after being marked as 'insane' – he showed, that for me being insane is MANDATORY. He told me: "you made this and this correct, and next I want to see in addition, this and this correct.". He never said, 'you made this and this wrong'. Then he said that I am impulsive. I know that, and am constantly criticized for that by people. But he said "Hi you are impulsive, and thats your strong point. You should use your impulse." - goodness, the charachteristics of mine I was sad with turns out to be things I MUST have!!

Preparation for fifth flight, I fell asleep inside the airplane. And I decided not to jump. But later, I said, I will jump. I was flipping. He said, "allow yourself". "allow yourself to do adventures, allow yourself to go to the edge, allow yourself to make a decision, and allow yourself to hold your decision".. Back in ground, I was sad. He said "forgive yourself. If you can not forgive yourself, you will never be able to forgive others"

Fifth jump, I hesitated before I jumped. While the jump master who flew with me was yelling at me for not being precise,  he asked me what was wrong, I told him I am anxious about making errors. Then he said, "the only error you can make is not to know what you are doing. How you are doing it does not matter. What matters is, when you do something, you must be 100% sure that you will do it. You must know how it might feel in each of your nerves. You must visualize yourself as if you are doing it, prior to the action. Then you must respect what you are doing. Then you give yourself the commands for doing it, then you do it. Every action demands something, you must mentally and physically fulfill the demands"

Simple commands. Yah skydiving is simple. You do X and you die. You do Y and you live. So are these commands, you must do this and that. But they have all been illustrated with practical examples to me. I have seen the implementations, and so prominent were they. Now, whenever I do whatever, each of these examples resurface in my mind automatically. They were not included in my thoughts so evidently. Never did  I think I will learn so much from this sport.

I owe all these knowledge and all the relations to all the wonderful people I came to know related to skydiving, to Jenny, now somewhere in Armenia, because she brought me to the sport.