END-SEM PRACTISE
The first jump from an aeroplane is a jittery nightmare of fear. More than likely, the act of jumping out of a
perfectly good aeroplane with a heavy parachute on one’s back generates more real fear than anything, short
of armed combat.
The teaching method in fashion when I made my first jump, almost ten years ago, involved crawling out of
an open door of an aircraft and hanging from the wingstrut. The jumpmaster calculated the force of the wind
against an airspeed of over a hundred kilometres an hour, and added in a nine-hundred- metre drop. He
shouted at the student to let go of the strut at the point where all these variables might combine to deposit
him or her in the centre of the drop zone.
On that first jump I was the second student out of the plane. A young woman went first, and when she
reluctantly let go, I saw her body hurtle down through empty space like a sack of cement. When she let go of
the strut, gravity tilted her over into an exaggerated belly flop – arms straight out and slightly above the
head, legs held just above the back – spread-eagled like a frog. She was already a tiny speck before the static
line attached to the plane pulled the parachute open for her. From far above it looked like one of those
flowers blooming in time-lapse photography in a nature documentary.
The plane circled around, and it was my turn to confront the fear of falling. The jumpmaster had stressed the
importance of holding my back arched. When the jumpmaster judged that I was in the proper position he
shouted ‘Go!’. This was a command I obeyed with extreme reluctance. The plane disappeared overhead. I
held position from the waist up, but my legs were moving at a flat-out pace. I think, looking back on it, that
my fear, ignoring the hard facts of physics, was screaming, ‘Run or you’ll die!’
Nevertheless, I didn’t go into much of a spin. The chute opened splendidly, and I floated slowly to earth in
an utter silence punctuated only by the bass drumbeat of my heart. It didn’t matter that I’d failed to hold
position. The point of the first jump is simply doing it. The niceties come later, if the student decides there is
going to be a later. Jumping once is about defeating fear rather than demonstrating skill, boldly breaking
through the bars and escaping the confines we set for ourselves. Afterwards, my skydiving classmates and I
were giddy and ecstatic, like a group of children getting off a roller coaster, with an excitement fuelled by a
sense of accomplishment.
Some of my classmates who went on to further jumps might have been looking to recapture that first
incredible adrenaline rush – as I know I was – but this is a process of diminishing returns. As the novice
becomes accustomed to the fear, the thought process changes gradually. During the first jump you think – ‘I
know thousands have done it before, but this time it’s me, and I’m going to die.’ This gives way to a more
casual attitude – ‘Okay, some people have been injured, some have even been killed, but I’m careful, and
that’ll never happen to me.’
My experience suggests that the novice skydiver discovers, over the next few jumps, that one can never feel
again that first thrill of pure and primal fear. He or she also learns to appreciate the skill involved in
skydiving, and begins to understand that the mechanics of flying are pleasurable in themselves. This is the
reason some people become hooked on the sport. The woman I watched fall off the strut that day nearly a
decade ago has now logged over a thousand jumps.
You are the jumpmaster delivering a talk to a new group of skydiving students to prepare them for
their first jump. Write the words of your talk. In your talk you should explain:
• what the students will do on their first jump and why
• the experience of fear and how to overcome it
• the rewards of skydiving and why they will want to repeat the experience.
Begin your talk: ‘Welcome everyone. Now listen carefully...’
