A Rush of blood to the head

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done

There are thousands to prophesy failure

There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing

That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

- From ‘It Couldn’t be Done’, Edgar A. Guest

Jumping out of a plane, when it’s in perfectly good condition might seem to be foolishness to some. To me, it’s unthinkable to not do something that offers a different perspective, an experience that jolts your mind and body into feeling something special – the rush of blood to your head during freefall.

Skydiving to me, meant many things. One of them was to understand how I react to fear and uncertainty. But fear means different things to different people. A friend of mine said he would rather go bungee jumping than skydive. To me, to trust nothing but a rope, to have no back ups at all, is plain crazy. Our instructors at ‘Start Skydiving’ told us a lot about risk management, and that it was up to us, to pull the cord and save ourselves, at least the AFF (Accelerated free fall) jumpers. I liked the fact that I was responsible for what happens up there, for I trust myself to do what is necessary to save myself. I also feel that a bungee jump is more about fear and nothing else, where as a skydive is a million things. The feeling of being pushed up by the wind during free fall; in an arch for those few seconds is not something you can experience anywhere else. I felt beautiful, powerful, and blessed, to be able to do what I was doing.

I was part of the AFF team that could not jump the first time due to bad weather. But the whole day, I spent my time imagining the entire sequence of events – From wearing the jumpsuit, to letting go of that last piece of metal at fifteen thousand feet. I even wrote a farewell note to some friends (I like preparing for the ‘worst case scenarios’) Going through the jump sequence so many times really improved my confidence. The fact was, the experience was not just about the jump. Our instructors made sure we had a great time overall. I looked at their journals, some stunning photographs of difficult dives, watched the tandem jumpers fall off the sky, and pretended not to be jealous. At the end of the day, I consoled myself as best I could and waited for sunshine and blue skies.

And on one such perfect day, I went with a group of friends to the jump site, got onto a plane and experienced the best five minutes of my life. Five minutes that have enhanced everything I have done since then, and left such an impact, that every sunny morning I find myself saying – ‘What a perfect day for a skydive!’.