Who's that guy on the radio?

The #1 question I've gotten since posting these SIV videos is who's that guy talking? Also: How is he talking to you?

That guy is Gabriel Jebb and he's easily the best paragliding instructor I've ever met, especially at SIV and acro. If you've seen Performance Flying, Instability or Broken Toe you've seen some good video, but the instructors are average communicators at best. Gabe really teaches. He describes how it feels when you're gaining momentum, when to pull, weight shift and all the other little things that happen when you're really up there.


Click to watch the video.

You can tell he's Swiss: he's methodical, patient and follows a clear unbroken line of thinking. But he's Californian too. He know's that not just getting it but making it cool is what we're trying to do. Sometimes cool's enough too. He gets those in as well.

With all due respect to those other guys, Gabe's simply the best. If you watch Instability 2 when they show how to get out of a spin it's clear they're practicing strong pitch control and laying off of the brakes when the wing's in front. But, all they actually say is "Lay off of the brakes". I remember watching that video for the first time thinking, "This video should be called 'Lay Off of the Brakes'! There must be more to active piloting than that."

That's what Gabe gets into. Everything else that you know is there that no one's talking about.

I love the video on Broken Toe. Owning that video's a must. But, the instruction is almost hard to listen to. He doesn't so much teach as do a free-association rambling about what to expect. There are no details, no finesse.

I don't want to take anything away from these other guys. I'm thankful they're there and have put out videos. All I'm saying is if you're a paraglider you need to take a clinic with Gabe while he's still teaching.

Robin too.

This guy manning the boat is exactly the guy you want to see after you end up in the drink. He's driving a half-empty man-made lake with 40-year-old tree trunks popping up everywhere as if he could see from our 1000+ foot perspective. He arrived when I threw my reserve within seconds and pulled my 210 lb. ass out of the water like I was a wet nurf ball. Amazing. Robin is reason enough to go to these clinics.

He knows his shit too. He's the king of "outside brake". Everytime I've messed up a move in the sky he's right there saying, "You need more outside brake." He's said it so many times now that it's become a reflex for me. And, when I mess up a move one of the first things I think is "Did I forget about the outside brake?"

Paraddicted!

The Costa Ricans from paraddicted.com kick ass!



The paraddicted.com guys: Paul and Mike.

I could write volumes here, but the videos say it all: click.

More SIV: Ivan Performs

Under the openly hostile oppression of the Golden Trout management we managed to have a pretty good time eating, drinking and singing the night away. Here's a clip from Ivan who performed so well I was reluctant to even pick up the guitar at the risk of being compared.


Click to watch the video.

This is what it's like to be at a Torrey SIV clinic: wet wings, cool people.

When I showed these videos to my wife she said, "Californian's are so sterile." It's immediately obvious how much heart and soul this Montenegrin has. We are sterile here in CA. We keep our personal distance. But, we love extreme sports, and thankfully that connects us with a lot of guys like Yvonne.


Radical maneuvers, wet wings, cool people.

SIV 2007 Part 2

Flight 125 - 7

Day 3 here was different. We had all had at least 1 tow and all wanted to go big.

First tow up was a bit cold. I did some wingovers, asymmetric spirals and landed right were I need to be for the next tow.

All I really wanted to do was wingovers. I just want to get that feeling, the timing. I was still beating myself up from not going bigger the day before. I wanted to get up high and go big. Just before launch Gabe came up to me and said he wanted to see a full stall and spin in order to prepare to do a SAT. OK, I’m cool with that. Gabe knows where I’m at and what I need.

On each tow up I ask for a blessing. It’s beautiful at Lake Isabella. The tow up is a great time to just enjoy the natural beauty. I had no idea what I had coming.


Click to watch the video.

Once off the tow I pulled a full stall. I’m not sure why but I let off early. Strange. Full stalls are hard to hold. You really need to lock your arms.

Then Gabe asked for the spin. He said to let off when the wing was in front of me. Part of holding a spin is that the wing will oscillate in front and behind you. I for some reason heard him say to let off as the wing was coming to the front, which is in fact the absolute worst time to let off. The result was a fall that resulted in a cravat. As if that was not enough, Gabe’s radio went out after I fell into the cravat.

I have seen enough cravats to know that you can get out. I decided to pull a full stall, but to no effect. The brakes were stuck or they were all the way out already. My vision got very narrow at this point. I was focused nearly exclusively on the part of the wing that had power. I’m not sure why but I wasn’t looking around.

The biggest lesson I’m taking away from this fall is when things go wrong look around, see what’s available to make your recovery.

I knew I had already spiraled more than 3 times. Gabe always says to throw the reserve after the 3rd spiral. I reached around for the reserve. The handle was not immediately where I expected it. I rarely check for the reserve. I’m going to start doing that.

When I threw the reserve it didn’t open immediately. I notice the little bag it sits in just resting on my lines. This wasn’t good. I started drawing in the paraglider wing to get it out of the way. In retrospect this too was a mistake. I should tugged on the line to the reserve. It just didn’t occur to me. I just figured if I got the big wing out of the way the little one would open. It turns out I was right, but that was the wrong way to approach it.

With both wings open now I was safely descending to the water. I looked down and saw that the only tree in the whole area where we were practicing was just off to the side below me. I continued to pull in the big wing because if I could go straight down I knew I would miss it.

When I hit the water I struggled to get out of my harness. The foam from the harness makes it hard to keep your head up out of water. Robin was there in seconds. He picked me straight up into the boat. Amazing considering I weight 210 dry, and I was very wet and wearing huge boots.

I never panicked throughout this whole experience. I wasn’t always sure what to do, but I calmly performed my training. That’s awesome as well. Gabe has me well trained, and it all paid off.

On land the whole crew gave me a big cheer and a hero’s welcome. That’s really great when you’re coming in from a disaster. Danielle said, “I told you to go big and you really went big!” Arman told me later the cravat spiral I was in is the number one reason paragliders die. What a great experience! This is exactly what I took the SIV for. This was a chance to safely get out of the number 1 disaster I could get into. Awesome.

Dan offered his gear for another flight. I have to admit this one was difficult. On the one hand I wanted to get back on the horse. But, on the other my mind was clearly not on my abilities. I was scared. Was it real of fake fear?

Dan and I laid his wing out. I got in the harness and needed to make some big adjustments. I got it back on, looked at him and said, “I don’t want to go.” I took everything off. By the time Robin had come back to get me I changed my mind. That wasn’t real fear. It was natural to be reluctant to get back up there after taking a big fall. But, a great flight would be very healing.

As I went back up I asked for my blessing. As I released the tow Gabriel walked me through 2 awesome SATs, then some wingovers. I didn’t feel the joy until I hit the ground. What a rebound! Perfect. Just what I needed.

I’m still burning off the adrenaline days later as I write this. All I have to say is if you paraglide you need to take a safety clinic at least once a year. And at the clinic you need to push it. You need to get where you’ll be in trouble with the way you fly.

I’m 2 for 2 as far as going into the drink on these clinics. The last time I couldn’t make it back to shore. This time I lost my virginity: I threw my reserve for the first time. Thank God I did this over water rather than land, and under Gabe’s eye.


Click to watch my third tow with SATs.

SIV 2007 Part 1

Flight 124

Dan and I drove up to Lake Isabella on Thursday, the first day of the clinic which pretty much locked in the fact that we wouldn’t get a tow. But, there was a chance and I was hoping for the best. We left San Diego at 9AM and arrived at the tow zone (LZ?) at 2PM. That’s not bad time.

When we arrived the wind had come on. The guys got a few tows but not much. We headed to a local bar to talk. We had a chance to meet the other guys at the clinic (yes, it was all men).


The Hut in Kernville.

There where 2 folks from Costa Rica, Mike and Paul who run paraddicted.com. Great acro pilots I was soon to discover. Yvonne from Montenegro who turns out to be an awesome musician. Andrew, Henry, Had and Michael.

I love hanging out with paragliders. Even before anyone says a word you know you’re with a group of people none of whom’s lives are shaped by fear. These are my kind of people. The experiences they share are among the best stories I’ll ever hear.

We were all staying at the Golden Trout in Kernville, a fine place if the owners were friendlier. They had a bbq area with picnic tables out front and seemed to mind quite a bit that we were using it. We were loud, laughing and drinking, but what the hell! We were the only ones staying at the hotel and we’re in the middle of nowhere.

After dinner Gabe gave a talk on what to expect. There’s no way to describe how well Gabriel trains and talks about paragliding. His descriptions are simply the best. He tells where to look, what to do and what you’ll feel. His style is a bit Swiss, accurate, precise, but with the casual feel of a native Californian.

About wingovers he said you need to do at least 2 outs for every up. That is, when you’re doing your wingover your direction is controlled by when you apply brake in the down swing. The later you apply, the more up you get. You can’t get up on every turn. It’s not physically possible. In the beginning he instructed us with left, right, left right. As we get better he’ll say, out, out, out, up.

We all added what we want to get out of the course. I wanted to focus on descent techniques. He asked if I’d ever done super big ears.

Super big ears are just really big big ears. You pull the As on both sides really deep. The advantage of this technique is horizontal movement in addition to vertical descent. When you need to get low you’re typically in suck. If you do a vertical descent with a b-line stall, asymmetric spiral or even full stall you’ll get low but you’ll still be in the strong lift. Super big ears are a way to get out.

I wish I had videotaped that session. Even after partying Gabe gave a clear a lesson as ever and far more informative than any SIV video I’ve ever seen.


Early start, wings laid out.

Friday morning out wings were laid out at 8AM waiting for Robin to tow. I was 4th or 5th up. As promised I did my super big ears. They’re unstable. You keep feeling like you’re going to get a frontal collapse, but I got the feel if I ever need them. Then I just did wingovers. My timing was lousy and I was still chicken to lay into the brakes. I wanted to build up, but without getting any real turn I was just swinging from side to side. This was clear when I watched the video later.


Conditions were developing all day but we had plenty of time to fly. When this cloud imploded things changed dramatically.

Around noon conditions got rough quickly. A gust front came in at shut down the clinic immediately.


This shows a bit more clearly what was going on.

5+ miles with tweaking

Flights: 120-3

I got 3 flights in on Wednesday. We’ve been working in the mornings and evenings and taking a break when the conditions are great for flying.

The air was big early on. I made it a point to fly to the Scripps Pier and then all the way to bathtub rock. That’s the extent of the easy flying at Torrey, nearly 5 miles.

I wanted to try a few wingovers to see where my abilities were before the SIV clinic, but I didn’t have enough altitude for any comfort. I was pretty pussy about that. That’s why I need that clinic. It doesn’t hurt that all these clinics are now business trips for me.

2 more flights without much to add. I’m landing deeper now at Torrey and looking to get out of my gear just before I land.

The Point

Flights 118-9

I’m flying a lot more at Torrey now that Gabriel and I have partnered on a new business. It’s a bit dangerous to form a company with a fellow paraglider. Only bad weather will help us survive.

The company is called Adaptive Energy and Waste. We’re commercializing a green technology called arc-plasma gasification. Our intention is to clean-up the landfills of the world and create cleaner electricity. Stay tuned.

I took 2 flights Tuesday. I’ve been looking to get up from lower at Torrey, that is, I’m not afraid to land on the beach for the sake of scraping back up. It was big early on in the day. Dan Danielle and I got our radios on a non-teaching frequency and headed out. Danielle wanted to go to the point. By the point I thought she meant bathtub rock which comes to a point. We were talking about 2 different areas about a half mile apart.


Danielle and I were talking about places that were a half mile apart.

It’s great to fly around with friends on the radio. It’s required in cross-country. At Torrey it's just fun. On our first run out to bathtub rock I had a lot of altitude, about 450 MSL. I flew over bathtub rock for the first time ever which was a thrill. I was losing a lot of altitude. I looked at my vario and saw 250 and falling. I was over some deep crevasses and feeling very uncomfortable about landing on the beach. It’s illegal to land on the beach at Torrey Pines State Park and I understand they’re eager to get right out there and give you a ticket. I looked back at the rock and estimated I could make it back with glide ratio, so I turned.

I just made it over the rock and looked for ridge lift. All was fine until I crossed over a small plateau in front of the ridge. For a moment I thought I’d get more lift on the front of the plateau but then figured that couldn’t be right and turned inside towards the larger ridge. I immediately hit sink. Apparently the first ridge creates at least enough ridge to cause sink on the other side. I landed safely and started packing up my ridge. I was so far from the LZ that for a moment I considered climbing up to the top of the ridge and relaunching.

Just then Danielle flew over me. I radioed up, “You’re ass looks fine from 200 feet!” Then I asked, “Do you see a trail up to the top here? I want to relaunch.” Gabriel, my instructor and Danielle’s man radioed in, “Stop getting fresh with my girl!” Before I had a chance to make a snappy comeback Danielle radioed, “There’s a trail in this south crevasse, but you’ll have to walk a bit for a launchable spot.”

Well that’s about the worst thing Gabriel could possibly hear: a student getting fresh with his girlfriend and her finding a place in the golf course from him to relaunch!

I had to laugh.

It was a long ass walk back, about a mile not to mention the 350 foot climb, and the wind was howling. I forgot how many naked men there were on that beach. A few asked me how I got beached with all that wind. It was only mildly humiliating.

I had some lunch courtesy of Dan and went out for a second flight. The wind died down quite a bit but I got a lot of lift on a small ravine by the golf course. I did s-turns over that ravine for a half hour. It was a lot of fun to find the lift and try to just keep in it.

ki2fly doggy-style

I caught Ki walking around with this the other day.


I'm not sure if this is a real product.