Getting to the Golden Trout was an ordeal. I wouldn’t whine about it here if one’s personal situation, the ‘P’ in PWAIT, wasn’t relevant to paragliding.
Gabriel, Max and Tim reviewing the tapes.
I didn’t sleep at all the night before the 5-hour drive from San Diego to Lake Isabella. Some of that was my fault, a bit too much wine Wednesday night. The rest I blame on our 4-year-old, Trinity, who made several trips to our bed that night, an irritation I accept joyfully.
I loaded up the SUV and waited for the girls to return home from their various activities. Just as I was about to pull out my iPhone gave me a strange message: “Unable to access SIM card. See support.” The only number I was able to call was 911. I went to the nearest ATT store and got a new SIM card from them. Same message. I bought a new iPhone with the intention of returning it after I had a chance to get to an Apple store. No dice. The iTunes store was down? What a pain in the ass.
I quickly scheduled a genius bar appointment in Costa Mesa which is on the way. They’re open until 9PM and I had an 8:30 reservation. They replaced the phone. I connected it to my computer and it began syncing. By 9 all was well, but I still had a 4-hour drive, at least. With the help of iTunes and In-and-Out I arrived at the Golden Trout at 1:30 AM. Some of the guys were still up playing poker. I was exhausted.
Lake Isabella LZ / tow zone.
Friday November 16, 2007
I tried to sleep in Friday morning, but I couldn’t I was up at the crack of dawn with less than 5 hours of sleep for a second day. I felt a bit light headed as I drove to the tow zone. I had a perfect excuse to pussy out on the clinic on day 1. I was listening to DMSR by Prince which has the line,
Everybody, get on the floor
What the hell'd you come here for?”
Right, what the hell did I come here for? To pussy out on day 1? I don’t think so. Still, on my first tow I wanted to take it easy, just get reintroduced. Gabriel knew that my big goal for the trip was spin recovery, but he let me do wingovers and a asymmetric spirals.
Flight 146
Watching the videos of my flights I have to say that the feeling in the air is much different than what you see on the screen. I think having videos of your flights is invaluable. Just as in kung fu, it can be impossible at times to know what you are doing without seeing yourself from an outside perspective.
It’s all about the feel, but feelings can be relative. When I was talking with Max about getting the timing on the wingovers right he said, “Try it with your eyes closed.” Now that’s some zen shit right there - 5,000 feet in the air doing wingovers with your eyes closed. I’m definitely going to do that one day.
It does make perfect sense.
I’ve often thought that I fight better when I’m blindfolded. When you’re required to act on feel, or more importantly, when your forced to rely on senses other than sight, you have better proprioceptive perception. We like to think we’re going big, and we’re going bigger at an SIV than we do elsewhere, but when you see the video your first thought is, “That’s it!?”
OK, my first and second set of wingovers sucked. It’s amazing. In my head I’m thinking, “I’m 6K up. I can screw up as much as I want. Go BIG!” And yet, when I look at the video I look like an old grandfathers clock pendulum. I was trying, really. Later Gabriel told me that was the problem. I was thinking “Go BIG” instead of feeling the harness and controlling the canopy. I had to wait for the evening for that.
I pulled a huge asymmetric deflation. That was very cool. Unlike in the past where we were taught to ride on the good side until the bad side re-inflated, we now throw ourselves into the bad side. This causes a much fast re-inflation. It’s a great feeling too.
Gabriel and Robin preparing Haute Cuisine.
Flight 147
Second tow up was the big one. We started with the spiral. I waited for the wing to approach front and let out the break. Then I caught the surge. Awesome. I nailed it. That gave me enormous confidence. I did a pair of SATs. SATs are fun but they’re not particularly challenging. It’s actually an easy maneuver. I was much more interested in finally nailing wingovers.
The only thing I need to add to my SATs is to get out of the starfish position. My legs look awful dangling around in the air in those.
Here’s what I know about wingovers: You start slow and build. Like a kid swinging on a swing set there’s a perfect time to move your legs, “pump and back” as I say to my 4-year-old. With wingovers the moves are weight-shift and brake. On downswing, with a snap, you lead with weight shift, then give tons of break. It’s the timing that’s been my problem. I’ve always been either too early or too late.
I can feel that I’m too early and too late. I feel it in my ass, the harness and the wing. When I get it right it feels so easy. When I get it wrong it just stops the wing.
My breakthrough on this clinic was measuring my brake input. I took a wrap and brought each brake to the carabiners. That’s enough break to get the ‘out’ part of the wingover. You won’t get over 90˚, but that was okay with me. I just wanted to work on the timing.
Weight shift and break. Let up, Pump with both to adjust and prevent collapse. Wait for the downswing and repeat. One more thing, keep your angles crossed or you look like a dick even if the wingovers are solid.
At the end of my second tow I felt that I made some progress, but I still wasn’t doing wingovers.
When I approached the LZ the wind was starting to really kick up. It was difficult to get down. I’m not sure what it was but I wasn’t thinking straight. I drifted around. I could have pulled big ears and landed anywhere, but I didn’t really feel like landing. I was just drifting. Then, all of the sudden I found myself drifting back over the water. WTF! I landed about ankle deep. Gabe said on the radio, “Kite! Kite!” I’m not sure why but I just let the wing fall in the water. It was wierd. I think I was g-ed out, but the strange thing was I wasn’t g-ed out on the approach. It all came to me just as I was landing.
There’s a big lesson there: G’s happen. Landing safely is important. I had more than enough presence of mind to do a proper landing. I just needed to tell myself that, and I didn’t
Upon some reflection, it’s not just the G’s. When you go up to nearly 6K, do wingovers, fall into 80% asymmetric collapses, pull a couple SATs and drift to an open shoreline LZ you just don’t think landing will be a big deal, You don’t even think it’s important. I really don’t think it was the G’s. I think I just didn’t care if I did a good landing. That’s not right. It’s not just what you do in the sky at a clinic, it’s everything: the tow, the maneuvers, the approach and the landing. Thankfully I have this blog to remind me before my next tow clinic.
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