picture and a thousand words. The story is just the story, but the picture
is the punch line that drives it all home.
8 Months, 3 1/2 hours of tunnel, 28 training jumps, hour after hour after
hour after hour on creepers, pinched fingers, frayed nerves, body slams,
funneled exits, stress, late nights, sleepless nights, early mornings,
pushing, shoving, nagging, arguing, whining, heads pounded against walls
(literally), missed days at work, and it all comes down to "35 seconds of
working time after the first team member achieves total separation from the
aircraft". Times 10. Some teams fold under the pressure, some rise to the
occasion, and some, like us, do neither. We planned the dives, and dove the
plans. Nothing fancy, just a simple strategy of staying calm and cool, and
doing what we knew we could do. And steadily racking up points on every
round. Even in the first round on Tuesday when we got onto the plane
coughing hacking and sneezing like a bunch of patients from an influenza
ward our energy level was high. We thought we'd blown that whole very
difficult round and would have been happy scoring 3 points. We earned 6. We
dropped a grip on a couple of exits but kept flying and pulled it back
together with hardly any time lost.
We even lucked out in the draw for our loading order. We were the only
people on the plane with Evolution and Tropical Fish. There was never any
rushing to board, no running to the plane, quiet rides to altitude as we all
focused on mental rehearsal, all of us sitting there with eyes closed and
our arms and heads moving back and forth as we pictured the perfect skydive
flowing smoothly past.
After our long stand down for weather we were concerned about being able to
get "up" for round 9, but when I started paying attention to peoples
expressions halfway through the skydive I realized we were all grinning at
each other like a bunch of kids on Christmas morning. Turn - stop - grip -
flash - turn - stop - grip - flash - me and my piece partner Josee linked
together hopping over the other piece and dropping right into their grips -
stop - flash - turn........... Formation Skydiving is one of the ultimate
team sports, no matter how good the star of your team is, the team is only
as good as it's weakest member.
We were literally dancing as we walked back from the landing area.
To sum it up: WE KICKED ASS!
Final Results
Gold: Evolution
Silver: Tropical Fish
Bronze: 4D
90 Points in time over 10 rounds for a 9 average.
And we beat a team with matching suits.
And the peasants rejoiced.
Last night we stood together in the hangar, a Team, as they draped our
medals around our necks.
As soon as the medals were all awarded Neil McGrath called Nathalie up to
present a couple of awards and I found out the real reason Dan and Casey had
come all the way to Burnaby. It was to deliver my Gold Wings for my Two
Thousandth jump and accompanying framed certificate, and my pin for 10 hours
of accumulated freefall time. And a bottle of Scotch. Thanks Dan, maybe I
won't show your future in-laws the pictures from your stag after all.
We managed to get through all our training and the competition with only
some minor bruises. Until we were creeping for round 10. As we went through
one block I put my forearm flat on the ground beside me as I started a turn
and sandwiched my arm between the concrete and the creeper wheel with all my
strength and body weight behind it. I felt a momentary flash of pain and
then the whole arm went numb, but I kept on going. Sort of. It's difficult
to creep using only one arm and with the other feeling like it's had a
tourniquet put on it. We got through a couple more moves with the rest of
the team asking me what was wrong and me insisting I was fine and that we
should keep going when the feeling started coming back into my arm and I
started wishing it had stayed numb. Phil saw the look on my face as we
passed each other, and while he says I had tears running down my face I'm
pretty sure it was just sweat. I'm actually kinda disappointed. There's a
raw spot a little more than an inch long, but for the amount of pain
involved I was really hoping for a big colorful bruise to show off.
Next: 8-Way and 10-Way Speed!
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