How skydiving gave me a perspective on life
There is a reason why Queenstown is hailed as the adventure capital of the world. There is everything for the thrill seeking souls — skydiving, bungee jumping, rafting, zip lining and many more. So when we decided to visit New Zealand for the year end holidays in 2019, adventure sports were definitely on the table.
I won’t ramble about what a paradise NZ is for travellers (will probably have a separate post for that) but this post is about my skydiving experience so will try to keep it just about that without getting distracted.
I don’t believe I fully understood what I was signing up for when I booked my sky dive — I was just checking off my bucket list and that in itself was honestly enough for an adrenaline rush. Or was it?
Visualisation is the first step towards preparing yourself for the dive. You need to imagine how the view would be from 15000ft just before jumping out and how exactly that might feel — stomach knots, tingly feet, palpitations etc. Each person may have a different reaction. In preparation for the dive, I started this visualisation exercise but each time looking out the plane kept throwing me off. I also watched a few videos — it all seemed pretty breezy, like it was no big deal, was I taking it too seriously? Like any sane person, I deliberately steered away from videos that covered skydiving incidents. Almost all videos began with tentative candidates with a deferential look toward the diver they were going in tandem with. Fast forward a few minutes and you could see an elated look on the candidate’s face and an unmissable euphoria upon safe landing all shrouded in a peppy background score.
I’d be lying if I told you I was pretty comfortable in the lead up to the dive. My Apple watch sensed how worked up I was and prompted me to practice a few breathing exercise — and practise I did. On researching the company I was diving with — NZone Skydive — it seemed like a reliable company with good customer reviews so that was a bit of a relief, phew!
Upon reaching their centre and signing the necessary documents where I conveniently took responsibility for anything untoward that could happen- I was all set to head to the drop off zone. A twenty minute bus ride and there I was , an open field with sweeping views and upon scanning the sky there seemed to be people dropping off on the fields after a successful dive. Seemed like lots of fun. But I could also feel the tension building up judging by the fact that my bladder was going out of control. Good thing the toilets were close by. After a thirty minute wait, it was time for my turn.
The inside of the facility was quite remarkable. It was full of professionals along with the skydive equipments and big industrial fans — the vibe there was incredible, it almost instantly brought me at ease. Sliding into the jumpsuit and the harness only boosted my confidence and made me look forward to meet my diver. Suddenly, I was accosted by a man who asked me to follow him, didn’t take me long to realise that he was my in tandem partner. He was THE man who would be responsible for keeping me safe for the next twenty minutes. Greg, as I found out within the next minute, was uber cool and supremely confident, having done this close to twenty thousand times! I instantly realised that I was in good hands and all my worries dissipated. Greg was my best friend and confidant now.
There were a bunch of us that day all hovering around their divers while making our way into the plane. I could feel ‘Eye of the tiger’ play in the background. As the plane rose up in the sky, the view of the Remarkables — Southern Alps was breathtaking with the basin of lake Wakatipu at its foot. The contours of the land kept getting more defined as we picked up the altitude. Greg kept high fiving me along with taking random photo shots. Unbeknownst to him, I couldn’t care about the pictures and wanted to get lost in the view. Honestly, the fact I was going to dive soon completely skipped my mind for a few minutes. Suddenly, the plane door opened and one group inched closer to jump out and I was forced to be brought back to reality. The sound of the wind is almost deafening from this height, wait but this was just 12000ft it would only get worse from 3000ft higher. It was terrifying. Should I tell Greg that I don’t feel up to it? Will he think less of me? Was this even an option? Before I could process all this, we were 15000ft high. Moment of truth was here.
One by one each group kept jumping out and thankfully we were asked to keep our face up and not look down. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the scariest point of skydive -moments away from the jump. You have no option but to lean in and leave the rest on fate. If you can conquer this, there is nothing you can not do in life.
This was followed by the wind pushing us in random directions while slapping us for being in its home turf. It was one of the strangest feelings of my life. The view from this height was inexplicable, it all appeared to be a 2D painting. There was no perception of depth. It was stunning — a massive hand drawn painting by an artist. I felt alive.
What I experienced in the 40–50 seconds free fall are mixed emotions of being petrified and being blown away (quite literally) by the aerial views. If only the contact lens in right eye hadn’t fallen off my eyes, I would have better appreciated a symmetrical view. It was as though I was tearing away the wind as I was falling which was making the wind shriek in pain (do not be fooled by the background music in the video at the end, it was really noisy up there).
You get a different perspective towards life when you are this high from the ground. Everything seems too petty — the fights with the spouse, the pet peeves, off putting remarks by others. You see the big picture in life. You realise how fleeting everything is. The impermanence of things around you. You succumb to nature as it has stood the test of time and has been around since time immemorial. Your mortality hits you and you understand how insignificant your role is in the scheme of things. You are NOT the centre of universe. You will be a changed person if you survive this, more humble and grounded.
When I had just started getting a hang of the feeling, the free fall was over. Greg yanked open the parachute which controlled our drop — the chute acted like a noise cancellation headphone to my relief. It was all about maneuvering the chute now for a controlled landing at the drop off zone. I struck up a conversation with Greg more to feel at ease than anything else. Both of us appeared delirious. I was alive and kicking. I knew there wouldn’t be anything else that would give me equal measures of angst and gratification again.
Will I do this again? Well, I don’t have an answer to this right now — probably, who knows? But I will definitely be able to take on anything in life for sure. I’ll just need to revisit this memory to bolster my spirit — if I could skydive, there isn’t anything I can not do. Isn’t is all about conquering your fears and drawing inspiration to move forward in life with renewed confidence.
Watch the entire video to take this journey with me.
