Insipidy in the Air...

So I watched the videos from the SIV manoeuvres course I took last month and man, that was sucky sucky shit!

I watched barely any footage of others (so as to minimize the comparisons I always tend to make, and hell, I don't have 10 hours to sit infront of the computer!), and just focused on the flights I did. I saw some of it already at the time of the course in the evenings, but watching it again was a real eye opener.

My opinion: paragliding on video is not nearly exciting as it is in the air. Especially when you're watching yourself!

I know people say that I tend to be hard on myself, but crickey, my "manoeuvres" were not really manoeuvres at all! Maybe my glider was like at a 30 degree angle at most on my wingovers and it took me like 3 fricken times to understand what the hell an asymmetric spiral was. Expletive!!!!!

Ahem, it's all good though. I know you're not supposed to go nuts the first time when doing these things, safety always being a concern and all, but flying with crap in your pants is definitely not cool.

At the SIV course, yes, I was scared! I was scared before the course started, I was scared when I was approaching the water waiting for Chris to tell me what to do, and I was scared when I started feeling those G's. A little bit of fear is healthy, but I think I need to moderate my doses when flying.

So, next manoeuvres course I gotta step it up a bit, and stop wasting time with all this wussiness shit. Last year when I was into downhill biking, I found that once I stepped a bit outside my comfort zone, my progress was immense. It's just too easy to get stuck doing the things you're used to, and not go beyond that.

On a brighter note though, I can say that the manoeuvres course has really improved my flying...my confidence has increased (it's still at a healthy level though), I'm more aware of my posture, and little things like keeping elbows in are something that I've been doing habitually since.

Only 5 more weeks till my little flying trip - not much manoeuvres there, but I'm still really looking forward to putting the things I learned and remembered today into practice.

Listening to: Megadeath, Insomnia. Ha ha, working till 2:30 am and going to bed at 4:00 am is fucking me up.