Lazy Kung Fu Flyer

One of my fellow paraglider pilots mentioned the other day how during launching I have this sort of funny kung fu kick going on. I sort of knew what he was talking about but didn’t think too much of it until I saw this picture:

Man, combine the kick with that ninja mask and I look like the ultimate poser! It’s like “look at me, I’m trying to be cool!!!” I don’t think I did it before my ankle injury, but now have to be very conscious of my goofy Matrix-like move and STOP doing it!

Today I clocked another couple hours, spread across two flights. I think I’ve come to the realization that I am a very lazy paraglider pilot. Sometimes I just don’t want to go back to logical thermal sources, and so I don’t, and then I deck it. Like today – we flew from Mystic to Clearspot (only a couple k’s away), I got to base (okay, so maybe I went inside the cloud a little bit…), and then flew straight towards a spot where previous pilots got low and where there wasn’t any cloud whatsoever. Needless to say, there were no climbs, and I decked it at the airstrip where along the way I did some spirals and tried b-lining my glider (which was interesting as it went parachutal after my attempt).

So anyway, why the hell did I fly to a spot where it was obvious there was no lift? The answer: I felt like it! I get this weird excitement when I know the air will be smooth and with lots of altitude, I can have a bit of a play with my wing. And I kind of like just boating around in light sink, going here, going there, and then landing. But then maybe I’m wasting flights and costing myself airtime with my very passive attitude. Today I could have very well turned back, got back up to base at Clearspot, flew back to Mystic, and tried a different route. But I don’t know, after flying for an hour, I just wanted to have some fun.

So yeah, I’m occasionally the idiot climbs to 2200 meters and then lands! I need to stop being so lazy, ignore the ground suck, and just build up my endurance levels so that I quit doing stupid things after the hour and a half mark, which seems to be my “special” time as of late. Strange!

The weather looks mostly decent for the next few days – my new goal is to kick these two new habits (no pun intended) before my time in OZ is up!