Tandems and Ankle-Talk

Over the last couple of weekends I’ve been doing more tandems than flying solo, which has kept me happy.

Last weekend I took my sister tandem – something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Unfortunately she wasn’t as stoked about paragliding as I had hoped, but for those few minutes, it was pretty special flying with her. It’s cool with me if she never takes up paragliding, but I hope she’ll let me take her tandem at least one more time.

Lately I’ve found that I’ve been doing quite well when it comes to flying tandems…I haven’t sunk out, I have managed to find climbs when I need them, and I feel quite confident in the air. Landings have also been excellent. Launch-wise, I’m finding that in stronger conditions, the glider tends to accelerate and overshoot much more than I would like. It’s been a bit frustrating, but I suppose I need to adjust my launching style to the launching style of glider. Bring it up slower, hang onto the rear risers better, let go of the A’s sooner, and maybe even shorten my brakes by a few centimetres? The Bibeta 4 has 5 cm’s of slack as I recall…hmmm, might need to consult some experts on that one. In any case, I’ve been practicing, but I need to practice even more…I want to be the best!

Ankle-wise for me, things have been pretty good. Even though it's been over a year, I feel it pulling at the back when I hike or walk on a beach, but it doesn’t give me too much grief. In the last three days, I have witnessed two ankle injuries at my trampoline/gymnastics classes and this evening especially, it reminded me about how important first aid training is.

Tonight’s ankle injury happened to a girl who basically landed funny doing nothing remotely dangerous (doing straight-jumps on a fast track). I saw the whole thing and the coach heard a pop. I was very disappointed in that nobody seemed to be in a hurry to splint her ankle and get her to a hospital; talking about past ankle-injuries seemed to be higher on the agenda. I was disappointed in myself too as I asked her if I should drive her to Emergency, when I should have been more assertive and said “I think I should take you to the hospital” when I saw her ankle swelling. Sometimes when you’re in pain, you downplay it, and I think it’s good when you have others who encourage you to get things checked out.

I did end up driving her to Emergency, and I’m still waiting to hear what the x-rays show. Tonight I was reminded that injuries often happen when you least expect them to, and first aid training is important. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a nurse, but the few things I learned in my first aid training, which is a requirement for paragliding instructors, helped me this evening.

I feel fortunate that I’ve never had a serious injury and although I intend to keep it that way, it’s smart to be ready for things that will hopefully never happen to you or the people around you.