SAT Arm
For me, the season has been pretty decent for paragliding but one thing that has been lacking until now has been anything even remotely close to acro.
We went up a spot near Pemberton this weekend to join a group of guys that were doing some boat towing. Exciting for me especially because I had never previously towed behind a boat – only a vehicle.
My first tow, was…pretty embarrassing!!! I find that paragliding has a funny way of reminding you that you’ve always got lots to learn and kind of bitch-slaps you once in a while and says “you suck!” only to then reward you later with feelings of utter bliss. On my first tow, to keep this short and sweet, let’s just say that it was a combination of pilot error, a bit of a misunderstanding, and a possible tangle that had my glider end up in a small tree and me landing in the sand. I will stress the pilot error part though – I take responsibility as my arms were too far back initially, etc. etc. The good news was that the boat operator stopped immediately, my glider essentially stopped me, I didn’t get hurt, I didn’t get dragged, and my glider was fine!
Anyway, after that humbling experience, I went for it again, launched fine, and soon found myself at 3000’ nervously laughing at the prospect of doing some sort of manoeuvre. I did a couple full stalls, and tried some big wingovers – nothing overly eventful happened, which was good!
Essentially after my first flight, I primarily tried SAT’ing, did a B-line (kind of a useless manoeuvre but I had the strength to pull one, so yeah!), tried some spins, and did more wingovers. I definitely need WAY more practice with my SATs and wingovers – my SAT’s are spins or weird spirals most of the time and the second I feel like I’m going over my glider with wingovers, I kind of freak out, and basically spiral out of it. I don’t apply enough outside brake on my wingovers, which is also my problem and a worry too, that when my wingovers get bigger, the “whack!” will be bigger, which is something I have experienced many times!
In any case, it’s all DAMN fun! Practicing acro is fun, when you actually “get it”, that’s fun, when you realize there’s way more to learn, that’s fun, and when you know that there’s always water beneath you in case you get it wrong, that becomes a fun part too!
It was a great weekend overall, even though my very sore arm muscles currently feel like they have been horribly, horribly, abused. I’d also like to thank my special coach who helped me out on the radio when he saw how my lame solo attempts had me doing everything but what I wanted to do, and then showed me the way.
Unfortunately my camera’s whereabouts are unknown at the moment which was a big bummer for me this weekend, but hopefully it will turn up soon so that I have some pictures to post here for next time. The season’s not over yet!
We went up a spot near Pemberton this weekend to join a group of guys that were doing some boat towing. Exciting for me especially because I had never previously towed behind a boat – only a vehicle.
My first tow, was…pretty embarrassing!!! I find that paragliding has a funny way of reminding you that you’ve always got lots to learn and kind of bitch-slaps you once in a while and says “you suck!” only to then reward you later with feelings of utter bliss. On my first tow, to keep this short and sweet, let’s just say that it was a combination of pilot error, a bit of a misunderstanding, and a possible tangle that had my glider end up in a small tree and me landing in the sand. I will stress the pilot error part though – I take responsibility as my arms were too far back initially, etc. etc. The good news was that the boat operator stopped immediately, my glider essentially stopped me, I didn’t get hurt, I didn’t get dragged, and my glider was fine!
Anyway, after that humbling experience, I went for it again, launched fine, and soon found myself at 3000’ nervously laughing at the prospect of doing some sort of manoeuvre. I did a couple full stalls, and tried some big wingovers – nothing overly eventful happened, which was good!
Essentially after my first flight, I primarily tried SAT’ing, did a B-line (kind of a useless manoeuvre but I had the strength to pull one, so yeah!), tried some spins, and did more wingovers. I definitely need WAY more practice with my SATs and wingovers – my SAT’s are spins or weird spirals most of the time and the second I feel like I’m going over my glider with wingovers, I kind of freak out, and basically spiral out of it. I don’t apply enough outside brake on my wingovers, which is also my problem and a worry too, that when my wingovers get bigger, the “whack!” will be bigger, which is something I have experienced many times!
In any case, it’s all DAMN fun! Practicing acro is fun, when you actually “get it”, that’s fun, when you realize there’s way more to learn, that’s fun, and when you know that there’s always water beneath you in case you get it wrong, that becomes a fun part too!
It was a great weekend overall, even though my very sore arm muscles currently feel like they have been horribly, horribly, abused. I’d also like to thank my special coach who helped me out on the radio when he saw how my lame solo attempts had me doing everything but what I wanted to do, and then showed me the way.
Unfortunately my camera’s whereabouts are unknown at the moment which was a big bummer for me this weekend, but hopefully it will turn up soon so that I have some pictures to post here for next time. The season’s not over yet!
posted by Veronica at 11:21 PM
2 Comments:
sounds fun! i'm glad your mistakes are so forgiving :)
;) Glad you're ok.
I will start my SAT carier too, but 1st of all I need to gain more expo on basic paragliding. How long you in paragliding sport?
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