I conquered the Skies!!! :D

hi out there! :)

I just got my FAI (international sport skydiving license) yesterday on our national holiday ;) hehe :)

had a good time here in Venezuela!! no pics (just me skydiving on FB) because my camera seems to be definitively broken now.. no idea what I should do. Maybe just make some pics with my cell phone (then getting a new camera seems not that necessary to me). furthermore I´m spending 200 USD today to get a new helmet :( ..but it´s a thing I don´t want to save money on.. it´s my mission of today and then straight to the terminal and a last long busride to my bike :)

spent Thursday in Higuerote, drinking beer at the beach with some people I met there. was good fun! :) then going out on Friday, ending with a very crazy story.. same the day before. Was just too much me by myself being in Higuerote :P ..well, survived it all and then the Saturday I was "safe" with people from the dropzone :) had lot´s of fun playing scrabble and taboo, drinking rum and coke and talking until early morning (well.. at a certain point I had to retire to get some rest for more skydiving ;)

and then about skydiving.. I really got into it.. after graduation, you know how to stabilize and turn and make front and backflips but since then I learned (and taught myself some more things ;) there are a lot of fun exits out of a plane.. diving out forward, letting fall backward, jumping out with a tripple frontflip and my favourite, making a step forward and then a backflip :D I´ve seen my friend jumping of a bridge like that, but would never dare it if there´s water to hit on. but in the air, there is nothing that can hurt you ;) heheh :)
once opening the chute, I got more practice in landing smoothly and on the spot you want to land and making radicals (turning hard left or right). Just have to be careful that there is nobody close to you.. but it´s fun!! :D you face down and got a lot of speed and physical forces working onto you :)
while falling, there are lots of things you can do.. for example the FreeFall, where you sit upright or fall head down (this is very hard to enter, but managed it for 2 seconds :D then the air catched me again and threw me around.. but once you go into box position (making an arc with your body) you´re stable again.
then there is a thing that´s called "tunnel". You take an arm in make a turn along the body-axis. keeping both arms in and make your body firm let´s you spin as you´re piercing through the air (I call this one "screwdriver" ;). Then I had the pleasure to jump three times with somebody else.. grabbing somebody´s arm and turning around or crossing arms and make a roll together or just varying with your relative hight and distance to each other (careful not to smash into each other.. can be super dangerous, if somebody can´t control himself in the air).
my craziest jump was with a friend that jumps for 25 years, having done base jumps at the Angel Falls and in Caracas (if seen a video.. crazycrazycrazy :) really good vibes with him and when we jumped together, he pulled me out of the plane and we "hold hands" the whole fall down, making crazy spins and turns, entering freefall head down and shouting out loudly for so much fun it was!!! :D :D gave me an idea, what skydiving can be ;) I really feel having this in my blood.. born without wings, but a flyer in my heart ;) hehe :) it´s all body-mind.. as Tai-Chi or my martial art stuff or contact juggling.. I´m stable even while turning one handed.. things just worked out for me as I tried them the first time! :)
asked a lot of stuff (as always curious I am in my life ;) about different parachutes, techniques, the whole mechanics of skydiving and the equipment. There is still a lot to try and whenever I get a chance, I´ll dive with a smile! :D hahaha :D
what more about that.. got a little movie that I want to upload on Facebook and changed my profile picture ;) there not too many of crazy people jumping out of planes ;) ..but no worries.. it´s actually really safe (just stay with a big cannopy until you know how to land with different wind). But there´s a safety device that activates if you would pass out in the air for some reason. There are safety margins to open your chute and if you get an emergency (will happen in a certain moment), then you know how to liberate the primary chute and land with the reserve. I´ve seen that two days ago and people were just: "someone opened the reserve" without lot´s of excitement.. seems just to happen from time to time ;) but it´s very rare.. the equipment has improved a lot over the last years! (as diving).

so.. now I have to go.. next time writing I´ll be in Colombia and if something more occurs to my mind, I´ll let you know ;) haha ;))

Blue Sky!

Markus