Spinning Out of Control
Control and Surrenderby Brian Germain
I have encountered a great many skydiving students who run into spin problems at some point in their development. In fact, I was one of them. I nearly spun myself silly before eventually figuring out how to fly, but I wish that someone had sat down with me and given me the "secret stuff" to flying my body in freefall. The following is a piece of that message:
The Cure from the Spin Doctor:
1) Relax
2) Breathe Slower
3) Surrender to Having a Good Time
You need to surrender to the wind, and let it shape you. You cannot
fight the wind. You are too small. You are too weak. It is too complex.
All you can do is let go and allow it all just happen. In order to fall straight down you will need to
create some force by pushing your ankles and feet
out a bit to get them off your butt. However, this amount of force is
only a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of resistance that you
are used to putting into other things in life. This is skydiving, and things are a
little different here. The only way to flow with the wind, is to become
part of the wind. Let go.
This is not something that most people are used to doing. We push
harder when we feel resistance. We do it in everything in life. Of
course, the key is always to go the way that feels easy, the way which
feels good. Skydiving is just more obvious. If we carry resistance, we
spin out of control. It happens to anyone, anywhere, in any kind of
sky. Windy, hot, cold or cloudy. There is a common thread. Resistance
is pointless. It simply doesn't work.
If you are trying to turn a key in a lock, and you encounter
resistance, beware of force. Who hasn't broken a key off in a lock at
some point in their life? We carry the wrong kind of vibe, one of
unhappy resistance, and we try too hard. We leave finesse behind. It
simply is the wrong angle, and we need to back off and try again with a
different attitude. With skydiving, this is easy in some ways. We just
land from the jump, debrief and regroup, and try it again with a better
deep breath before exit. In truth, however, the skydive can be reset at
any point during the jump. All we need to do is wake up. We have to
realize that things are not going well, and that it is entirely our
fault. We can then assume responsibility for our own vibe, and start
again with the next breath.
What we are talking about is mood control. You need to first realize that you are not currently in the mood that leads to skill. You are in the mental place that starts bad, gets worse, and if we do not get ourselves back under control, spins into a full-on disaster. You can't get there from here.
If you are realizing that things are not going well for you, in skydiving and in life, you need to stop. You need to find a way to look at your world differently so that you begin to feel relief. It is a gradual, step-by-step process of deliberately pointing your mind toward an aspect of your reality that makes you feel better. Before long, you will remember why you are here. You will connect with your original happiness. Once you are there, you have access to your full skill, your full joy, and your full appreciating of the wondrous nature of this very moment, whatever it is.
Skydiving is not just for fun, it is powered by fun. Fun is not only the product of jumping out of an airplane it is the most important safety measure one can take. If you are not having fun, you will create experiences that are even less fun. It is the bad trip. When you realize you are on one of those trips again, remember that we all go there from time to time, and that it's just part of the big journey, and simply take a new breath, and let that whole feeling go. Fear is a perspective that simply is not worth looking through, because it always leads us away from where we want to go.
Surrender to the wind. Surrender to being OK.
The beauty of this sport is,
you are not just learning how to skydive,
you are learning a better way to live.
-BSG
