Jumping Your Own Way

Yesterday I did my first tandem jump. Spoiler alert: it was amazing.Herein I describe exactly what I felt. In contrast to most people, I remember every one of each second of the entire experience. I wasn't in sensor overloaded for the entire trip. So I can describe in great detail the following:

  1. I was in the aircraft, scared as shit. In panic (at the point of having a panic attack and afraid of passing out of fear). The aircraft is high as hell, we were so high (4200m) that I was able to see clouds/mist in an apparently clear sky from the ground.
  2. The aircraft door opens, fresh air starts coming in. Not very cold (it was a hot day, around 10ºC), but enough to scare me even more.
  3. The first solo diver jumps out, everyone says "Woah!" in shock, because this is indeed not normal to see people jumping out of airplanes.
  4. I see my friends going, and it crushes my soul, fuck, it was terror.
  5. My time has come, I was saying "Man, I can't, I can't I can't...", but fortunately my instructor didn't give a shit for what I said and gave me instructions to prepare for jump (feet behind, head in his shoulder, look up, grab the harness, almost kneeled).
  6. At that point, I just blanked my brain of any though and delivered myself to his hands. 2 seconds passed, he took a photo but I didn't even notice, I was in "standby mode" lol.
  7. Suddenly, we jump out, gravity starts accelerating us as if I were in a ferrari at 200km/h. You indeed feel a pressure on you stomach and chest. And because we rotated a bit before he released the drogue, I started feeling that pressure sideways, instead of feeling inwards from my stomach.
  8. This pressure, (not be scared, it was not uncomfortable, it was actually a very nice feeling, like a massage) lasted 3 seconds exactly, no more. At this point, I had no more fear, the fear stood in the plane. Whatever I was feeling, was amazing!!!! Fuck you fear!
  9. Then, with the help of the drogue we reached terminal velocity (so, 3 seconds after the jump, as soon as the pressure on the stomach stops). And from there on you just feel a slight pressure from the wind, and the instructor touches you to open your arms.
  10. I look down and I could "see/imagine" a wind tunnel coming towards me. That's what it looks like; like you have a giant fan below you gusting at full speed. It was comfortable! Rationally you know that you're falling, but physically doesn't look like it.
  11. Then I realised, I can't breathe because of air pressure against my face. It wasn't severe, if I put my hands in front of my face I could breathe pretty well, so I started interchanging between arms opened, smiling/thumbs up for the camera, and hands to face in order to breathe.
  12. I repeat this for around 40 seconds, while I enjoy the fucking amazing view!
  13. As soon as I started getting used to it, it stopped, the instructor touched me to close my arms and grab the harness and the parachute starts opening.
  14. It takes about 5 seconds for the parachute to fully open and you feel like you are pushed up (but in fact you just decelerate, going up while the parachute opens is just an illusion). Ops, not parachute, people here call these things "canopies" :P
  15. Then, it was all silent. Every friend of mine complained about the noise and the hears popping out/hurting. My hears did any of that, I was just fine!
  16. The instructor asked if I was ok, congratulated me, and gave me the ropes to drive the canopy a bit. Very cool, I think it is a common practice in tandem to do this in most schools.
  17. At some point he released some of the clips below my belt between me and him, maybe to make me land in proper vertical position.
  18. Then he asked me to lift my legs to prepare for landing (but we were not actually landing yet, just safety procedure).
  19. Then he asked for the ropes so that he could start the landing procedure, he made some cool rotations with the canopy and we started approaching the ground really fast. The earth looked flat (you literally cannot see that buildings are 3D, you are so high that it seems you are viewing google maps in satellite mode).
  20. But then we started approaching the landing zone and everything started looking 3D again.
  21. We approached the floor very fast, he asked to raise my legs again (he's the first to touch the ground to avoid customer injuries), and suddenly he "flares" the canopy, almost stopping near the ground, resulting in a very very VERY soft landing, despite our high speed approaching the ground.

This was it. Amazing experience. If I can do it, anyone can. JUST DO IT!!!!