Mexico Adventure Day 1

Happy at the landing field

Was I really sitting in the rain just 3 days ago? It's hard to believe that it's winter at home when I've spent the last two days running around in shorts & flip flops and though I hate to admit it, I've even spent a few moments trying to find some shade!

Our first day here was a whole vacation in itself. Jim (our friend from home & tour guide for this trip) took us for breakfast at an amazing restaurant. Sitting on a hilltop overlooking a lake, the building was made of stone which kept it cool naturally, and no expense was spared on the decor. Intricate carvings on the wall, art inlaid in the floor, and the bathrooms were one of the most beautiful I'd ever seen.

After snooping the grounds around the restaurant (check out the picture below...there's a hot tub inside of that head!) we took a drive up to look at the launch in San Marcos. The winds were blowing in perfectly, so I told the butterflies in my stomach to take a hike and ran off the mountain to spend an hour exploring the cactus-covered ridge with only Derek & the vultures sharing the air with me. Landing was at a giant field owned by a local hang glider pilot, complete with a shaded bench area where Jim met us with cold beers after we folded up our wings.



Enter the hot tub through the door in the back of the head...really!


The rest of the day was filled with siestas & fiestas. The town we're staying in was celebrating the festival of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This started with a parade and led to an endless play which I thought was the story of Guadalupe but had an awful lot of seemingly unrelated dancing in it. Competing for attention across the town square were traditional dancers dressed in feathered headgear and also fireworks going off every few seconds. Mayhem! After a few poor-man's margaritas (a shot of tequila poured into a Fresca) we were done but unfortunately sleep was hard to come by with fireworks going until midnight & starting up again at 6 am. Such is life in Mexico!

Resolution Time!

How embarrassing. I haven't flown for so long that when I looked at the picture on the top of my blog I didn't recognize my wing for a second! Considering I only have about 30 flights on it I suppose it's not that bad...no wait, that's just awful.

Luckily it's December 31st and that means we can all dream as big as we want and declare ridiculously massive goals & no one will laugh at us. I love the whole time around New Years, there's something about fresh starts that invigorates me. Maybe it comes from my childhood when we moved around a lot and each new home was a new beginning, guaranteed to be better than the last. Even though most places ended up being a step down instead of up, I still get excited thinking about moving, running away and/or starting over.

It's a good thing my boyfriend likes to travel so much because we've lived in the same place for over 5 years now and sometimes that makes me itchy. Traveling definitely helps but I still fantasize about putting my EU passport to use & moving to the Alps to become an even bigger paragliding junkie, especially when it's raining in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere that has nothing going on besides a view of the mountains. But instead of sitting around going crazy as the valley winds shake the house, it's time to list my flying goals for 2011:

- enter at least 2 FAI sanctioned competitions this year. Even though I tell people that I'm not competitive, seeing my name listed in the world rankings (even near the bottom) gives me a sense of accomplishment and a drive to do better.

- fly a lot more cross-country this year. This is another way to 'compete' to help increase my skills as there are worldwide online contests where you can post your flights and see what everyone else has been up to. By flying further & racking up points I can also increase our national standing, which helps me justify "wasting" a whole day playing in the sky.

- work on my paragliding business. This is a huge goal too, but easy to break into little steps. Come up with a name for my tandem business, create a website, etc. All stuff I can do now before the flying season actually starts.

Looking back at past goals I haven't done that badly at meeting them. In 2009 I resolved to blog more, and went from about 5 posts in one year to updating at least once a month. As for 2010's list, I didn't get to any SIV clinics like I wanted (to learn more about acro flying) but I did fly a little more cross-country than years past.

Besides, you're not actually supposed to accomplish all of your New Year's Resolutions, are you???

Seeking Adrenaline

As paragliding is only happening in my mind right now (and vicariously through you-tube videos), I've been concentrating more on my other pursuits. Last month I talked about trying to land a handspring in martial arts and yesterday...I finally did it!

After joining my martial arts school I watched some videos on their website and immediately set a goal of wanting to do handsprings like they were doing in their demonstrations. It's taken a year (minus all the classes I skipped to go flying) which is a long time to hold on to a goal, especially in today's instant gratification world. But in that year I've also learned to use nun-chuks & other weapons, break boards with my hands & feet and can do some pretty cool self-defense take-downs.

Yesterday's class was tough! With the holidays coming up our instructor has stepped up the training and is working us until we're exhausted. I came "THIS CLOSE" to landing the handspring a few times yesterday (but always fell over backwards on my butt) and with 5 minutes left in class I didn't think it was going to happen. We took a minute to catch our breath, go over last minute tips & then were told, "Ok, one last try each! You're going to get it this time!" And somehow I did.

When it hit me that I'd landed perfectly on my feet I noticed something funny. My body was reacting in the same way it does when I'm doing something big at a paragliding SIV/acro course! When I did my first asymmetric spiral and was flying over the top of my wing looking down at the lake, it was the same adrenaline rush I got when I stood up after flipping upside down in my handspring. A few minutes later my legs felt like jelly and I had the post-adrenaline energy crash, just like after I landed back at the beach after a string of maneuvers in the air.

Building confidence, reaching goals and finding new ways to get an adrenaline rush. Not a bad way to spend the paragliding off-season!

Girl Power!

I usually don't give much thought to gender roles when I'm out paragliding. Maybe it's because I've always hung out with guys, been "one of the guys", hey - I was even invited along on "the guys" road trip to Vegas once. At my home site girls are accepted as equals and there are no differences between us. Well, not until it's time to ask the boys to please stand downwind because we don't think that farting is nearly as funny as they do. I barely notice anymore when I'm the only girl out flying, although I'll admit it's fun on those rare days when all of us girl pilots outnumber the boys on launch. We usually celebrate with a laugh, acknowledge the moment...and move on.

But today something really cool happened that made me look at all this in a different light. I was walking over to my jeep carrying my glider and a vehicle stopped on the side of the road to watch. The windows slid down and I put my wing on the ground but I hesitated for a moment before going over to talk to them. To be honest I was cold & tired from an hour long flight in 5 degree weather and wasn't in the mood to explain yet again what paragliding was to some stranger. But I said hi anyway and the woman's reply took me by surprise.

"I just wanted to show my 4 year old daughter how it was a girl who landed under that parachute!" she said proudly. And sure enough, a wide-eyed little girl was sitting in the back in her car seat, staring at me in wonder.

I was speechless. I mean...really, what do you say to that? What do you do with that kind of responsibility thrown onto your shoulders, standing there on the side of the road with helmet hair, actually watching the process of a little girl turning you into a role model?

So I did what I could do. I walked up to the car window with a big smile and introduced myself. I told them all about paragliding, I showed mom where to park at the paragliding school & where to get the best view to watch us land. I told that little girl of course girls can fly, in fact I even take other people flying, and when mom's eyes lit up I told them all about tandems. By the smiles on both of their faces I think I said the right thing. And by the smile I still have on my face I think that family brought the same amount of wonder into my life today as I must have into theirs. Maybe even more.

A little dose of happiness

Lately I've noticed that I've lost some of my excitement about paragliding. It's cold outside & the flights are short. It's been easier to make excuses for not driving the 10 minutes for a 10 minute flight than to remember my usual excitement over any airtime at all. So today I decided to go fly, even if it meant I had to wear wool socks. And as life tends to do when you make the right decision, everything fell into place.

First a good friend called to meet me in the landing zone. I've been given the title of Membership Director of our local flying club for another year and he wanted to pay his dues, along with share some fun in the sky. The Site Director was on launch doing some maintenance & needed me to pick up some tools for him - he called right when I was about to leave the house & drive by the hardware store on the way over. As soon as I got to the landing zone a ride to the top was waiting for me, and I was pulled into a carload of enthusiasm as 4 of us were squished into the tiny backseat. The flight itself was smooth, calm...and soul-restoring. I didn't touch the brakes the whole 8 minutes (until I did some wingovers above the LZ, woohoo!), and after touching down I got to put on my instructor hat & guide a brand new pilot in over the radio to a stellar landing of his own.

Today was perfect. No records broken, or even any personal bests. Just a full day of reminders of why I love paragliding and a top-up on my tank of appreciation for the small things. Helping out, sharing the joy & embracing the tiny details in life makes every day amazing.

Relating it all to flying

Once again paragliding season is pretty much over. Short little flights are still to be had of course, just enough airtime between take-off and landing to look around at the leaves changing colour and get a good whiff of that crisp fall air. So it's time to bring back those old pursuits that got pushed aside in the spring & summer, waiting patiently for the thermals to end and for me to come back down to earth.

Two fun things that I've thrown myself back into on these rainy, windy days are martial arts & yoga. They're a good compliment to each other...and paragliding too. I find myself relating all 3 of these disciplines lately, either when trying to stretch into a new yoga pose or land my first handspring. Handspring? Yes, I chose a branch of martial arts that includes gymnastics! We do something different each class - perfect for those of us with short attention spans. So we either learn patterns (like in karate), sparring, weapons (nun-chucks baby!) or my favourite...demonstration day. That's when we practice things like breaking boards, running up the walls and yes, gymnastics.

Back to the point I was getting at (did I mention my short attention span?) the other day we were attempting front handsprings. Now...the only thing I've been able to accomplish tumbling wise thus far in life is a half-decent cartwheel. So it was thrilling when I came oh-so-close last class to 'springing' right over! My instructor said I needed more strength in my shoulders, which is funny because I noticed that when I started flying tandems. Then at yoga during our spinal exercises (which I've struggled with too) I realized that the more I could bend my back, the easier I could land that handspring. Suddenly I found myself just that much stronger. When doing jumping kicks I could see how the added flexibility would benefit me at yoga, and back at yoga when my arms were burning from holding them forever in front of me, my thinking changed to how this was strengthening my shoulders for both handsprings and flying! I've come to appreciate this lovely circle that keeps me going in challenging times.

When I started both classes last year I figured they'd be a good distraction until I could go on a paragliding trip somewhere or make it through until spring. They've given me a lot more than that! The first theme I noticed woven through all these activities was meditation. I thought it was cool that meditating & visualizing were brought up so often in yoga & martial arts when I would often describe flying as meditative. Doing handstands made me think of acro flying and of looking at the world from a different angle, whether that be upside down on a gym mat or swinging overtop your glider on a wingover. While some things were obvious connections, the little things have been popping up and bringing a lot more satisfaction to my non-flying days. Setting & accomplishing new goals in class helps me gain more confidence, which will (hopefully) help when spring thermals start ripping through the sky. And if I end up upside down on some wicked acro trick someday then the world won't look quite so unfamiliar from that point of view anymore.

It's easy...