TATHAT SUNYATA

Ever since the popular advent of bungee jumping, many who inquire about soaring seem to equate these entirely unrelated activities as similar ways to fling themselves into space and take their chances… Also, some needlessly fear both sports, exposing fundamental misunderstanding of each. Hair-raising as bungee jumping is, it’s safe enough provided certain conditions are met. After the jumper decides to GO, little more is required but some degree of personal fortitude. Soaring demands fortitude as well, and involves so much more! It’s a process where seas of challenge and dilemma open out in every dimension, expanding beyond your personal event horizon until quickly narrowing seconds before the end. Like life itself.Every moment of every flight – and landing – is unique. Thermaling, we float in unseen bubbles of gas that always try to eject us. Running a uniform ridge is cruise control on the freeway, watch for traffic. (Ridges here at Crystal can feel like running through the woods naked, watch for snakes!) Riding shearline resembles following a wilderness trail that’s often unmarked. Soaring in wave amounts to slo-mo surfing in heaven. And landing, the most important part, never happens until all other options are exhausted.Soaring pilots set our own agendas, choosing what to do and where and how to do it, consciously accepting or rejecting various kinds of risk, and defining for ourselves the meanings of failure and success. Each tick of the wristwatch renews a creative, proactive, intensely mental venture, all outcomes affected by deliberate yet tentative decision making (or a lack of it) in response to evolving circumstances never entirely understood. Not knowing how any of this will work out until it does? That’s much of why we love it.All of soaring’s many forms bear a deep vein of Zen. In this sense it more resembles rock climbing than the bungee thing. Scaling stone barriers, whether with fingers and toes or prosthetic wings, can be perfectly safe and unspeakably satisfying if sound choices are made – and effectively executed. In either of these two sports, in even the most challenging difficulty you should always be able to withdraw to the safety of level ground. Otherwise one infinitesimal moment of human stupitude can lead abruptly to grave consequences.Those who like being where they can neither go safely back nor forward jeopardize more than just themselves…  They should stick to bungee jumping.