Friday night I went indoor skydiving.
I arrived to the iFly building, signed in, met my instructor, sat through a tutorial, and then started gearing up. They have you dress up in a snazzy onesie, also called a flight suit, then add goggles, ear plugs, and a helmet. For loaner equipment, it sure fits well…a good thing if you’re trying to be aerodynamic!
Sitting on the bench, waiting for my first 1-minute session I did a mental check – am I nervous? Nope. Cool. Maybe I should have been, but instead a sense of calm overtook me. As long as I was going to do this crazy thing, I decided I would do it with confidence.
When entering, you put your arms up and look up, then belly flop into the wind. There’s no falling sensation. It’s not like swimming, but more like having the most powerful fountain pushing you up constantly. It’s crazy how even the smallest movement can drastically shift your location and direction. I kind of forgot my legs, other than an initial thought to spread them out so my body took the desired X shape. Thankfully my internal sense of balance was good enough to handle that much subconsciously.
That first time in was so serene. I didn’t think. Or rather, I thought with my body. Like any other sport that requires balance, your mind is absolutely in the present. There’s no chance to think about anything else.
Smiling is tough in a wind tunnel. Heck, putting on any kind of flattering face is tough in high speed winds. It only took me a second to realize I didn’t give a crap how I looked. Then I was grinning like a fool.
Waving for the camera!
The high flight was interesting and felt super fast, but on video looks moderately-paced. They turned up the power of the air and the instructor took me up and down twice. That was the most strenuous part on the body – being dragged down into the wind by another body. I thought I would ache more from the whole experience, and my shoulders are a little sore from being stretched so much, but it’s the good kind of sore where you want to do the activity again and again until you don’t get sore anymore.
It’s more about flexibility and precise body control, not brute strength. It’d be a fantastic sport to tone muscles, what with all the constant resistance. Balance in the tunnel is tricky, especially since the necessary movements aren’t the same as the knee-jerk reactions you’d normally have if you were falling or about to run into a wall. I can only imagine how thrilling it must be once the motions are intuitive.
Our instructor took a turn at the end to show off. He zipped up and down the tube, doing flips and coming close to the sides, but was clearly never in danger of hitting them. He even struck a Superman pose some twenty feet up. He’s been at it for five years. All of us newbies were understandably a little less graceful. It’s a bit like surfing for the first time, where you’re glad if you manage anything resembling standing. I managed to balance on my own, if only for a short while, and it felt brilliant.
The whole experience lasted two minutes – both short and timeless at once.
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