Newspaper Article

Last Friday, July 13, at 1300 hours, I was part of the group of skydivers that set a new Canadian record for the largest skydiving formation in freefall. The record jump was held in Farnham, Quebec, a small town about 45 minutes south-east of Montreal. The previous Canadian record, set in 2006, was a 59-person formation. We almost doubled that with our new record!

 

It took several months of preparation and training to finally set a new record. The event organizers—members of the champion Canadian national skydiving team called “Evolution”—had to put in an immense amount of effort to assemble a group of skydivers from all over Canada, and also to find four planes equipped to take 102 skydivers (and two cameramen) up to 18,000 feet and allow them to jump all at the same time.

 

This was actually the second attempt in the past two years at setting an all-Canadian 100-person record over Canadian soil. In July of 2011, MB and I participated in the first edition of “Mission 100.” Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate last year and we didn’t manage to break the record.

 

But this year, we knew things would be different. All the skydivers were better prepared and we just knew that this time we would get it. And after a week of training and only seven official attempts, we did it! We set a new Canadian record!

 

I started skydiving in the fall of 2008, thanks to MB. I discovered an amazing sport and an incredibly talented and generous community. Although the most experienced jumpers on this record jump had tens of thousands of jumps under their belt, I was among the least experienced, with only a little under 300 jumps. I feel extremely privileged to have been a part of this event!

 

Everyone usually wants to know what it’s like to throw yourself out of a perfectly good airplane. I can’t describe the feeling you get in freefall: it’s just the most incredible sensation. In fact, during freefall, it’s as though my perceptions open up, resulting in the same heightened sense of awareness and calmness associated with meditation. It’s a mental state of complete involvement and focus.

 

KL

Public servant and quiet bookworm by (week)day, skydiver by... weekend!