I see our sport has risk in it all the time. That's one thing we all should admit before we think is how much additional risk to take in competition and that is what I evaluated and also my motives for competing and then in flight executing and sticking to that principle that I came to that I will win when I like now my principle is simple I will try to win when I can think smart and execute smart but if I have to win by taking a chance I don't care I will let other people go if they want to do that.
Greetings everybody from a very cold wintry Sun Valley. Winters come early to us here in the Wood River Valley. It's been fun to get outside and play a little bit but as always my mind is on paragliding and the stars kind of aligned on this one. The PWC was out in Beer a few weeks ago, a place that's very special to me. That's where I cracked off some of my first kind of XC flying back in 09 and then again in 11 and a terrific place to fly there in the foothills of the Himalayas and they had a terrific comp and just about the same time that was going on I was working on an article for the Outdoor Journal about the X-Alps and the gentleman I'm dealing with there said listen you've got to talk to Gurpreet Dinsa. He's India's number one pilot. He's a fantastic guy. He's got some great stories.
I think he'd be fantastic on the podcast so I reached out to him and it's taken us a few weeks to put it together because internet's been tricky for Gurpreet and the sound quality here reflects that although I think it's good enough. You certainly won't struggle through it but it's not the crispest sound we've had on some of the other shows but I think it still works. Gurpreet's been flying for 20 years. This is just a terrific account of his history there and his progression, his thoughts on safety, accidents, getting better, overcoming all kinds of political and bureaucratic trouble in India and how hard that's been. He's had to move mountains there. He's the only certified instructor but there's tons of schools there.
There's a lot of really bad teaching going on so we talk about some of that and just his struggle to make paragliding a legitimate sport in India. I think he's done a lot of good for the sport there but it has been really challenging. In terms of strategy and tactics and flying and his own flying we get into some really cool stuff here about his own flying. He's a really good guy. He's got a lot of experience. He's got a lot of experience. He's got a lot of experience. He's got a lot of experience. You know how important it is to being in the moment and how important it is to change strategies that aren't working for you. For a long time gaggle flying wasn't really working for him in competitions and so this time around or these days he's gotten a lot more into flying his own line and making sure he's just enjoying it and not diving into really nasty places just to try to get on the podium.
He's decided that that's just not worth it and so we get into a lot of that and just you know how how his career has developed and progressed and changed and I think there's a lot here that you're really going to enjoy. He's a great personality. We had a lot of fun with this one. Without further ado Gurpreet Dinsa.
Gurpreet it is fantastic to meet you even though we're not meeting face to face. We're meeting on Skype but I know you've just gotten done with the PWC out there and in beer and we'll get into that but maybe before maybe before we do you can tell the listeners a little bit about you know who you are and how you got into flying and when you got into flying.
Gavin first of all it's my pleasure and kind of honor also to be on your podcast and to be considered worthy of it actually.
I started paragliding in 95 and I came into paragliding from actually sailplanes. I flew just a year that started and then actually my instructor told me that temperamentally I'm better suited for paragliding maybe and he actually pushed me.
You were a little bit too crazy for sailplanes.
No actually it was a government-owned club and they were lazy or not the instructor but the general mechanism. The instructor was a good guy actually. He pushed me in the right way.
But the many days you go there no flying and I'm kind of a person who always questions like why why we can't do it today and the Indian system is not very kind with that kind of wives.
That's how I came into paragliding.
And where were you at the time? Where did you learn?
In India only. I learned in a place called Bilaspur. I started learning there actually. There was nobody like no proper instructor. They were self-proclaimed people.
Like self-proclaimed instructors. And I started with them but because I came from learning sailplanes which is a bit more formal education system. I soon realized that the training was quite inadequate. And I got literally injured like a sprained ankle and came to conclusion that if I have to make mistakes I will make my own. So I was self-taught after that. I mean with help of a lot of friends of course I met on the way.
Help me out with the geography because I've been to India several times but I haven't. I've only flown really around Bir and kind of the foothills of the Himalayas. Were you in the Himalaya or is this another part of India? Yes. It's
foothill of Himalayas. From Bir it's just about 130 kilometers.
Ah okay. The Dharmasala way or the Mandi way?
From Mandi towards Chandigarh. Like from southeast of Mandi.
Okay. Okay. And do you remember the first wing that you started on?
No actually the one I used for training there no but later on I had the Comet XC2. Okay. And that was a company called Comet if you remember. Yeah of course.
So take me from you know those those early days you know in the beginning was it just you know little tiny flights off off your local hill and how did you go kind of from there to even discovering CrossFit? Was cross country flying happening around you with with other pilots that were better or was that kind of the beginning of cross country flying in India?
It was beginning but there were already pilots like Debu was ahead of me. He had he was much younger but he had learned two years before me and he was already doing his Dharmasala flights when I first came to Bir.
But advantage I had was that I was already flying cross country on a sailplane. Sure. So the concept of cross country was clear to me only problem was handling the glider. Getting used to the soft wings.
And did you do kind of like SIV training and and that kind of thing or was it more just hanging out with guys like Debu and and kind of piecing it together?
Yeah Debu we were fortunate also like Bob Drury, Robby Whittle, John Sylvester they were coming to India. We didn't learn much directly like from observation and talking to them. And there were other cross country pilots also Swiss pilots, French pilots. They were also coming here. So that's the reason I moved to Bir. I gave up my work and I moved to Bir because I'd like soon that if I want to get better I have to fly with good pilots and good pilots were here. When did you move to Bir? I actually from 97 I started coming here in the season and then I think a couple of years down the line I 2002 I started a school here so I actually moved a little bit before but for a year I was in UK getting my instructor certification.
Okay and do they have kind of a similar certification in India like as in Europe or how does that process work?
Currently India has no certification system.
I'm kind of only certified instructor and with my students also I give them a Hungarian license. Okay. So
I started
my school with the Hungarians and I give them a Hungarian license.
Well maybe I bet it's still a lot more organized than maybe the Russian system. I remember coming to Bir for my first time in 2009 and I think there were 70 students from Russia and one instructor.
Now they got divided. Now you get probably four.
They've really
increased their safety ratio I guess. In
India it's kind of a mixed lot. We have very organized schools which can qualify almost under any system if it comes. The three or four schools in Pune which are quite responsible they do things in a very responsible way. I'm doing my best here in Bir. But then on the other hand we have a lot of self-proclaimed not even question isn't self-proclaimed I mean they're not ready they're not instructor level people but they're teaching. Right. And there are even associations like some local associations which are promoting that kind of people on basis of regionalism or neopism or something like that. It's not based on qualification. So you have to be
careful if you're going to come to learn in India to maybe seek out people like yourself.
Exactly. I mean I'm surprised actually when some foreigners come and they go learn from people like that and I just I mean it's not that loss of business that worries me. It's repetition of our country that worries me and also I wonder what kind of thinking were they doing when they chose instructor like that. And it really surprises me.
That's a good warning to our listeners because I know that you know it's become a really famous place to fly and it attracts people from around the world. You have you know incredibly good weather at certain times of the year and big mountains but in some ways very fresh. Yeah. And I think that's where I learned to do some of my first bigger flights. I did my first bivvy actually in Bir with John Sylvester a little short flight from Bir back to Manali and we camped very high top landed and camped very high and got encased in ice and then flew back the next morning. And it was just we flew back over Bir the next morning before the first person had even taken off up at cloud base and they were everybody was looking up going where in the hell did these guys come from.
It was a really. Really special very special trip and kind of opened my eyes to what's possible. It's not very far but it's a boy that's spectacular. So you you were how old then were you in ninety five. How old were you when you learned.
Twenty nine.
Twenty nine. OK. So you've been flying quite a long time too. And when did you start competing.
2004. Well pretty pretty. OK. So about 10 years later you start competing. And then was that also. Just in India or do you compete internationally. Do you do you travel quite a bit.
I started with the pre world cup in India and then jumped straight into a world championship in Portugal. Which I was second last.
That sounds like my first Superfinal I went in there thinking I was hot shit and I got my ass kicked.
That's. That's good. I knew
what's going to happen but I wanted to have that experience. So.
Yeah. Sure. Sure. And then have you been part of the Indian world's team then since then pretty regularly.
Yes pretty regularly. I've been competing ever since actually.
OK. Fantastic. And so what do you what are you flying now. And what happened last week in beer. How'd that go.
I'm flying boomerang now boomerang time. And last week I mean weather wasn't typical beer weather in autumn. But I think it only made it more challenging. We had some like I was talking to some beginner cross country pilots here in India and yesterday only. And they said that the conditions we had set 90 kilometer task. They probably won't even take off.
That was the kind of weather we had. But the task my results are just like mid level but I'm quite happy with the flying we did. Made some mistake bombed out. But that happens.
And what have you found with most of your time. It sounds like flying in the Himalaya. How is that transferred. How have those skills transferred to other places when you've gone to fly at other world events or in Europe or South America.
Tell me a little bit about that. It's a it seems like a fantastic training ground.
Yeah. It trains you very well for strong conditions. But when you go fly flat lands you are totally unprepared. Actually that's what happened to me in Portugal. It was me and Debu together actually there. And after first day we were laughing that Debu we will take off. And we will think where the thermals are going to be. And then we won't go there. We will go somewhere else. Because wherever we think thermals are they are not there.
That was our strategy on day two in Portugal in 2003 actually.
Go where you think you should. The whole time.
Exactly. We exclude the places where we think we should go. And then we start somewhere else. That was the strategy. I love it. I love it. But thing is yeah. Beer makes you pretty good with strong conditions. You are not. That's not a problem anymore. And with the big mountain. So you are very comfortable with the terrain and being close to big mountain. But you are not prepared for flat lands or definitely not prepared. Like my weakness still is weak conditions. With windy day. I am totally. I am stumped. Whenever I face that condition I go from very good breaking like top ten to last ten.
Okay. So you have trouble tracking the thermals when they are light and it's windy.
Yeah. Yeah. When it's like a drifty and very weak and it's windy also you are fighting head wind. I don't have patience. Because I am so used to strong conditions. I can't stick around and try ten times with the same trigger point or something. Drifting and coming back. Drifting and coming back. I just give up or I start searching somewhere else and then I bomb out. So that's it. I know my weakness but it's so much ingrained into your muscle memory. It's hard sometimes to change that.
Yeah. I just was working on the last podcast with Josh Cohn who I am sure you have flown with over the years. But you know it's amazing I think what he brought out was how important the psychological, you know. Just fly confidently. How important that is. It really is about training not just the technique but knowing you can do it isn't it. That's important.
That's very important. Actually in 2009 I was flying pretty good but I was never actually doing very good in results. And I was encouraged by one of the Bulgarian pilots saying that if you can win you don't try to win ever. And I won the next three competitions I did after that. Wow. Just because somebody told me I am good enough it made a lot of difference. Because see in India we didn't have any mentor. We didn't have any coach. We had nobody ahead of us to teach. And we always and because we started way behind the European pilots we had this kind of thing that we are not good enough. We are not good enough. And then it took somebody to kind of encourage us and say like you can do it.
So that made a lot of difference.
Is your job then purely out from paragliding? Is that your kind of year round income is from instruction and that kind of thing and competitions or do you have something on the side or is paragliding just a side?
No my income comes from teaching paragliding. Do
you get any help from the government?
Not at all.
No. Okay. In
fact I told this in media before so I can say it again now is that best I expect from government is to leave me alone because usually instead of help we had problems from government.
Okay. Okay. So wow it sounds tricky then. I mean you've got some certainly visiting pilots come out there that are terrific. I know people make the migration every year to Bir in the spring and the fall but it sounds like training can be quite challenging. I always think of myself I feel so lucky that I have mentors around me that have been competing for a long time but can also tell me when I'm being stupid and like you say giving you the kind of hand on the back to make you feel better but that sounds like it might be tricky there.
Yeah. Like right now I'm at a level where I have good results in category two comps or opens but I never had a good result in like best for 17th position. I think in a world cup but I think from here onwards it's more if not a mentor we need a good team that we can fly together and encourage and also to believe that we can do it. I've just about started feeling that I can stay with the lead gaggle in the world cup and it took me 20 years to get here and without that's what happened without the mentor. If we had a coach, a mentor, a team and some sponsorships or encouragement from the team and from the government it could have happened in let's say six, seven years.
That's interesting then. Tell me about that kind of transition from maybe feeling like you could do well in cat two to cat one. Was that just purely mental or was that maybe just an accumulation of more and more hours, some combination?
Both I think. Most of it is hours and world cup hours. The more you compete in the world cup. And equipment also.
I was flying Axis when the two liner thing came in and I stayed with Axis because they had been giving me wings for a couple of years. 2008, 9, 10 they gave me wings. So I stayed loyal to the company but lagging behind and it was difficult here. And then I jumped to Newwick. I had a good performance for a year. But then my body weight increased and I gained a weight. I became a little fat. And I struggled with again like I couldn't get the last hundred meters that other pilots were getting most of the time. Particularly in weak conditions. And then I jumped to Boomerang, a size bigger. And again I had very good, like the first task, I won the task this summer.
So it was, and it seemed super easy. One it was in Macedonia, I'm very familiar with the place. But I think it was equipment also. So it's a combination of everything. And the years I struggled also contribute. Because when you struggle with slightly handicapped in equipment or something, then you're trying to make up with observation, with skills, with strategy. And then when you jump to right equipment, it immediately shows.
Suffering makes us better, doesn't it? Yeah. We've been mostly talking about competitions. But are you also quite, it sounds like you're quite passionate about competitions. Are you also passionate about just free flight?
I am. But I have to make my earning from teaching paragliding. So actually nowadays I do fly less in B than most visiting pilots do. Because it's time for me to earn money. If I don't earn money, then I don't have money to buy equipment and compete. So I enjoy competition. I have like after Eddie got hurt. And our friend, he died in the same year in Bulgaria. I had a lot of thinking to do. And came to the conclusion that I still enjoy competing. I will compete but maybe for slightly different reasons. Like take slightly less chances. But I will compete. So that's a chosen path.
After a lot of thought.
Yeah. Have you been hurt yourself? You mentioned you had a small injury right when you were first learning. But have you had any other accidents?
I had an accident in 2000. Broke my shoulder. That made me think enough to go to UK and do my certifications. Including instructor certifications.
Okay. And have you ever had a period, this is a common question I ask everybody. But have you ever had a period where you've had to back away from the sport? Or maybe had to contemplate it more? Or you know, been scared away from the sport for a while?
Not scared in a way. But like when Eddie first died in the competition. I was still, I kind of became more stubborn in that competition. I decided to continue with the competition. And I came in third in that. It was pre-Worlds in Bulgaria.
And just a week later. Eddie had an accident. He was in a coma. And I, in the next competition in Macedonia, I was 92nd. So I, and there were a couple of tasks in which I just, I looked. The waypoint seemed to be in the lee side of the mountain. I just refused to go. I just landed.
And so back away a bit, yes. A little scared, yes. And it took me almost two years to regain the full form. But I didn't stop continuing.
Okay. So you were, you were still, still fine with flying. But you were, you definitely were taking less risk.
Yeah. I would, a lot of times I decided to land and not continue with the, with the task.
And it's, it's interesting, isn't it? Whether competition or whether we're free flying, when we, when we don't fly aggressively, it's hard to do well.
It's not question of aggression even. I think it's a balance. You have to be in the moment. And if there is something serious going on in your brain, you're not in the moment. So what
seems to be dangerous at that time may be not dangerous when you're flying with the flow. You, you're in the moment. Then it's easier to handle.
Yeah. I couldn't agree more. That's a, that's a great, that's a great way to put that. What are your, what are your goals now? You know, you've been flying since 95, so 20 years. Is it still to get better now? Have you learned better at competitions? Are you still quite, do you still find you're very excited about the sport now after all these years?
Given my strategy this year has been that I would not fly competitions for scores. I don't care about, but I like to win each, I fly so I can win a task. So I take chances. I stay with the lead as much as possible. If I get a lead, I attack. And even if I bomb out, I don't care. So this is a deliberately chosen strategy so I can learn how to stay in the lead if I ever get it. And also to be more, more, not aggressive, but like when opportunity or my skills let me lead, I should not be uncomfortable leading. That is the strategy. And also it's kind of a challenge.
I want to fly my own line. So what better way to be in the lead and choose the line. So far because I don't have that good a reputation, particularly with the World Cup level pilots, the gaggles don't usually follow me.
But it's okay. Sooner or later. If I keep choosing right lines, people will come with me. And I think I'm choosing right lines. In the last few competitions, even if my results were not so good, my lines were much better than even what most of the winning gaggle chose. Just that I was flying alone most of the time. So I'm proud of that. And I'm working on that. And sooner or later it will work out. The idea is small improvements and continuous improvement. And to enjoy it. If I stop enjoying it, I'll stop doing it.
This change in your strategy, was this recommended to you? Or was it something that, you know, you just felt like, okay, maybe I've gotten as good as I can using this, what I've always done, and I need to do something new?
It's my own thought. I think mainly it's like I don't need to fly for points. Because in India, they will stop competing. So I don't have much competition for national ranking. So there's no need to bother about points or anything. It's better to get better and to enjoy flying. And I feel more satisfied. If I make a choice, and I have a good choice, even if my ranking is not good, I feel more satisfied at the end of the day. So that is a much better feeling than just a few more points.
I like that. Yeah. What initially, we're going to rewind the clock here again. What initially got you excited about, or why did you want to take up sailplanes?
I have no idea. I think every kid, particularly boys, as a kid, we all dream of flying. And I think some kids don't give up their dreams. That's one. And my father was in Army and in the border police also later on. And I saw his life. And I didn't want to go into services. But I wanted to fly. When I was growing up, commercial airline business in India hadn't opened up that way, thankfully. I didn't go into that. I just wanted to fly as a hobby. So gliding was the cheapest option. And that's how I got into it.
And then when you transitioned to paragliding, was it kind of an instant, oh, my God, this is amazing? Or did it take some time?
Yeah, it was like coming home. I had my first flight on paraglider. And I knew this was it.
Wow. I like that. We're always chasing that first flight, aren't we? Yeah, true.
And I kind of asked this already. But in the last 20 years, have you gone through periods where you find that it's hard to find that kind of stoke and excitement and passion?
Not really. I told you like only trouble time I had was like my injury. The injury didn't deter me much, like with the broken shoulder or the sprained ankle or anything. But with my teammates' death and other teammates going into coma for four months, it was a little difficult. I had a lot of thinking to do and really admit to myself why I compete or what should be my reasons to compete. But once I figured it out, it was okay.
And by figuring it out, was it just you felt like the risk was worth it? You felt like your love of it justified it?
See, our sport has risk in it all the time. That's one thing we all should admit before we do it. The thing is how much additional risk to take in competition. And that is what I evaluated and also my motives for competing. And then in-flight executing or sticking to that principle that I came to that I will win. Like now my principle is simple. I will try to win when I can think smart and execute smart. But if I have to win by taking a chance, I don't care. I will let other people go if they want to do that.
That's smart. I think that aligns with there are old pilots and bold pilots but no old bold pilots.
Yeah, exactly. So I'm in the later category now. Yeah. Okay.
Are you married? Do you have kids?
I have kids. I was married. We are separated now for many years. I have a daughter. She's grown up. Twenty-three now.
And did having children change your risk tolerance at all?
No. I started. My daughter was three years old when I started paragliding.
So I don't think like I was talking to this. And one of the reasons he has stopped competing is having kids now. And I was laughing with him that I started flying when I already had kids. And they grew up fine. No problems. So I can tell you.
If you could go back and, you know, now with all this experience of 20 years under your belt and all these competitions and seen some injuries and had some injuries, would you, if you could go back and give your 16-year-old self some advice. Did I get that right? I was 29 when I started. Twenty-nine. Twenty-nine. Sorry. So not your 16-year-old self. Your 29-year-old self. If you could give that Gurpreet some advice, what would it be?
To immigrate and start flying somewhere else and have mentors and coaches and better training. And get out of India. Yeah. When I was in UK doing my certification, I was giving a theory lesson. I'm a physics postgraduate. So science came easy to me.
I was giving a lecture as a training instructor in a school, Airways Flight Park. And my instructor, my chief instructor was listening to me give the lecture. And I was a little subconscious that maybe I'm doing something wrong. He's paying so much attention. But after the lecture, he came to me like I was just admiring the way you put things across. And he said I should move out of India because India is holding me back. That's the first time I heard that. But I think there's an element of truth in that.
So that's tough. You've got these, you know, the biggest mountains in the world, an incredible playground to learn. But you don't have maybe the infrastructure and the culture, I guess, that would support it.
Yeah. But that's one way of thinking is that, okay, I suffered. But then the way I think about it, the rewarding part of it is that maybe I also contributed in making it a little better than it was. So if I stuck around, maybe it made a little dent because society is hard to change. I don't think things are going to change in a big way just because I stuck to some standards. But I think there is a certain level of skill transfer even to people who just fly around me, not just my students. And also if I stick to some principles, then my competitor also has to stick to some principles. Otherwise, it's very obvious what they're doing. So it does translate to some gain.
So I think, I would like to think it was somehow useful.
What times in your career have really stood out as kind of special moments and that like the times that you've really come away and gone, whoa, I really improved? Do you have specific times like that that really stand out?
I think 2009 and last two years also. I had a good glider also. The 2009. I was pretty good. And but the one I had was pretty nicely trimmed. Thanks to Martin at the factory.
But that was also a jump in confidence level. So it was rewarding. That was one of the best. And now last two, three years also. Somehow I'm enjoying every year. Every year I see little improvement, little change. Some small epiphany. More flying. Understanding little details. Understanding little bit more strategy. And I'm actually eager to convey it to other Indian pilots. I hope they come up soon. I mean, and now we are getting like 10, 12 people who are very good with cross country now already. And they should start competing soon. So I'm quite eager to be their mentor now. If they would accept me as one, then I would help them.
Yeah. Maybe give them a little bit of what was hard for you to get.
Exactly. Yeah.
That would be really special to share that kind of passion that you have and love of flight that you have.
Tell me about learning and progression. You said you've kind of got this hole in your game with light thermals and wind. Are there things that you're currently working on? Or things that, you know, stand out as kind of holes in your ability? And how are you attacking that?
Actually, the biggest hole is now, I've told you, weakest, weak windy conditions. And I don't have anywhere in India I can practice that. I'm exploring some sites, which is flat land sites in central India, Madhya Pradesh. And we plan to go there in February. Me and Vijay fly there. And I also think that that will be a place for distance records in India. Indian distance records. Maybe not good enough for home records. It's not windy enough. But still better than other places.
Have you flown at all in Brazil?
No. I haven't been to North or South America yet.
Ah, okay. It's too expensive. Yeah, yeah. Well, we have to get you over here. I think you'd enjoy it. We have very strong conditions. Also, where I live, in the Rocky Mountains, you'd probably thrive here.
I had registered for the U.S. Open this year, but then I backed out because it was just expensive.
For instance, it didn't look very good, so I dropped that idea.
Right, right. Yeah, no, that was a fun competition. We had a couple of pretty major accidents there, of course. I'm sure you heard. But, yeah, it was a really, really fantastic competition. So, who are still, who would you say are your mentors now? Is it still Debu? I know he's still around, but are there others?
Debu is not competing. So, my mentor, it's like people, Petra is one. Petra helps me. She's like a sister.
The rest is more observation and reflection, actually. I don't think I have direct inputs coming from any pilot as such. But more observing and analyzing, watching. Live tracking is a big help.
Yeah. You
can see where you made a mistake and other people are good. So, having access to everybody's track and replaying the day, it helps a lot.
And do you also, do you utilize X-Contest to look at track logs of other pilots that are, you know, in non-competition times, but just, you know, like in general in beer to see what people are doing? Are there other tools other than live tracking you use to? To improve?
See, the X-Contest or any online tracks of normal cross country, they're not so interesting. Like, this year at World Cup, the last task, people came in trying to get that last waypoint. And they got a thermal off the T factory, almost like rooftop height. And they finished the task from there. That's something I would have never imagined possible. Having even lived here, I didn't know that you can come in so low a bead village, almost touching the T factory roof and get off from there and back to almost 2,500 meters and finish your task from there. That local knowledge thing didn't work.
It actually worked against me. I didn't think it was possible.
That brings up an interesting point. One of the things that Mad said in his presentation, and it's something I've heard from other people, is that the local hero never wins the comp at his local site. That it's always somebody new that comes in and kind of sees things differently or doesn't really know maybe the house thermals or whatever, but just flies maybe more creatively only because they're ignorant. They don't know the place. Do you find that you excel more at home or when you're on the road? On
the road. I totally agree with Mad on that. We have too much preconceived notions about our own site. And when you look at the site with fresh perspective and just go by analysis of the place according to the condition, then it's much better. Of course, you have to be very good with that. Not everybody's cup of tea. But with the top pilots, I think everybody will agree that this is usual. The place you're very used to, you will have some preconceived notions about it.
What kind of mental... Where do you like to be mentally when you go to a comp? Have you found that there's a correlation between when you do well and when you're in a certain frame of mind?
It's 100 % right. It's all psychology. I mean, after a certain skill level. But it's hard to... Like this year, summers, the first competition I did very well. And now the frame of mind I was in, I was almost seeing the whole competition happen as a third party, as a viewer from outside. I knew exactly the mistake people were making, exactly where I should keep myself, where I should go fast. It was amazing. And I've been trying to recreate that frame set in my mind and I have not succeeded. I might have come close to it, but I don't know where it exactly came to. That's something I'm working on right now. Where did that frame of mind come from and what do I need to do to be there again?
So that's my homework.
That's interesting. Josh talked about a similar thing in the last podcast, which I was pretty fascinated about. He actually started studying psychology to try to become better. And isn't that funny that we probably put too little weight on that. We all know it's a mental game, but it's really important.
Yeah, I think even with the very advanced teams, I don't know whether they're getting any psychological training or not, but with the sessions that are budget, I think it should be an important part. Psychology is the biggest part in competing. Also in cross country, too. Yeah,
for sure. Nate has this saying, as soon as you think about landing, you're going to land. Yeah. The
ground pull.
Yeah, ground suck. Exactly. You mentioned something that was interesting to me. You said you studied science and physics, so you were quite adept at physics. I find that there's an extraordinary number of pilots worldwide.
One day in the X-OPS, I think the second day I was walking down off the mountain with Aaron Durogati and Michael Vichy and Stanislav Meyer, and Michael is an engineer. And, you know, an incredibly solid PWC pilot for a long time and, you know, a really good pilot in general. And so we started talking about his engineering background. And then I started reflecting on, it seems to be there's a lot of engineers in this sport. I'm about the opposite of that. You know, I'm more of a kinetic guy. I don't understand engineering at all. If someone went over a bridge that I built, they would kill themselves. So what do you relate that to? And do you find that because your brain works in that way that it really helps your flying?
It's two parts to paragliding. One part is the science or the cerebral part, and the other is the cortical thinking or the muscle memory and reflexes and feeling. And they're both equally important. And the ideal would be to develop both equally or actually build the science first and then the reflexes, or equally as you go. But I think both pilots do well. Like, it's typically here also. Debu and me, we are quite on the opposite end. We might have worked our way towards the middle, me developing more from the science and he developing more. He started flying at 14 years old.
And his formal education isn't much, so he didn't care much about it. He was just learning science of it. And he developed the... And he's as good a pilot as anyone, maybe a little better, I would say.
But I think one of... He probably had to learn some of the concepts the hard way. And I probably had to develop my senses to be finer and finer over the years. It took me longer because I started older. But I think both are equally important.
And they go hand in hand, don't they?
Yeah, they go hand in hand. You have to... It's like everything. You have to first understand things and then develop the feel. Because we don't have the sensor that birds something, something. So feel is equally important. To develop your reflexes and muscle memories and to do things instinctively at the moment, that is equally important. The same goes for... Like, in one of the tasks, this PWC here, it got really cloudy.
And I had... The waypoint was outside in the valley and we were... The next waypoint was outside. We were on the waypoint that was close to hill. And I think me and Ajay were pretty close at that time. And I decided that I need to go towards the waypoint because it's anyway outside and if sun break, it will break from outside first. And Ajay somehow decided to go to the mountain. And then go to the waypoint later on after saving himself from the mountain. And his strategy worked. And for me, the sun didn't break. And I bombed out. And I asked him, like, why he made the decision. And he had no why. And he said he kind of just meditated and let his instinct decide where he wants to go.
He actually was totally confused also. And he just let his gut feeling take him there. He probably had better trained gut feeling than me then. So that's something I need to work on.
Boy, how do you train your gut feeling though? That's a tricky one.
No, I think everybody has gut feeling. But when we are very cerebral thinker, like more scientific, we overrule it. We think too much and we overrule it. Like me and Ajay, I think we have similar level of flying. And we should both have kind of experiences and reflexes. But because I was thinking too cerebrally, I overruled my instinct to do something.
Yeah, I think there's almost some poetry there. I think that we've all probably had those moments where the gut feeling has really worked and it's terrific. And had the moments when we're too cerebral and you're on the ground watching everybody fly over your head.
Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, cerebral health helps, but not always. Sometimes, it's also... But I've been thinking about it. Right now it's just been from the last competition. I've been thinking and I think when I'm... From future, when I'm in doubt, my cerebral thinking is not very clear and it's based on a chance that I go there, some might break, then I will shut up the cerebral and follow my gut. Because it's not clear answer. If it's clear answer, I will go there. If it's not clear answer, then I will just go about my thing then.
Hmm. I like that.
Gurpreet, that is... I don't think I could have said any of that lighter stuff better than you. I think I could have said it better than myself. That was fantastic. I really appreciate that. Is there anything else you'd like to add or anybody you want to give a shout out to before we close things up? I feel like we got really lucky with this internet connection and that was just a fabulous talk. I really appreciate your time.
Only I would like to thank all the people I fly with. Like I said recently on the Facebook also, I completed 20 years and I was celebrating that. And I wanted to say that flying is amazing, but the community is amazing also. They made it beautiful. So I'm thankful to all the people I fly with.
Yeah, it's a pretty special community, isn't it? It's really... I feel very fortunate to be a part of it. Well, here's to the next 20 years, right?
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, fantastic. Thank you very much, Gurpreet. And we'll be in touch.
Thank you very much, Kevin. We'll fly it.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that. That talk really reminded me of one of Nate Scales' favorite sayings, which I completely ripped off from him in a couple of different film projects that I've done. But he said when we were working on 500 Miles to Nowhere, I love where paragliders take you and I love where paragliders take you. And at first I couldn't understand the redundancy of that, but he described it as, you know, because we love paragliding, we chase it all over the world. So, you know, we follow our paragliders around the world to try to chase cross country. And then also that every time we step off a mountain, we have no idea where we're going to go. And so he loves where paragliders take you. And I've just always enjoyed that. I also really like where the cloud-based mayhem is taking me and hopefully you, the listener, as we start to talk to people around the world. A lot of the guests we've had on the show have been pretty North American-based.
So it's good to reach out and get a perspective like Gurpreet's from the other side of the world. As always, please reach out to me if you have any feedback or if you want to see somebody on the show. Let me know via my website cloudbasedmayhem.com or via Facebook. You can find me on there or Instagram or whatever you like to use. Really appreciate your generous donations. As always, all we ask for is a buck a show if you got something out of this or one of the previous shows. Like Nate Scales', which was definitely one of our most popular He's Back Few episodes. If you haven't checked that one out, you have to. It's hysterical. His account of his ex-op. Experience in 2007. And then flying around taking pictures of waypoints back before we had GPS. It'll make you laugh, I promise. But keep doing this.
I enjoy it. Thanks for listening. Give us a shout out on iTunes or Stitcher. If you like us, give us a rating on there. And we'll catch up with you the next time. Cheers.