35. Christina Kolb and becoming a complete pilot - Christina Kolb

Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Got a great show for you today, but before we get into it, quite a few housekeeping items. All of these are important, so stick with us here for a few minutes. The first, you may have heard in the last couple shows, we've launched a new way to support the show. This is a listener-supported podcast. We're not getting anything from sponsors, because that's how I want to do it. But we've got a new way to support us called Patreon. If you go to patreon.com forward slash cloudbasemayhem, or you can find those links all over the website, cloudbasemayhem.com, there's a really cool way to support the show where you kind of set it and forget it. And we've also got on there, only for Patreon members, some bonus material from time to time.

And I've just uploaded about a 10-minute story from Larry Tudor back in episode 29. We talked with Larry for a couple hours. That has been by far our most popular show to date. We signed off after a couple hours, which I shouldn't have done. He was just rolling in so many good stories. But anyway, signed off. Luckily, I kept recording, because he immediately started recounting what I'm calling the magic bus tour. All these pilots got on a bus way back when, a bunch of hang gliders back in Bir in India. And they all promptly took off. Took some acid, and then the transmission ran out on the bus, and that's all I'm going to give you. Head on over to patreon.com forward slash cloudbasemayhem if you need a really, really good guffaw in your life today.

It is absolutely hysterical. I've been promising I'm going to drop that into a show. I've finally done that. Go over, check it out. It's awesome. Another thing we talked about a lot in the last couple shows is reserve throws. And I mentioned that Cody Mittanck had been teaching me. Last year when I was training with him down in the desert about putting your wing into a solid tail slide, or at least a deep stall, but tail slide's quite a bit easier, with both hands, you know, grabbing both brake toggles before you throw your reserve. A really great story in the last episode with Tom Payne about him getting into a helico situation that goes bad, and he throws both of his reserves right into his wing. Sounds crazy, but it's actually not that uncommon, and in his own words, he should have died.

Luckily, he got out of that without any injury, but it was a good reinforcement that, yes, ideally, that is the way you want to throw your reserve, but there are a lot of things that are difficult about that. When I put that out on the website, or sorry, when I put that out on the show, it started a conversation on paragliding forums. Some of you may have seen that. I asked Christina in this show, this show is with Christina Cole, who just won the World Acro. She's our new acro. World Acro champion. She won it this year in Annecy. I asked her about that, so we go into it a little bit in this show, but obviously, that's ideally. If you're in some kind of horrific situation, especially if you've got a multiple riser twist situation, obviously, you can't pull your brakes down into a tail slide or a deep stall, and so that's not going to work.

Potentially, Christina says you can reach up above and pull the brake lines down. With one hand, that would be an incredibly acrobatic maneuver. Not saying it can't be done. It probably can, but anyway, this is obviously an ideal situation. The best way to throw so your wing doesn't auto restart or start violently whipping when you go to throw and throw your reserve right directly into your wing. If you practice tail slide, they're not very hard, and if you can hold that with one hand, all the better, and then you're in a nice stable situation to then throw. The obvious question then is why throw if you're in a stable situation? Well, then the answer to that, of course, is if you've got a massive unrecoverable cravat or you've done some acro full stalls, you've got some kind of situation in your wing that you can't resolve, and you're running out of time, so there you go.

Next thing I wanted to talk about is insurance. USHPA just came. The last issue just came out with an article for me about insurance, which is absolutely incorrect. I've contacted the magazine to put that correction in the next one. As far as I know correctly, the post that I've put on my blog, cloudbasemayhem.com, about insurance is totally updated, and it's totally correct right now. But in the article, I mentioned that the GeoSAR insurance offered through Spot and DeLorme doesn't work. Which is true. There's a paragliding and hang gliding exception. But I recommend using the MediVac, Geo's MediVac insurance. But that also doesn't cover paragliding and hang gliding.

So the only one I know of is through Seven Corners, their Dog Tag Extreme policy, and also there's another one through World Nomads, although I'm hearing that the World Nomads coverage is quite a bit inferior. So rather than go into all that now, because this is really just specific information - tie to the World Nomads thing, I want to talk a little bit about insurance. to us and Canadian pilots and not everybody else who's listening right now. Sorry about that for you folks, but uh, go to my website cloudbasemayhem.com, put in a search term insurance, and you'll see that, uh, you'll see that article. I've also made some updates on my Facebook page, so you can go into that film tour I'm going on, a little mini film tour with North Unknown next week, starting at VIMP Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival Saturday the 18th, and then I'm going to be heading south with a date pretty much every day.

You can find all this on the website cloudbasemayhem.com, and you can also find it on my Facebook page and on the Cloudbase Mayhem page, but I'll be in Seattle over at the North Bend Theater on the 19th, I'll be in Portland at the 20th, we're still working on a venue for Bend Ashland area on the 21st, we'll be in Palo Alto at the Stanford campus on the 22nd, we'll be down at, we're still looking for a venue for San Luis Obispo on the 23rd, we're going to be at Santa Barbara at the Sandbox being hosted by Patagonia on the 24th, and then we're working on a venue in San Diego for the 25th. So I will be at all of those shows. The film's about an hour and it documents, it's a Red Bull Media House film that documents Dave Turner and I's full traverse, unsupported traverse of the Alaskan Range.

It's been winning tons of awards lately. It premiered at BAMF in November. Very, very few people have seen it. I hope you'll come out and, uh, check it out, uh, tickets Funds from the tickets, are a portion of them are going to go to the foundation for free flight, and the rest will cover venue expenses, and the rest of that will go to my xops campaign, so hope to see you out there. It'll be a lot of fun. I'll have a ton of sponsor swag; that'd be a good time. Finally, uh, this show, Christina Kolb. I was contacted by a few different people who said, I really had to talk to Christina. She won the world championships in acro this year, and was 12th overall, and a massive achievement. Uh, this girl, Gal, is just super obsessed with paragliding, loves it, and was, but was just down in Chile and Brazil, and was, uh, witnessed to quite a few accidents.

So, as a common theme, like, we get into the show here, as we often do, like, we talk a lot about safety and progression and training, and what you can do to prevent these kinds of accidents. Some of them are, in some ways, kind of mindless, uh, very, very preventable. Um, we talk about a lot of things that we've talked about in other episodes, but it's always great to get it from a female perspective, not least to which we talk about the importance of SIV, who it's right for, who it's potentially wrong for, uh, the importance of ground handling, uh, why acro pilots are so much better than cross country pilots on the ground, and that's just because they practice, uh, no great, um, No great mystery there. So, uh, I know you're going to enjoy this episode.

Christina was over in Austria. We had a little bit of trouble with the sound in the first few minutes, but I don't even think you'll notice that; quickly goes away. So, uh, without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with Christina Kolb, and I hope to see you on the road next week, uh, with North Unknown. Cheers.

Christina, is so great to have you on the show. Uh, we've been trying to do this for, gosh, I think we're getting into the months, not even weeks anymore. But, um, thank you so much. It can always be tricky to, uh, line up when we're in completely different time zones. So, why don't we start off with that? Where are you, and, and what are you doing these days, uh?

Hi Gavin, nice to finally be able to talk to you. So yeah, that was quite a hard one. Um, right at the moment I'm in Austria; I've decided to break of a journey, uh, in South America, a flying project in Brazil, which was like turning pretty weird at the moment. So I decided to go back home and to spend the winter snowboarding and relaxing, which has been great so far.

Flying a flying project that went weird, uh, in Brazil. That sounds like a great place to start. What happened in Brazil? Well,

Actually, a lot happened before we ever got to Brazil, so by the time we were actually there, I just wanted to go back home and to hide in a hole and to never come back out again. Uh, yeah, it was a lot of stuff happening. We uh had a car in Chile which had broken down. In the meantime, we had bought it like a year ago, so that was a big factor. There was like nothing I could do about it; I'm not good at mechanics, and there was this car hanging out. We couldn't move to Brazil, which is where we wanted to go. Uh, there were a lot of accidents in Chile this year. The weather was a bit different, and the accidents were pretty bad and horrible. I spent a lot of time at the hospital accompanying friends. I didn't really feel like flying felt like flying anymore. There was a lot of stuff happening, like kind of things where you just don't want to go out anymore. In the end, and by the time we actually got to Brazil without the car, by bus, my MacBook had stolen on the bus, and I was just ready to like run back home and hide.

Wow.

Gosh, I mean, there's some stuff we're gonna have to talk about there. Uh, what—what was the plan? And, uh, what was—what were you guys hoping for in Brazil? And now, so, who's—we—you keep saying we all

Right, I'm usually traveling with my partner, boyfriend Alan. Um, he's a very good pilot too, very passionate, so we're usually traveling and flying together. Uh, so that's... we, yeah, so we were planning on going to Brazil and doing a little project with the president of the female flying movement there, I guess, the female paragliding movement, and which is called Say Say Go Out and Fly. And, uh, it's pretty nice in Brazil, actually. There are 600 lady pilots, so we're flying more or less frequently, I guess, so which is a lot. I didn't know about that. And, uh, these ladies, my friends, wrote their próprios in Brazil. The one woman and the other one, me, we defense board was using my name on her to think of, uh, the virtual pilot school, which a pilot sister was doing of a female pilot. Yeah, we were on FR and that was a team loop.

Um, we were doing that again in Brazil. It was murder. So, by the time we actually got out of the building and like the team would have been a littlepeso, let me

know if you realize what you're talking about

or where's your head now with flying after the accidents in Chile and getting your Mac stolen and, yeah, just taking the winter off?

Basically, that was it, yeah. It was weird when I came back home. I thought about flying just from behind my house, a little small flight. My mom was offering to drive me back up there. And, you know, you get these mental images sometimes when you think of something. Well, my mental image was one of a helicopter and somebody just laying on the ground. And I was like, whoa, that's pretty bad. That's not what I want to associate flying with. So I basically, yeah, I'm taking my time off. I started to do some speed riding. I'm snowboarding a lot, which is really nice. And I've flown my new Emily Smile, which is really nice as well. But I'm taking it easy and I'll see what will happen or what will come up. I've got a few ideas and projects in mind. But for now, just letting it flow and see what happens, I guess.

So before we get into your big win last year in Annecy, you became the world champion in acro, which I want to talk about. That sounds awesome. Can you give the listeners that don't know a lot about your history, how did you get into flying? What was the impetus? Bring us up to speed with how you became the world champion.

That could be a long or a short answer.

Yeah, let's go long.

Let's go long, okay. Right. When I was like really young, maybe like eight or nine years, we had a pilot flying from the hill behind my house and he barely took off. He just got his feet off the ground. But I was like, wow, that's what I want to do. And my mom was, yeah, right, exactly. I guess I've been always doing things a bit like out of the extraordinary or being fascinated by it. And when I was like 15 or so, a good friend of mine started flying. He was a very crazy guy, like very crazy. And we were all like, yeah, he's probably not going to survive it. And in the end, he did. He became good and he became a TANF pilot and he started taking friends along. So I was, of course, among the first to do the Q and yeah, exactly, exactly.

And it was really nice. It was exactly what I was always looking for, hoping for. But then I started backpacking all around, like just going back home to work, get some money and go back off again with my backpacking, whatever. So I did that for like two or three times more. And yeah. Then the time came where I was like, okay, now I've got some money and some time. Let's do that paragliding license. And I never got off it again. I was just addicted, I guess, from the first moment. So then was traveling.

Where is home, Christina?

Home is Austria.

But you said somebody, you saw somebody fly out behind your house. So where in Austria?

It's a really small village, close to Switzerland, like 400 inhabitants. I think you wouldn't know it.

Okay. Well, I've flown a lot over there, but maybe the X-Alps route will take us by your place this year.

Ah, we're in the foothills. Okay. But I might come out and see the X-Alps. It's something that I'm starting to get more interested in.

Yeah. You mentioned it, you know, before we started recording, you mentioned that you're quite into hike and fly. I like this. You know, it sounds like you got this kind of immediate passion. Was it, was it, was Acro the first draw? Or, well, anyway, I'm getting ahead of things. Keep, keep, keep taking us through your, your history here a little bit. So you, you got into, you, you, you did some tandems and then you took the lessons and then you never looked back.

Yeah, basically that was it, yeah. So it was all just paragliding and like, it shows the place where I studied for its flying sites when I had to do years abroad because I had a language related studies. I chose them according to the flying sites, spent some time in Argentina, flying, spent some time in Guatemala, flying in Spain, in Granada. Yeah.

You were choosing the places to study around paragliding, which I love. That sounds like a smart thing to do. And then how did the, how did Acro start coming into the fold?

Right. So, so for me, it's always just been flying. Like even if I just had a sledder, I was happy. I just wanted to fly. That was my thing. And I didn't really think about where I wanted to go or that I really wanted to become, become good. I wanted something and, and Acro has been really fascinating to me, but I just didn't have any people around who were flying Acro. So I wasn't the kind of person to go out and just pull on it and try myself. And, and at some point in, in Chile and Iquique, which is a place I've been going back to a lot of times, just because the conditions are pretty steady normally, except for this year and pretty awesome. Uh, I got to know two Acro pilots and they told me about this place called Organia. And so I was like, yeah, why not? I was living in Granada at the time, which, uh, was supposed to be really good for flying as well, but that window was pretty bad, which is why I left for Iquique.

And, uh, yeah, so on my way home from Granada to Austria, I stopped by in Organia and I spent, I planned on just staying there for a few days or something. And yes, ended up spending the whole summer there. I, it was just a place to be. The people were perfect. The people were really, really nice. And we're the reason that I finally like got into this dream of, of doing some Acro and doing some, yeah. Fancy movements in the air and I kept on going back to Organia and that's how it all started. And I never really had that goal. I mean, infinity was of course something that would have been really, really awesome to do, but I was just, yeah, flying along and having so much fun. And one thing led to another and one trick led to another, because once you know that you want to know more and you want to try the next step and that's how it all built up really.

And what was it like? Were you, did you literally. Learn your first Acro over the dirt in Organia, or did you, did you come into Organia with quite a bit of background? Um, tell me about the kind of learning process. Cause I think a lot of people, when they think about learning Acro there, they get quite, uh, I don't know, just worried, hesitant, uh, to learn it over the dirt.

Right. Um, I basically had an atypical learning process, I guess, in Acro. I learned about everything above dirt, um, or above ground. I have my first full stalls, which were. Really horrible and catastrophic and traumatic in a, in a SIV. It was, it was a great experience, but my full stalls were just really, really bad. Like, I guess either you're lucky with the first ones they work out and you'll have a nice and smooth progression or they're really horrible. And you'll have a trauma.

Ah, what happened and where, where were you, who, who was instructing?

Um, well, that's not to make bad publicity. I was just flying for six months and I was in, in Austria at the Aachen say, okay. We're really good. Instructions, but I was just like too eager and like, yeah, I want to do it all. You know, you get this list of SIV stuff that you want to do or tricks or maneuvers or whatever. And, okay. So

you were over the water for the full stalls. I was over the water. Oh, yes, yes. Okay. Gotcha. Proper

SIV, uh, was all good, fortunately, because I was thinking about maybe pulling it above the snow and whatever. And I'm really, really happy that I didn't, I didn't do that. So

that's a

good idea.

And did, did they end in, in throwing a reserve or they were just ugly?

Nope. Okay. They were ugly. Okay. I almost landed in the water, like a few times. It was funny. We were a few girls who all fucked it up at the same time. And our instructor was afterwards like, ah, it seems like you three put your head together and we're like, oh no, never do it again. And actually it took me four years to go back to doing full stalls again. And when I went to Organia, the people were just so nice to pilots there. I was, they basically bared with me for a month of annoying everyone like, oh, so what happens if the full stall goes wrong? And what happens if that happens? And what, but what could happen if, and like, I was. I was literally running after everybody for a month and just bugging them with full-stall quests. And in the end they actually flew out with me to two good friends, Renan and Rafinha flew out with me. We're like, yes, full-stall now. And like pulling besides.

I was like, oh no, okay.

But they got this thing started without them. I think I would have never done that. And actually, so yeah, but the ground flying, um, for me, altitude has always been much more important than water. Uh, a lot of the flying sites. It's above water. I know, um, are very low and I appreciate attitude much more than water. Like, of course, if you throw a rescue, you're happy to be above water, but well, I guess it's also the state of mind that you're in when you're flying above the ground is, is much more concentrated. I've had the experience that people come above a lake and do stuff. They don't have the basics for doing just because they're like, oh, now I've got water. Now I can fly acro, but they don't actually know how to fly better. It's just that. They're like, oh yeah, water, whatever. It doesn't matter if I throw a rescue and yeah, I don't know if that's good state of mind to be in.

So, uh, people who fly above the ground are more concentrated usually, and more conscious of what they're able to do and, and maybe follow the progression a bit more because it's not so nice to throw a rescue above a ground has above water. That's for sure. Yeah. But for me, let's know

that there's some really good stuff there. Um, so for, for people that are. You know, thinking about, you know, one of the things we come back to again and again on the show is, is SIV and, um, the importance of that kind of training and the importance of acro training, even if you're not getting into acro, just how, how important those skills are, um, given, you know, the, the trauma of your first full stalls and how that, because one of the things that jockey said, which I thought was really interesting is that SIV actually isn't for everyone. You know what? What the first SIV really does is, is boost your confidence, you know, that, that this is not something you should be scared of, but he said for some people, it actually is quite traumatic and they can have the experience like you did and not come back to it.

I mean, really the first one, you're not learning that much, you know, it's, it's more just getting over that fear and getting a little more confidence. And then you've got to come back to, you know, I know Andra was saying you, you have to really do. 300 full stalls before you're even really starting, um, which I thought was just terrific. You know, that you really need, you need that muscle memory. You need to just do it over and over and over again. So it becomes like doing a wing over. It's just nothing. You just, you just do it and do it in your sleep. Um, so what would you suggest given what you went through, you know, what would be, what would be the ideal way to go through that kind of training?

Hmm. The ideal way. I think it depends on a person. Like everybody's got different goals. And I think it's a good idea to know what you want to know what, where you want to go with that first SIV. Of course, goals change afterwards, but for example, I've been doing like every, everything that I dare to pull by myself above ground. Like I'd done all the, the, the, the collapses, the frontals accelerated, not accelerated, um, everything I dare to do myself. So I knew I wanted to go there in order to do the full stall because I didn't dare doing that above ground by myself. Uh, for calmer pilots, uh, just do the first collapses that they don't dare do at home in a, in an SIV. That's great. And I think if you know what you're going for and why you need those things that you're going to learn, uh, it won't end up being traumatic, traumatic in a sense that you won't do it anymore.

As about the repetitions, like that's yeah. SIV. I mean, even if you do three frontals or something in the first SIV, it doesn't mean that you know how to deal with. Each and every one that will come up in your life.

Well, you've, you've trust your wing, isn't it? Well, no, it's true. Isn't it? I mean, I think what it does in the beginning is it, it teaches you that you shouldn't be so afraid of your wing, right? I mean, you know, it's like, whoa, I'm still alive. This is still okay. This little collapse is more benign than I thought it would be.

Basically. Well, it can also be worse, but it shows you how it is to have troubles in the air and to give you time to get used to, to this and to know. Oh, I. Have that much time to react. And I have time to think, what do I have to do now? Because not every collapse, not every full stop, not every incident is the same, right? So you basically learn how to mentally deal with it. Yeah. And then after having done your first, whatever, 10, five, something collapses, full stalls, whatever it is, you're learning in an SIV. You can, or cannot, according to what your instructor says, go home and practice it and do the 300 or however many takes you to really know what, what you're doing. So SIV is great, but it doesn't mean that you're doing an SIV and then you know everything and you never have to do one again.

Of course not.

Sure. Sure. And so now we're back in Organia and you're, you're, you've spent the season there. Did it click at some point? Like, Hey, I could, I could compete. I could, uh, you know, but at that first season, were you already thinking like, oh, maybe I could win a world championship or take me back to that timeline? Well,

the dream came up like, oh, what? Would be nice. One day champion would be really nice. A feather in the cap. Right. But, uh, uh, yeah, no, the competitions were never to go. The goal, there wasn't a goal. It was just having so much fun flying and so much fun learning this stuff. And now seeing that, like I've come as far as I've wanted to come for now, I guess there's slowly coming up the possibility of going on with twisted stuff and all that. Now I'm seeing that the way was much more important than actually being here or was much more. Fun, like the most fun I was having when I was learning those things and not now that I'm flying in pretty proper and whatever. So, so yeah, comps were not a goal. The goal was just to continue doing what I love, which was flying in any way and comps are stressful.

And for me, uh, it, yeah, it was always something like whenever I'm ready to do a comp and like not be really stressed out and put myself under pressure, but just do it because it's fun. And I know, I know how to do it. And see what comes out. That's the time I might go and try it. Yeah.

And when, when was then, when was your first comp?

That was, uh, maybe two or three years ago.

Oh, okay. Uh,

2014 or something. I tried once one, it was really, really bad. I had actually one run. We had horrible weather. That's the thing in actual competitions. You often have horrible weather in cross

country too. Same, right? So,

yeah. So you just have to. You have to kind of whatever, throw yourself out in really bad conditions sometimes, uh, fortunate always. And, uh, if you're unlucky and you're having a bad run or like, yeah, the level of the girls to the guys, not the same, you might only actually have the chance to do one run, which is what happened to me. And after one run, we were cut, which means like in the beginning, you're maybe 30 something pilots. And when the time gets short for the last day or for the last two days, only 25 pilots, 25 best will go on. And yeah, I wasn't in those. And I had to drive. I had

to drive

home after five days of rain with one run and like being last or something, I was never again, competition. That's so screwed up. I'll never do that again. But then you went, but then you

went back to it.

Yeah. Last summer people, I don't know. Yeah. I was like, basically, um, let's give it another try this year. And if nothing comes out, well, I've tried it. At least I've been thinking about it too much for not trying it. At least.

And what are you curious to know? It sounds like you're traveling. You're traveling a lot with your partner, your boyfriend, who's, who's also a pilot or is he also a professional pilot is, is he making his money from paragliding or, and you, and you are too, is this how you're earning a living or is this a pastime? He

is a, uh, paragliding instructors, SIV instructor and tenant pilot. So he, he earns his money by paragliding, but not by being a professional pilot. I get my material sponsored, but for now I'm, I'm basically working as a translator and sometimes as a paragliding instructor and a tenant pilot.

Tell me about instructing. What, what do you teach, uh, you know, total newbies or are you taking them on a cross country? Are you guiding or what, what, where do you, where do you fit into the fold there with instruction?

Mostly total newbies. Sometimes I'm working as a starter for SIVs, but I, I love the newbies because they actually are, they still believe what you're telling them, which is quite nice as soon as, as they're a bit progress. Usually people, you know, when. And they kind of need you, but they don't want to need you. So they're like, oh, I didn't hear you there. Sorry. Yeah. Right.

Um, yeah, I like newbies. They're usually quite grateful and it's nice to see progress. You know, it's nice to see them actually trying the stuff you're telling them and it works and, and yeah, they don't come up, uh, telling, you know, it's, I did that because of, nah, nah, nah, because of what happened to me back then in, nah, nah, nah. And telling you half an hour, like arguing with you about why they didn't do what you actually told them to do. I like the newbies.

Um, okay. So as a, as a pilot now, and the pilot who's won the world championships and also as an instructor, one of the questions I always ask is what's the best advice you've ever received, but I want to ask you the opposite. What's the worst.

Well, uh, the worst advice, I actually didn't have any idea about it until now, but now something just popped up in my head when I was in Guatemala and there was this guy who was like. Hell, this is really weird.

This is the worst. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again because that's, that's the worst. The worst thing I've ever had was when we were in the air, so it was so weird. Um,

it was just, it was, it was, uh,

we'd be in the air,

it was

just, it was, it was just going up

and,

and, and it's, it

was, I feel like,

it was,

you know, it was a lot of, I mean, I've been in this thing for the last three years. And I can only

tell you from experience, but

to be honest, like I, I can, I'm

not giving

you a

lot of advice. And that's the way you have to do it if you want to be a real pilot. I think those were usually pretty bad, pretty bad tips, or whatever, or things that worked for that special flying site, but that wouldn't work anywhere else. And that just left little margin for alternatives, or alternative thinking, and I think that's a pretty bad way of looking at it because it fixes things right, ah.

Okay, oh, I like it. That's good. Yeah, interesting. So, so too much reliance... well, I, you know, for me, and one of the reasons I was kind of laughing as you were saying that is I think I got really lucky with surrounding myself with, with good mentors early on. And, um, you know, like when I go to beer, uh, for example, in India, the first couple times I flew there in 2009, when I was really just starting to learn how to fly bigger cross country, I learned very early on that I had to really, you know, consciously ignore what was going on, you know,

consciously ignore what was going on

At launch, you know, like if you—if you get tied up in a place like Beer, where you've got a couple hundred people, got a whole lot of people that you know shouldn't even be flying, and it's, you know, it's kind of a zoo and a disaster. And if you start watching, you know, like I watched this guy one time take off, spin the wrong way, pull the wrong brake, spin right back into the hill, and break his leg, you know, if you—you know, horrible stuff like that, and it happens all the time there. And oh yeah, oh yeah, and so if you—if you pay any attention to that. So I—I'm the kind of, I'm the guy on launch, launch, that just goes, I—I get, I get ready, I get set, and I go. And I—and I don't, you know, I just don't ever, you know, I'll jump in front of people, I'll be really not rude, but you know, I just, I don't like to just stand and wait and wait and wait and watch.

And I don't know, I just, I just ignore that. So that's my advice is to ignore all that, I think.

Absolutely, you have to have to kind of your own bubble, right? Where you're like concentrating your stuff and you don't see and hear all that stuff, because if you see somebody having an accident just before you take off, I think that doesn't put you in a good headspace, right? Yeah.

Exactly, exactly. I think, uh, Mads Syndergaard, we had him on the show a while back and he's written a book about this, but he talks about priming, you know, and he talks about priming your head for, for success, and that's very much a part of it, you know. If there's somebody sitting next to you on the way up to launch talking about an accident, that's a good time to put your headphones on. Absolutely.

absolutely yes

Oh, yes. Well, I mean, it's really mean, but I think that's all. It's the difference if you're sitting in Organia, which is a place where there are a lot of acro pilots, or if you're sitting in a place which is a typical cross country hunt, whatever acro pilots tend to do. A lot of ground handling, which just makes them good at taking off. It's just a fact. And, and whenever there's cross country competition at an acro site, we actually always have to fight like, "Oh, those acros are flying in front of the takeoff, na na na," and the acros are like, "Oh, but you cross country guys don't know how to take off." And it's like very satirical, but actually there's a grain of truth in it. So, so I would sit in Organia for two hours talking to acro pilots because I know I won't see any, anything horrible like that. Like, normally, you know, there's always space marching for error, but yeah, the typical, I guess, if you're at a cross country competition or something, I've been to some of those like very typical places, and that's, yeah, that's the place where I look the other side as well, I guess, yeah.

So I had, I was actually gonna, I was planning on starting this, this podcast off, you know, before we even bring it in with you, uh, mentioning there's a, uh, I've been talking about in the last couple episodes, we had Tom Payne on the last show and he recently had a really scary incident where he had a helico go bad through his reserve, through his reserve, right, into his wing, uh, through a second reserve, through a second reserve, directly into his wing. We were talking about probabilities and, uh, one versus two reserves and, and how, and, and it's actually after talking to him, uh, you know, realizing and hearing other stories that it's actually not that uncommon and, you know, if you're in a really bad situation where there's, uh, you know, like a, uh, auto restart and the wings, you know, anyway, you're just, you're out of control and, and you in some ways kind of get unlucky.

But one of the things I was, I learned from Cody, I was doing some, some acro training with him over the dirt, uh, last winter, was he was, he's always talking about, you know, having your wing in a solid tail slide or deep stall before you throw, you know, so with one hand pulling both toggles down and, and then throwing your reserve. And this was something that he's practiced and trained and was, was talking to me a lot about. So I, I mentioned that on the show and it started a topic on the paragliding forum where people are confused about that because how would you get your, your wing into that kind of configuration if you're in multiple twists, you know, because you can't pull your brakes down then? Is this, yes, and Like, to get your acro perspective on that, what—what do you—what do you guys practice and train for throwing, or do you—do you do that first?

Do you do that and then, two, if you—you know, do you reach above and pull the brakes down and then throw, or—or do you just throw? Yeah.

Right, well, so first of all, I'm pretty bad at that. I haven't done any training on my rescue until I actually needed it, which is pretty bad and not advisable at all. But, well, it was just never the time. I was always at the lakes when it was too cold, so I needed my rescue like three times in my life, and it was always in a constellation where I didn't really have much room for reaching up and and pulling the deep stall. If you manage to, it's definitely a good idea. Like, I had to throw a rescue twice when I was going into into auto rotation. I don't know if I personally would have to force to pull my wing into a deep stall at point, because if I could do something, then it would be to stop the wing from auto rotation. And if that that doesn't work anymore, well, if you have to force to do that, it's for sure a good thing, because that auto rotation will probably might probably eat your rescue, definitely.

Um, if you're twisted, I don't see how you could manage unless you really reach up high. If you can reach it at high and wrap those those whole whatever C lines or D lines or whatever you get B lines, uh, around your hands, if you're strong enough to do that, yeah, go for it. Whatever you can do to to calm down your wing and to give you some space in order to throw out the rescue into free space, as we call it, for it to open freely, yeah, do it whatever. But every constellation is different, so if you have the time, if you know how high you are when you throw, and you have the time to just analyze it quickly, a few milliseconds or one second or whatever, to analyze what's happening, it will save you a lot of that head headache afterwards, right?

You will, you you have to take the time to see where you can throw your rescue what are

The things that you guys are talking about a lot in organia, like when you're on on launch, and um, you know, what are the—what are the—what are the most common sources of misery, uh, that happened, you know, with the in the acro scene? Because I'm—I'm just—I'm not in it, I don't know a lot about it. I just know that, like you said, the acro pilots are so much better on the ground, uh, and of course with wing control in the air, it's, you know, but I imagine there's still—are there maneuvers that you guys worry—are there some that—that worry you a lot more than others, uh?

Yeah, but it all depends on the level, really, right? Like, a beginner might be worried about his first set or the first full stalls, which is always a big, uh, a big topic, or whatever. The top might be worried about not getting their twisted infinite straight into whatever into axis long enough for the points to count in a competition. Like, it really depends on the level. Safety is always an issue, especially if something has happened that was not nice, and to talk about how that could have been avoided, um, proper, like, flying the tricks properly, uh, is an issue, which is more like interesting from a technical point of view, but I think safety is a big issue as well. Yeah, um...

Christina, I want to rewind a little bit again to the all these accidents you just saw back in, in, in Chile. You know, now that you've had some time to process it, I imagine and, uh, agonize over it, I'm sure. What, what are you, know, if you could have rewound the clock and told those pilots that got hurt, what would you tell them? I

Think I'd tell them to heed basic advice that you actually get while you're still in flying school, and that's still valid. On the first day, we had a crash between a hang glider and a paraglider, and that just means that you haven't been watching. I mean, that's something totally avoidable; that's something when I make a curve, I, I watch what's behind me, right? If I'm crashing into somebody or something like this, it's very basic. But if there are still crashes like that, it might mean that we still have to remind people of hitting basic stuff. I don't know, there was an accident, there were more accidents in rotors, and Chile looks easy. And cross-country flying, there is easy, but rotors are still rotors anywhere on the world, and you have to take certain precautions while you're flying through them, stuff like that.

Or when you're flying, I mean, very basic stuff. I'm, yeah, I guess it's, it's time to repeat them because I've seen too many things happen like that. When you're crossing the town, make sure that you're high enough, because if you're not high enough, you're standing somewhere between an electric line and a roof. It's just like that. I mean, shouldn't be having to say that, but it's, yeah, it happened. So, yeah, might as well repeat it. Um, I don't know, not trying stubby touches or ground spirals while the air is really bumpy. I mean, it's really obvious, but we have accidents. Every year in Chile, and it's—it's horrible. So, yeah, getting to know your wing, taking off, ground handling, lots of—lots of ground handling just to take that stress of, uh, of a takeoff that you don't actually know how to handle.

And, yeah, I see many pilots who just kind of throw themselves out and then they're happy in the air, and happy camper, and they're able to fly for hours. But every takeoff just puts so much stress onto them because they've never really gone out with their wing and ground handled, um, basic stuff, very basic stuff.

That's a great reminder to kind of just continually return back to those, you know, the ABCs of flying, isn't it? I mean, I think that we always need to keep them close. Yeah, yeah, I was, uh, blown away my first, uh, Superfinal, and I, I had just started competing that year, so I hadn't been to many comps. It was down in Columbia, and, uh, the launch there is very easy, but it's, it's often either dead air or just slightly over the back, you know? So everybody's doing these running forwards on comp wings, which can be pretty amusing, um, and, uh, but I was surprised, you know, like that, you just, you would never see, uh, some of the techniques you see there.

And that's at a Superfinal, these are the best cross country pilots in the world, and you see, uh, you see some pretty horrific techniques, um, and just blown long. Yeah, just blown launch after blown launch after blown launch, which you would just never see in the acro world at all. And I was just, I was really, it really enforced in me like, dude, you got to spend time ground handling, you like, because you don't want to look like these guys.

it's embarrassing i

think it happens a lot with people who are going up like to top-notch wings and they're like, "No, no, now I'm flying a good wing like that, I can't go back to doing ground handy like a beginner." It must be a little bit more difficult to do that, something like that, I think. Yeah, a very bad idea. You're like, well, I'm not a good cross country pilot or a proven one or whatever, but uh, if I fly an Enzo, I want to know how to stall it because I'm flying that machine and I want to have it in all the configurations above water, so I know what happens uh before I take it into some lee side in some competition, stress, pressure, yeah, situation, no.

Absolutely, I mean I think I, I think one of the things that I've heard, you know, I asked you at one point, "What's the worst advice you, you've ever heard?" This isn't advice, but the one of the things that I've heard a lot of, that's, that's just wrong is, "Oh, well, you know, like they might be a really, really bad at launching, um, but they're a quote-unquote air jedi in the air, you know, just an amazing." And I, I, I take issue with that. If you're not solid on the ground, you're also not solid in the air, because everything that's happening on the ground, um, is happens in the air, and, and you have to be able to feel it. Then you know you're not looking at the wing, and so it's, if you're not an air jedi on the ground, you're not that good in the air either, you know. Don't, wouldn't you agree with that? I mean, I

Do up to a certain point, like the pendulum effect takes a lot of stress away. You have to like beat a pendulum on the ground with your feet, right? You have to walk to what's happening in the air automatically, but absolutely, if you don't know how to feel your wing on the ground, like, it's probably going to be the same in the air, and it's just not complete. I mean, takeoff and start of paragliding, so, so you might as well learn how to do it perfectly, right? Uh,

There you go. So, to be, uh, you know, to summarize, to be a complete pilot, you need to have those skills really down. I mean, that's—that's where 99% of the accidents happen, isn't it? So, okay, listeners, listen up: go out and ground handle more. I mean, that—this is something we talk about on a lot of shows here, but yeah, if this is the first show you're listening to with Christina here, then that's the message, that's the takeaway: go ground handle.

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, it just takes so much stress away, really, because I—I'm seeing that with my students. Those are, you know, they're really good at ground handling after the beginner's hill, and they're really confident at taking off, and they're stressed about the flight. And the better they become, the less they'll go out ground handling; the more they'll go out flying, the worse they get at taking off. And in the end, they're just really, really stressed out when they have to take off, and it goes, more or less, whatever it works out, more or less, and they're like, "Oh, finally, now I can start flying." But they're so stressed out by their takeoff, which they don't know if they're gonna manage or not without an accident, so they can't really concentrate on having a nice flight. Battery, sure.

Yeah, it's over before they're even in the air, isn't it?

Exactly, like, how can you want to be making 200ks if you, if you don't know if you survive the takeoff, right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think the proof is in the pudding, you know? When you look at—when you look at the videos of Chrigel taken off and just horrific conditions over and over and over again, and you can just tell that—I mean, that's why he's able to go out. Is he's—he's—he—he keeps focusing on the basics, which is just so important, yeah.

Yeah, oh, and maybe a thing for acro beginners, or in general, like one important thing I think is as well to know who is flying out there, not to be a victim of the lemming effect. If you say that in English, yeah, like, yeah, that's really, really bad. That happens so much, and I see it so many times, and a lot of accidents could have been prevented just like, yeah, but not doing because it's flyable because somebody's flying there already, and the other guy will be thinking, "Oh, if somebody else takes off, I can still continue flying." Or inaccuracy, it a lot like, "Oh, if that guy flies close to the mountain and doesn't respect his box, I might just do the same." But that guy might be whatever, Francois Rogowski, or like the world champion, so he might know what he's doing, and you're not. So, yeah, use your own brain and and just stick to those safety advice things because they, they're there for a reason, right?

Exactly, and I think that's one of the most impressive advice I ever got was, you know that that you one of the most valuable things to know and flying is when not to fly.

Oh, yes, absolutely. Oh, yes, that's

the one that's the one that gets people, and you see somebody that's, you know, that might be out on a terrible day that's flying, they might be way better than you are or just a lot more dumb.

right exactly you

don't know which, yeah.

So, let's, let's talk about your win, uh, you, you had this comp, uh, you, you kind of came back to competition after having the terrible first one, uh, I guess this was last, last year, and then, so take me up to the, to the big win and Annecy, and what, that, what those runs looked like? Do you guys go into those with, um, this is exactly what I'm going to do, or is there quite a bit of freestyle depending on how things are exiting and entering, and, uh,

right, so the comp and Annecy was a little bit different from the world cups I've been to so far, because the world cups are like three or four days, and you usually have a lot of more altitude because the sites, uh, yeah, there are different sites with more altitude, so you kind of have to plan your run. That's something you want to talk about afterwards. Uh, in Annecy, uh, we had a lot less altitude, and well, we had at the two or three competitions I've been to before, and we had like seven or eight days—seven days, I think, of of um, eight runs plus two training days. So it's a lot longer than than what we had until now, which is really interesting because in a normal competition, you might get as a girl at least one, two, uh, maximum three runs, I guess.

So with the tricks you have, you can put, you can do something nice, and then you don't need more tricks because then the comp is over, and Annecy we kind of had to plan and save up our tricks to have something by the end of the week, I think. Like, one common mistake that people are making when they go to the first acro, at least, is just going, like, "Yeah, I know..." how to do that? Let's just do it and and fly and have fun. And then they're surprised when they're, uh, like towards the last places, which is exactly what happened to me. I was really frustrated, which and this happens if you don't actually plan your run, and by yeah, having bad results, you actually learn that you kind of have to think about what you're going to do, and you have to plan a run for low altitude, for high altitude, and kind of have alternatives of what you can do if something goes wrong with the connection to the run, and turns out differently than what you want to.

The more you've thought about it, the less surprised you'll be while you're flying, and the better points you can get because if you're planning, you can actually, I mean, there is this a rank, a rating system, and the better you plan them, the more points you will get. If you're just flying whatever you know how to do, you might miss those points for your next run and might not get enough points for this run because you haven't done the right trick at the right time. So yeah, read the regulations and playing your run, I've learned, is part of flying a competition. So in NSC, it was really interesting. because the altitude is quite low, and we had, or I at least I had, two runs ready in my mind for every time I flew out: one for low altitude, one for high altitude, plus-minus one trick or two tricks, even that I could add or deduct and still get the points I need and whatever in case the altitude was lower or higher, so it was a lot of planning actually, which was surprising to me.

Acro camps comes are a lot of planning if you want to be, uh, among the the first places I guess give

me an example of of your the the best run or your last run my

best run was actually my last run, which was, I think, because we had so many days of comps and I basically do all the tricks that I know how to do, uh, without twisted, basically do all the tricks to both sides, which is something not everybody does, and I basically practice all of them all the time because I don't do twisted stuff, so it doesn't take so much time off my time to do the twisted stuff. So I had a tumble to to cork to the other side to twister to

to, uh, let me think, what was that? To Misty, to Misty, to dynamic full stall. Wow, that

Sounds beautiful. I'm just imagining it all in my head. That's... that's fantastic.

and it

worked out

Perfectly, because actually the last day I had the pressure off because we were two girls having a close run. Uh, Nicole Schmidt, she's a very good pilot from Germany, and we were basically always fighting for zero points, something points during the whole comp. And the second last day, we both screwed it up a bit, um, but she a bit more than I, and she was just out of the the last cut and I was still inside, which meant that I was basically, I had female title and I didn't have to very worry about like losing against her anymore. So the run was very relaxed and smooth, and and actually had altitude for once, so it was very nice. And uh, I think the guys, they were getting tired as much as anybody, but they still had the pressure, and they are training a lot of twisted stuff at a high level, which means they're taking that, that takes time off from them from doing the the basic tricks that, yeah, that they don't practice so much anymore.

So I had those basic tricks and they didn't. I still was like 12th or something, but that was pretty nice. There was one one place behind Oracio Lawrence, which was for me like really great. Yeah, so the guys were getting towards their worst days and I was getting towards my best days, and yeah, nice 12th place. And the last run was was really good for me, I think, and

you won the women's

exactly yeah

Congratulations. Thanks. So, what happens now? What where do you what when you when you got done with that comp, um, you know, are you thinking, "Okay, more more of these," or "Okay, I won the the worlds, now I'm gonna do something else?"

if

I continue to fly competitions. It will definitely be in the same way that I've done so far, like flying for fun and no pressure at all, because as soon as I put pressure in there, I notice that I do stupid things, that things become dangerous, and that I'm just not flying as good anymore or as relaxed anymore. So I definitely want to do a little bit of more, more cross country flying. I might even do, uh, one or two cross country comps, but for the reason of learning. If all the good comp, uh, cross pilots say that you learn a lot in cross country comps, I'm going to do a little bit more cross country comps. I mean, why shouldn't it be true? So I think that's the reason for me to, to do a little bit of that, to do more cross country and know a little bit more, get a bit more experience, and to be finally able to do, um, I think bivaking, bivak flights by my own. I think that's something I, I want to get more into.

And acro will, will always, I mean, it's just so much fun, it's too much fun to, to let it go. So definitely continue with acro flying, and I'm starting slowly to think that, uh, trying more with the maneuvers might be something that could be fun. Yes, you

know, I know that's it's impossible to predict this, but uh, when you kind of look back at the history of acro, there's probably been quite a few times where people thought, okay, there will be no more tricks, that's there, there can't possibly be something else, but is there, are there something, is there something completely new that no one's ever seen on the horizon

Not that I know of. I mean, there is fun stuff like, um, what's the name of the American acro pilot that you hadn't shown lately? Uh, Max Marion. I mean, he has done some very fun stuff like the flips in Infinite and something something like that. That was, yeah, yeah, I was like, "Wait, what?"

He's, he's flipping, he's flipping in his harness during an infinite. I thought, "Wow, that's pretty neat." It's

hurting your shoulders, yeah.

right, oh, the wonders of you youth, I love it

Right, yeah. I don't know, in the end, you only have two breaks and there are only so many points and and and strength levels that you can pull them with, right? So I don't know, uh, but yeah, as you said, we have thought a lot, or they have thought a lot of times. There's no more space for new stuff and there's always been something so far, so it's exciting to see what will come up next, right? Yeah.

And tell me about acro wings. Uh, this is another thing I don't know a lot about, you know, with sharp nose technology and you know the what ozone came up with in 2009, uh, will just radically change the sport of paragliding in cross country. Has the same thing happened in with acro wings? I

think I'm too new new into Vancouver for actually talking about I've been flying acro for like four years or so. Well, I guess one thing was that the doing infinites became a lot safer from what they were tell me, and another thing is, uh, that wings basically do as far as, which is something not all wings did safely before. So basically, now criteria for wings is as well, they they're able to do as far as without you falling to the wing, I guess. Yeah, I'm more the kind of pilot that takes a ready wing that I know that it works and I'm having fun with it. I'm not a lot into construction to be honest, yeah, and

You said you're flying the emily, yeah?

exactly yeah

It's a pretty wing back to instructing. I just wanted to ask a couple more things about, uh, you know, that, that process when you, you're teaching these new students, um, does it take you back to when you were first learning? Like, when you think back to your, uh, 50-hour self, is there advice or, uh, that you either got and didn't follow, or advice that you wish you would have gotten when you, when you look back to your, your first year, I think

You got a lot of good advice, and one of those pieces of advice was to listen to everybody but to use your own brain while processing what you're hearing, and I think that's a piece of advice, advice I'd give on like everybody, you know, the typical "you're coming to take off and everybody knows everything." Um, there is some truth in those things, not a lot of it is like, it's better to let it ride straight out of your head again, but I still go up to pilots when I'm at a new spot and ask them, "Hey, what about the weather? Hey, what about this? What about that?" Because they know, and it's useful, and I still take, gladly take advice from people no matter what, like technique-wise, landing-wise, whatever, weather-wise.

Um, yeah, and I have had the, I have had the basis of of learning, and that's what I always tell my students, like, you're learning the basics here, which means that you're able to use your own brain afterwards. Listen to people, but like, yeah, use your brain to know if that's a useful piece of advice or not, but get it and don't become arrogant and think you know it all. I think that's like one of the biggest mistakes after one year of flying or so, when nothing has happened to you, people, or or, well, I was like that, I'd become invincible, you know, hmm.

Nothing has happened, and whatever, all those things that accident, accidents, and people, um, all those things that people have been telling me about accidents, it can't happen to me because nothing has happened so far. And that's a really dangerous point, I think. Like, one year or so after having started to fly, so staying humble and still taking advice and still trying things out for yourself is something very useful. And I think something else which is useful is just knowing why you fly, like in a, in a sense of taking it slow. I've seen a lot of people who are going very, very fast because they want to become champion, or they want to do comes in after one year of having started to fly, or, or they see people flying in organia, they want to do infinity in one month, or something like that.

And I think that leads to a lot of behavior that isn't useful for flying. Usually, those people scare themselves and don't continue, or have bad accidents, or some of them become really, really good as well. Like, everybody's got a different path to

follow, and so I think that's a really good point, and I think that's a really good point, but I

Think it's very useful to know why you're flying and why you're flying, not where you want to go, because that can change. But a lot of people have these goals, and I have the impression that they don't even appreciate flying as such, because they're like, "Oh, I want to do infinite and I want to do comps." And you're like, "Yeah, but for now, you're just... you've been flying for three months, and are you actually enjoying it?" Or, I mean, we

had a really interesting discussion in the last show with Tom Payne, uh, with about a

year ago, and I think that's a really good point.

About X contest, you know, you say that the the guy I fly with and one of my one of my supporters in the X-Alps, uh, we got really into the chocolate bar for a couple years, you know, on X contest where every 100k flight, uh, you know, you can have quote-unquote a chocolate, not a real chocolate, but then then they add them all up and at the end of the season, you know, whoever has the most chocolates, and I think he won it two or three years in a row, and and we just we talked about which was nice, and it was also really fun, and it gave you, um, it it helped, it helped make you plan your day, which I think is really important, and it helped you create tasks, and it helped you get the most out of the day, but it also, um, what what we were talking about is is the, you know, the evil, that's the good side, and the evil side is that you're chasing numbers, and and that can be, and that can cloud why we do it, can it?

I mean, it it's, yeah.

exactly it

Has to be fun first, absolutely.

Absolutely, that's like, yeah, when the pilots land after 198k and they're really frustrated, I mean, I can understand that you're pissed because you didn't get to 200, but I mean, did you have a nice flight? Hello? Yeah, exactly, that kind of thing. I think, yeah, I think that's really important to not forget that, like last year in Organia, I met a guy who was really nice and he just came from the SIV and he was more towards the beginner level, uh, safe SIV, right? And he was like, "Yeah, it was nice, but I didn't even do full stalls." And like, really, as if it was just shit what he—what he'd been doing. And I was like, well, I didn't tell him. I was like, "Oh, yeah, look at that." But afterwards I was thinking, I mean, why would you have to do full stalls? I'm sure you learned what you needed to learn; otherwise, the instructor would have made you do it.

And and that SIV was there to to show you new stuff. And why would you need a full stall at your—at your stage of flying? Did you—did you enjoy what you learned? I mean, I should have told him all those things, like this pressure of becoming better and of seeing really good pilots, which happens, of course, in Organia, and and wanting to Zhaitang

things like that after a long time, and I was like, well, we know from my acting and acting that it gets the same

and thinking that everything they do is like inferior, and you're only really cool if you're among the top. I think that's a mistake because it, yeah, it leads you away from why you're doing this, right? I think, yeah.

I, I think, I think it's, uh, good to be mindful of how precious each one is, in, in whatever manner it is, it's always precious. We're flying; it's ridiculous. It's just completely ridiculous, yeah.

That alone is mind-boggling. That's why I'm doing it, and I think it's good if you know why you're actually doing it.

right and that's

Also, for, for when something bad happens to you, like coming back to, to remembering why you're actually flying. Are you flying to become the champion, or to chase that record, or to whatever? Or are you flying because it's fun? Or, I think that's important to know. That's, yeah, that would be a tip that I'd give a newcomer.

Fantastic, okay. One area I'd love to get into, because this has been extremely interesting, with our our previous female guests, I want to ask you some male-female stuff.

First, I'd like to hear about, you know, how is it tricky to manage a relationship? Uh, that's, you know, when you're—when you're dating somebody that's in the industry, that's in the sport that you're in? You're going through a lot of this new couple right now, so I'm—because I think it's, you love is that, uh, challenging? Is it great, actually?

I think I'd... it would be a real handicap if my boyfriend didn't fly. Okay, if you're flying as much as I do, and flying as much as he does, I don't know, like if you have to fight every weekend about if you're able or allowed to go flying or not, that... that wouldn't work for me. So we don't have any, you know, discussions about where the next holiday is going to be or what it's going to be about, because it's just going to be... here is going to be the Dolomites or Slovenia or whatever, right?

Right, it has... it's going to be a paragliding trip.

Absolutely, absolutely. It can be annoying, of course, because sometimes you get into whatever competition mode or comparison mode, and he's just a much better pilot than I am, so he always gets the applause. I'd have people come up to me, it's like, "Oh, I saw your top landing." Was like, "Oh, yeah, but your boyfriend, he is good." Like, "Go fuck yourself."

I mean, that's—that's probably, uh, yeah, that's the biggest problems we have in that kind of respect, right?

it would

be much worse if he didn't fly is

It, Is it challenging for you at all to get advice from him because he's your boyfriend, or is that are you cool with that? It's...

challenging to get advice from him because we don't talk the same language in paragliding. Like, you know, you have people that exactly talk the same way as you feel things, or as you lift them, and he doesn't love to get it. Yeah, yeah, I think that's like, I don't know, did you experience that when you're getting advice from people or tips? Yes,

totally and you

Just can't relate to what they're saying, even though they're right.

Totally, I, I, uh, yeah, I get that all the time. I mean, it really, we everybody learns in a different way, don't we? And so, yeah.

yeah right right

That's really interesting, kind of

guy like access, and then this acts because the angles and whatnot ever, and I'm like, "Oh, just tell me how much I have to pull with what time, right?" So, of course,

I'm not going to be able to do that.

Yeah, so you're more, you're more

kinetic, and he's more, he's he's more kind of an engineer.

Exactly, he's much more technical. I'm more like feeling, and yeah, great at that time I have to pull that much, yeah.

I'm the same way. I'm not a good

cross country pilot, I don't think about

I'm the same way. I mean, I'm more a cross country pilot, but yeah, I'm the same way. I'm not very technical, and I was one of the things we talked about is, is uh, how many engineers are really pulled to paragliding? You find a lot

of people who are really good at paragliding, and they're

You find a lot, I mean, real engineers, that's their job. And it's, it's, you know, they're very technical about it, you know? Like talking to Tom Payne last week, that he's, he's incredibly analytical. And I mean, I don't understand, I don't understand fabrics or how the things go together, you know? I mean, I, I don't, it's just not even interesting to me because I don't understand it. So it goes, it flies, I'm in, I'm in, it sounds good. So yeah,

We're on the same page there, I guess. Yeah, it's great if you can combine those two areas, like, um, that's what I'm trying to do now in order to be able to fly cross country at all, because I'm just like, yeah, yeah, great, I'm flying like, oh, you have to think about the shape of that cloud or where the wind is coming from.

It's good if you can combine it, yeah.

Yeah, sure. Are there disadvantages to being a female in acro? That's

An interesting question, like, um, it was a big advantage for me because I was the only girl in Argania for a long time, and people have been taking a lot of care of me. But wing-wise, I, um, I actually had a big issue with my last wing for the last two years because it was exactly the same model from RG produced the same model for two years, and I didn't believe that it was due to my size and exactly that wing for a long time until I, I just had to believe it. Um, my wing was a 16 Emily, and with my weight, which is like, what's my weight? Like, 75 kilos takeoff weight or something with everything, it wouldn't do the Asfera properly. Like, it would do it, but it was a very nasty feeling. And I learned the Sphera, which is basically a trick where from infinite you just basically wait until it comes down from one side, or you can steer it with a little brake and putter with your weight, and then you just go, yeah, put your hands up and wait until you see it's, it's ready for satin, and you pull a set.

So it's, it's extremely easy, and I did my first 10 or so on a, on an 18 Emily, and it was perfect, and everything worked nice. I'm like, oh, the most or the trick that gives you the most points in a comp, and, and so easy

From, from when I had my 16 onwards, I just had massive problems with this there. Like, you had a lot of theoretical sessions with the really good pilots like Boraccio or Teo or Francois, and you're like, "No, no, it's just a nasty moment that you have to pass through." And like, "Okay, well, if you say so," but it was a very nasty moment, and I've tried everything basically. And this summer, I had the bad, the worst experience of my paragliding life. I fell into my wing because I tried something, and I tried it wrong, and I was totally desperate because this fucking sphere just wouldn't work. And at some point towards the end of the season, a friend from New Zealand broke, he just took my wing and was like, "Well, let me see if it's really that horrible." And I was hoping that he would say, "Well, it's really horrible, I'm sorry, that's just the wing." And he came back, he gave me the wing, and he was like, "It's perfectly fine, I don't know what you got." I'm like, "No, come on, don't tell me that." And we had a look at the videos, and he was doing basically the same thing I did, but it just looked perfectly nice and fine.

And I showed him my video, and I was doing the same thing that he would do, but it was just horrible, absolutely horrible. He's like, "Wow, okay, I understand why you've been crazy for the whole summer." And I finally had to believe that the 16 wouldn't work with my weight in a sphere. Brook had like 20 k's or 30, I don't know, more than I, and it worked perfectly fine. And it was very interesting because 16 is quite a small size, but only people who would be heavier would work on those wings. Like, all the good pilots are guys, and they force—I mean, they have like 20 or 30 k's more than me, and for them those wings work, but for me it wouldn't. And I would have had to trim it myself to make it work for my, for my weight, while with an 18 it was working with my weight. So that was very interesting, huh?

And frustrating, yeah, no kidding. So there, so there's not, there's not a definitive difference, but it seems like there's this problem with certain, uh, with certain tricks with being white. Well,

You just have to trim the wing yourself like this. Those wings are trimmed by extremely good pilots, right, until they work for them, and they kind of work more or less well. But at a certain level, I mean, it's no problem for all the other tricks, but at a certain level, in order to have the perfect trick for your wing and your size and whatnot, all your weight, you might have to whatever, take a few millimeters off one line and add a few millimeters off another, or something. That's just something that comes up, and that's something I don't know anything about. And I guess if I got into it, I could have fixed that 16 to to be perfect with my weight, but yeah, I didn't know enough about it.

Okay, okay. So it's, it probably is fixable, uh, with some tweaking.

Exactly, as opposed to if you just have to wait the same way as the guys do, you just take a wing that works perfectly because they have been trimming it to work exactly, you know, okay?

Uh, you fell into your wing. That would be remiss of me to not rewind to that. What happened?

Yeah, getting technical, so the sphere, as I said, you can be in it's basically when you're an infinite and you make it go to one side, either by a breaking put or by you wait, and basically it's hands up and wait depending on your wing until you see the side you pull it. Um, you can, and there's a little wave that you pass. It's basically the wing while coming down from vertical infinite to towards like horizontal, towards that position, it makes a little wavy movement, which is not a lot of movement, but it's a little bit of movement, and it's a little bit of very nice, uh, when you're the pilot. Um, but in order to make that wave a little smaller, you can while the wing is coming down at a certain point, pull a little bit of break, like minimal, like a few millimeters, and it will make the wave not as nasty.

I'm talking what the guys have been telling me because I've never managed with that wing and my size or my weight, and so while trying that, I actually pulled the break way too much, um, because yeah, I was like on a rodeo, so it's very hard to keep to pull a few millimeters and to keep it, uh, yeah, pulled it way too much, released it without actually noticing. I was ripening back into the axis, I was coming back to infinite while it was going down, and I reacted completely wrong because I actually didn't, yeah, I didn't think that my wing would come straight back above my head or I would go straight above the wing, yeah, fell into it. Was bad, bad reaction, yeah, whatever.

And then, what did you have to peel yourself out and throw?

Well, I saw the wing coming towards me and I was like, "Oh man, now it's... now we've come to that point where I'm gonna kiss the wing." And when I realized that it's wrapped around me and that I wouldn't come out of it anymore, I just grabbed the the handle with both hands and I just threw it out like I didn't think at all, and I was just lucky it just opened. Otherwise, I guess, yeah, fight as much I would have had to fight as much as I can and see if that rescue opens. I was lucky it opened straight away, uh

Do you fly with a cutaway, no?

I should, though I really should. Okay,

So they, so most, most of the most of the acro pilots are, um...

Not that I know of. I know a few, but a lot of them aren't actually, but it's a very good idea, I think.

Okay, okay. So they aren't—is there, is there a reason they aren't other than just expense or, uh?

I don't think it's expense we fly with so much expensive equipment. I think the 30 bucks for for a cutaway, yeah.

So why, why don't they? Why isn't everybody very

Good question. For me personally, it's because I'm—I've just never gotten around to doing it. Like, I'm thinking, "Oh yeah, that's one of those things I really should get," and I've never done so, which is very stupid. All

Right, it's good to know there's been some... there's been. Do you have a, um, do you have reserve opinions in terms of, you know, square, round?

regalo um

Hmm, depends on the kind of pilot you are. Uh, if you have a lot of money and you're—you don't mind the weight, I think the Acro Base is probably the best option you can get because within two seconds you have a new wing above your head, which is basically, yeah, the thing you want. Um, other than that, I don't know. For beginners, the Regalo is probably not the best idea because you have to be active, you have to do something in order to make it work. For acro pilots training above ground, a Regalo, or I mean, if you can't afford the Base, harness is probably best. It seems like the uh, Square, uh, Square Rescue is very good in terms of pendulum stability, but there has been a guy testing all of them and he has come up with the results that actually the Square one has a little bit of um, of forward speed, which is something that's not always good if you're training close to a mountain.

You don't, yeah, it doesn't matter if you're above a lake, but if you're close to the wall, it doesn't. It's not something you want to have, right?

right, because it could turn downwind exactly.

Exactly, and then have a little bit of speed take you. Exactly, you have the additional speed of the wing and the wind, and you can actually come back to what's the mountain very quickly, which is not a nice thing. But there was only one guy actually pointing that out, so it must be something that's not a very present issue on on square rescues. I think you have to inform yourself about what you need to do. All of the rescues have advantages and disadvantages, and then you just have to decide which one you can live with and which one you can't.

Okay, cool. Well, I really appreciate your time, so I don't want to take too much more of it, and we've already soaked up a whole bunch of your time just trying to track this down, haven't we, for the last—the last couple months? Um, so I just wanted one more question, and then we'll end it on that. You obviously have a passion for argania, but for someone, you know, that's coming into the sport that wants to learn acro, uh, where would you send them in the world? You've—you've sounds like you've flown all over the place. Is there—uh, do you have a favorite spot? And it doesn't have to be an acro spot, do you just have a favorite spot to fly?

Well, for me personally, it's Argania and it's a kiki, right? Okay, for somebody starting out with acro, that's those are definitely not the right places to learn. Anywhere with a with a high mountain, a lot of altitude is good, a lake is good, and the right people around you who will give you the good information, because that's a very important factor.

Yeah, tell me about a kiki, because I, I have been to Chile. I've done a lot of things in Chile. I've done a lot of things in Chile. I've done a lot of sailing down there, but I've never done any flying there. What's the, what's the magic of Chile?

The magic of the Kiki is that it's in the desert, and that you actually can fly every day without ever watching a weather report. That's really awesome. The issue is, it's a place that looks very easy, but it's got the same dangers as any other place, and people might forget because it looks so easy, and because there will always be a few very good pilots. And it's always the problem: if you see very good pilots, it looks easy; you try it yourself, and it doesn't work. Yeah, it's very low for acro. You have a place above town, which is very low, so it's good for training what you already know and you want to perfect, uh, make perfect. And you have to dune, which is really, really nice to get a lot of altitude, but when you're going high, it's usually a bit bumpy as well, so you have to live with that.

And it's a great place for, for ground handling, and for working your technique on the ground, which is a very important part of paragliding, and it's a very important part of paragliding for me. So you can actually only go up if you're able to ground handle your glider up, uh, to a certain height, and from there you can turn around and soar up the rest. So it's, it's awesome training, and you just spend whatever between, well, as much as you like, but you can spend up to seven, eight hours a day if you're very, very motivated. You can spend that flying and, and using, uh, playing with your wing, which of course will make you better. Oh,

It sounds ideal for that kind of thing. I love where you can just sit on the beach and put, you know, uh, get your wing over your head and tow you up the up the hill a little bit and launch. That's, there's no better training than that, is there? Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah, and just play around on the ground. It's so much fun, like when I'm at the dune, I usually don't even fly up from just playing on the ground and having fun and dragging my feet through the sand and whatever, trying the outside touch or something. It's, it's just great. It gives you such a good feeling for your glider.

Sounds brilliant, fantastic. Well, on that note, Christina, thank you very much. Uh, it was a pleasure talking to you, and there's some, some fantastic information there, and I hope we catch up in, in person one of these days, and I hope you get some snow over there in Austria.

That'd be great too. Yeah, thank you, Gavin. It was nice talking to you too, and thanks for having me. I hope

You enjoyed that? It was great to finally track Christina down. Some awesome advice there; great things we all need to be reminded of from time to time. Again, as I said at the top of the show, I'm going to be doing a little film tour here next week with North Unknown down the west coast of Canada and the US. Hope you can come join me. You'll find those schedules and venues and dates and everything on the cloudbasemayhem.com or on my Facebook page. Please, if you can support the show, you can do that on the website cloudbasemayhem.com. You'll find the links for that. If you want to do a one-off support, all we ask for, as always, is a buck a show. You can do that through PayPal or this new way we've got patreon.com forward slash cloudbase mayhem on there. You can kind of set it and forget it, and if you do, you get access to all kinds of great bonus material, uh, like the magic bus tour from Larry Tudor, which I just uploaded this morning.

I highly, uh, I invite you to go in there and check it out. I highly suggest you listen to that one; it is absolutely hysterical. It'll make your day. Uh, that's about it. We'll see you on the next show. Thanks for listening and, uh, enjoy your day. Cheers.