Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Got a few things of housekeeping and just news before we dive into today's show with Paris Williams, which I really, really loved. Before we get to that, just a couple things. First is Jake Holland, who I had on the show quite a while back. He's been doing these incredible combo flying and summit assaults all over the Alps, but also in Pakistan. Done some pretty neat things with Antoine Girard and Aaron Durogati. And on the show, back when we recorded it, he mentioned his film that was just getting going in the festivals, The Magic of Freedom. And this documents their journeys over in Pakistan.
You probably saw the highlight of it in Russia. Country Magazine's newsletter this week. But it is out. Go to YouTube. Just Google Magic of Freedom, Jake Holland, and you can check it out. It shows in descriptive detail how they're doing that, getting rid of these heinous, you know, multi-day walk-ins to climb big peaks. And just flying out of Karimabad and putting on their skis in the air and landing up tall and banging it out and getting back for dinner. So, pretty neat. Pretty cool use of our wings and really pushing the sport in an awesome direction. So, check that out. The next thing I want to talk about was just subscribers.
One, really want to thank you all. Just realized recently we're closing in on almost 3 million downloads since we started this madness, this mayhem, back in 2014. So, we're 250 shows in and a whole bunch of bonus content. And I love every second of it. It's a lot of work and there's a lot of cost behind the scenes. And so, for those of you who subscribe and support the show in whatever way you can, also just through buying stuff on the website, through books or swag or XT Tracer videos, whatever, I just really appreciate you. Usually, I say this stuff at the end of every show. You've probably heard that a bunch of times, but I wanted to put it out here.
It's been an amazing journey and we can't do it without you. It will remain ad-free. You get asked all the time to put ads in the front of these shows, as you hear on most podcasts. I can't stand those myself. I think that's one of the main things that's wrong with our digital world. So, you're never going to hear any ads and it will always be free forever. And that's if you can support it or not. If you can support it. I really appreciate it. All we've ever asked for is a buck a show and the best way to do that is if you go to our website, cloudbasemayhem.com, you'll find the links to Patreon. That's the best way in terms of fees. You can also support it directly through the show or, sorry, through the website and you can just set it and forget it.
But through Patreon, you get a discount if you just support it for a year. It's way less than a magazine subscription and hopefully worth a lot more. Thank you. Many of you still are sending $1 or $2 or $3 per show through PayPal and we've changed that on the website because the fees, especially if you're just giving $1 a show, which is great, that's all we ask for, PayPal gets $0.52 of that and we get $0.48. So, you're paying them more than you are the show, assuming that's not what you want to do. I've reached out to all of you who are doing it still that way individually, but those emails are probably PayPal emails. We're just not seeing them. So, if you do support the show, if you can change your subscription, if you do it at the lower amounts, which is totally fine, that's great, but do it through Patreon or through the new setup on the website.
So, you can cancel your current subscription, resubscribe, and it just bills way less frequently, so there's a lot less fees. Or through Patreon, it's way less fees. So, either one of those two platforms is great. But just change it. So, you're not... I'm sending literally a buck every two weeks because PayPal gets more than we do. Those of you who can't support the show and want access to the bonus content, all you got to do is send me an email. No questions asked. I'll set you up with a lifetime account and maybe someday you can. But just let me know. We don't put out enough bonus content, but there's quite a bit there and I will promise to do more. In fact, we are going to have an Ask Me Anything episode coming up shortly. So, if you've got any questions for me...
Or anybody you've had on the show you've listened to, just shoot me an email and I'll put that in the next Ask Me Anything show. Again, thank you. It's been a wild ride. Really appreciate it and your support does make it possible. I appreciate it in any way you can do it. Even just telling your friends to listen. My guest today is Paris Williams. Paris was described to me by our mutual friend, Lisa Rosella, as a renaissance man, which we get into a bit on the show. I think you'll get why as we get into it. He and I are the same age. He's been flying hang gliders his entire life. So, that gives you an idea for how long, a long time. In the show, we explore the multifaceted nature of flying and its psychological implications.
We really hit the psychological side of things heavy and mental health side of this because Paris is a psychologist and he had a pretty dark childhood. And... He struggled with his own mental health and found real solace in the skies and turned that into psychology and tries to bring that kind of solace to his patients. But he's had a lot of success in competing and talks about how to find flow and the balance between competition and enjoyment and the need to reconnect with the joy of flying. We explore the inner... Intricate balance between striving for success and enjoying the journey in flying and how letting go of the desire for achievement often leads to better performance.
I really latched on to this. I've seen this a lot in competitions and we talk about that a lot. But sometimes the more you want, the less you get. If you just let it go and enjoy the process, the results come. We delve into the intricacies and emotional risks pursuing records and the personal growth that... We delve into the intricacies and emotional risks pursuing records and the personal growth that... Flying one's own passion, we discussed the impact of personal struggles on professional life, particularly in the context of mental health and grief. And while we got into this, I couldn't help but ask Paris for some advice on my own grief. You heard about the accident my very good friend Terry O'Connor had in the mountains about a year ago in an avalanche, and that's been a real struggle for me.
So I asked him what I could be doing to help that healing, and so he talks about that navigating grief and trauma and letting the natural healing process happen. I got a ton out of this, and he's in Paris is really articulate and fascinating. There's a real profound joy and love for the sport; it's just an endlessly fascinating individual. I think you will enjoy it. Thanks, everybody, enjoy the show. Cheers, Paris.
As usual, this has taken a long time to, uh, coordinate. I say that with all of my guests, but thanks for hanging with me, thanks for having your patience, and thanks for coming on the show. It's good to, good to see you here. Thanks for having me, Kevin. So, Lisa Brazella, a good friend of both of ours, she often does the weather for our comps that I run down in your Utah, on your neck of the wood. She called you the Renaissance man. What does that mean?
Uh, yeah. Well, I've—I've had lots and lots of different interests and passions in my life. I assume that's what she's talking about, so both of the recreational realms and also in the academic realms. And yeah, lots of, lots of different areas. Okay, you're a
You're a teacher in academics, or what do you do in academics? So...
I'm, I have a PhD in psychology and I'm, uh, so I'm actually working as a psychologist, but I, most of my work is teaching, so I do, I actually, I do see some clients, um, and I work some families and couples and individuals, but most of the work I do is supervising other health professionals and running trauma training, so I run trainings. Well, I actually have two different kinds of trainings: one is trauma, so teaching people how to work with trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, that kind of thing, other professionals, and then ecotherapy, which is about using the outdoors therapeutically. Oh wow, so those are kind of as my livelihood, and that has been my livelihood for, uh, I got licensed about, oh, 13, 13, 14 years ago, so I've been kind of in that, in this field, for about 20 years.
Okay, so very general question, um, what, what's wrong with us as pilots?
I'm still trying to figure out, why do we pursue this sport?
Still trying to figure that one out. I don't know, no easy answer, huh? No easy answer. But, uh, I, I think there's some, there's some commonalities. Obviously, most of us love the outdoors, no doubt. Um, I think, I mean, speaking for myself, I know I got into one of the things, got me into flying, was I had a pretty rough childhood and and was very jealous of the birds. I just remember growing up as a kid and looking at the red tails and the vultures circling overhead and just longing to join them. Um, and then I made that a reality and and so I know in a way, in some ways, I'm not alone. I mean, certainly I don't know what the percentage is, but certainly some of us to get in the sport, there's there's a desire to leave the ground in that way.
But, uh, yeah, I don't want to generalize too much because
We are a weird bunch. I mean, yeah, very truly, you know, you—we were talking before we started recording. You've done a lot of competition flying and just recently, um, again. But so, we'll get into that, but it's, you know, we—we always talk about when we're at competition that, you know, what a group of kooks, pretty wide-ranging group, a
Lot of engineers, yeah, a real white, real eccentric bunch, for sure. And lots of engineers, yeah, and lots of diversity, no doubt, sure. And, uh, people, I mean, generally, I think what you find are people who just really love to celebrate life, like, you know, they're willing to risk their complicated lives to celebrate life, right? To really deeply and fully enjoy this thing we call it life. And, and, uh, you know, and soaring over the mountains and circling up into high into the sky. And, you know, so there's—that's the commonality, I would say, is that just that deep love of the natural world and, and stimulation of really pushing ourself to the limits in these ways.
How long have you been doing it? I Did my first flight at age 14, so I'm 52 now. So does that make it? Yeah, okay. So if I do the math, 38 years ago, um, that was just off of training hill. My, my mom had a boyfriend, uh, long story, but I, I was, I wasn't raised by my mom, but I was visiting her and she had a boyfriend who had bought a, an old standard like from a garage sale, and we went out to the. None of us knew what we were doing. I was 14 and he was, I think, 25, and we just did a bunch of flights off this hill. I don't even think we knew about the wind direction and all of that, and I managed somehow, I managed to fly like a dozen times before I sprayed my ankle really badly, and that was 14.
But then I didn't really get into it until I was, uh, 17, and so 17, teaching at 18, um, so that was all Northern California. Okay, so
You were where the birth of it was. Let me do some math here real quick. 38 years, yeah.
I mean, so it was, it was work, but real new, yeah.
It's kind of just sort of been like 90, or no, 86, yeah, 1986. That's right, they're just starting to get out of the really scary, dangerous hang gliders at this point, although the one I was, you know, in that example I just gave, that was, that was a scary, dangerous hang glider, but they're starting to get a lot safer at that point. Um, they were having, you know, getting, um, things like luff lines and tip stabilizers, basically the original hang gliders.
And then you would end up in a vertical dive and you couldn't get out of it. It's called luff dive; quite a few people died that way. So, at this point, by the mid 80s, they had to actually solve that, for the most part, that problem. So it was getting quite a bit safer and
You, you started instructing pretty quick. You just said in four years, when you were 18, you started instructing? Yeah.
So it was actually, well, now there's that one day at age 14, and then I didn't, didn't fly at all. I started taking lessons at 17 up in Mount Shasta, so northern California, and I was super passionate and got my intermediate rating and went down to Monterey area and, uh, started teaching. So I was 18 now, so I started—basically, they have sand dunes there, so just you know, taking people off the sand dunes. And then a year later, ended up in, uh, Kittyeye Kites in North Carolina doing tandems. So I ended up doing lots and lots of tandem flying for them and carried on doing teaching for lots of different schools over the years. And then it's had my own school in Salt Lake, started my very first school that I owned, um, with colleague Tom Webster.
We started in Salt Lake City in '94. I'm pretty sure point, point of the mountain, that's right. Yeah, sky's edge hang gliding; we weren't very successful. We had a hard time marketing it. Was before the internet, and you know, yeah, yeah, we got a few students through anyway, huh, and
This whole time, were you in this period of life, was this life flying, or were you still pretty heavy involved in academics, in your career? No,
This was all hang, so my whole career was flying up until it was kind of, uh, it turned about in my early 30s that I made a kind of radical shift into something different. But up until my early 30s, I just lived, ate, breathed flying. That's pretty much, yeah, that was my whole passion, and traveling, favorite traveling. But I, I had, um, a lot of time with my professor at the club. There was a famous author, Richard Bock, who wrote stories about traveling around with his biplane, taking people for rides, and so I was really inspired. So I actually did that for a number of years. I got a van, I got my tandem and glider, and I went, you know, Telluride, at Aspen, and I went to Mexico and Central America, and I was just taking people hang gliding, and I did that for off and on for a number of years, kind of through my kind of early mid-20s, um, and just did lots of work for almost every major school in the country.
one point or another and, um, and also worked for a couple of different manufacturers. I worked for Altair, um, John Heine, and Altair here in Salt Lake City in the late night, mid-late 90s. Um, you know, one of the, they had the Predator hang glider, which was, uh, at the time, it was the best going king post glider at the time. And then, and then the topless gliders showed up, and then the Predators couldn't quite, you know, with that king post couldn't quite keep up, and then they ended up, for a few reasons, but they ended up going out of business early 2000. I
Just had, I had John on the show not too long ago, and I was out at his, uh, his holy god, his shop, uh, in, uh, near Elsinore, and I mean, he's, he must have 50 hang gliders in that thing. It was impressive, yeah. All his machine equipment and machine shop stuff, it was very cool, yeah.
He's very inspiring, definitely one of my mentors. I was in my in those early days, the night mid early 90s, I was just all about aerobatics. I wasn't really into it, you know, competitively at that point. I just, I just loved going as fast as I could and getting upside down as much as I possibly could. So, and I was just, um, used the point of the mountain was great for that. So I spent lots of time at the point of the mountain and elsewhere. And John was, as I think probably many of your listeners know, very a well-known, um, aerobatic pilot, and so he, he helped me a lot. And I ended up, um, actually in 98, I ended up winning the tell you right aerobatic world championships. I kind of, I dabbled in competition for that year, but then I ended up getting into it lasted that year really.
Then I got into cross country racing after that.
So, your first passion with flying was... was aerobatics? Was aerobatic?
Yeah, so I wasn't doing any real cross-country. I mean, I, you know, I enjoy thermaling and stuff, but yeah, I just—it was for me, it was all about the thrill of, combination of, you know, the thrill of racing and and getting upside down, but also the sense of mastery of, you know, just try, you know, trying more and more advanced maneuvers, and I even kind of developed a couple maneuvers myself. Almost killed myself in that process of doing that, but um, yeah, so it was quite—there was quite a shift for me. I don't know, maybe it's just getting older and recognizing my mortality. I'm not sure. Something happened, and I and I was—it, those close calls, maybe I did have a few close calls. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Um, I mean, one of the things I enjoyed, so speaking as a psychologist, I was, you know, going back, I had a lot—I had a pretty rough childhood.
A lot of a lot of really difficult things happened, and I was pretty depressed, really, in hindsight. I was pretty depressed in my 20s, and the one time that I wasn't depressed was when I was in the sky, and um, but it almost became like an addiction for me. It's like I had to—I had to be on the edge of death to almost like pull myself out of that depression and feel, you know, the excitement and the rush would keep me feeling kind of high and feeling good. And so I definitely got into this thing where I was pushing myself, like I—I wanted to, you know, what was it like to come out of a loop at 10 feet or at two feet or, you know, like just just getting crazier and crazier, basically. And uh, it's not—I had a couple times that were pretty close. I never—I never did pile in, but I certainly had a couple of pretty close calls, and I had a lot of people complaining, a lot of other pilots telling me I had to stop, I was going to kill myself, and you're going to jeopardize the site.
And so it's a bit of a—yeah, it's a bit of a rebel that way. And um, I actually had a dream. It's interesting, so it's kind of—I was—I wasn't making friends. People had—a lot of people upset with me and my behavior around the way I was flying. And I had a dream where I was watching myself do this kind of crazy stuff, you know, at the point of the mountain, and and I was—it was just like I was terrified watching myself. I'm like, "What are you doing? You're going to kill yourself." And somehow I just—I kind of woke up. I was like, "Yeah, I actually, I am going to kill myself." Like I could tell, you know, by pushing myself harder, eventually I'm going to find my limit, right? And it's going to probably be death or being seriously mean. And so that—it did shift something. Really shifted for me, and I kind of stepped out of the addiction to the adrenaline and
You know, started enjoying other aspects. I still kept doing aerobatics, but it wasn't about—it was no longer about scaring myself and trying to keep that adrenaline rush going. It became more about just mastery, like just style, style and mastery, and I kind of got out of having to do just really crazy stuff like I, like, I had for a few years, and which is great. I don't think I would survive much longer, and I'd decide if I carried that attitude going. God, nice time to have a dream. I know I think
There's a lot of people listening. Well, why didn't I get to have that dream?
Yes, I'm just stepping outside of myself and seeing myself, and just seeing the the madness of what I was actually doing was, yeah, so that was—that was—that was important, and that was a shift. And then it ultimately led me to focusing more on the kind of mastery of of, you know, mastering, you know, the spins and rollovers and climb overs and laying overs and loops, all the different maneuvers we do and hang, and in the hang glider, um, and then that, yeah, that just felt a lot more wholesome. I don't
have any knowledge or background of psychology other than what I took in a community school at some point, uh, you know, I was ski racing, so school was quite unorthodox for me and, uh, but so anyway, that, that's, that's all I have as a background. But this isn't a show about mental health, but it does seem like mental health is a, is a subject that comes up quite a bit in this sport and, you know, we, we use the analogies of when you're high, you're high, when you're low, you're low, uh, all the time. But I, we certainly see a lot of people in the sport struggling with, with mental health and depression and anxiety, these kind of things you mentioned.
It, how did you come out of the hard, difficult childhood, uh, and move on? Or were you able to move on from the escapism of the sport to better mental health? Yeah,
It's interesting; it was kind of a double-edged sword. The sport, on one hand, I totally attribute the sport to, to pulling me out of like a really dark hole that I was in in many ways. Like, it really gave me—I think if I didn't get in the hang glider, you know what I mean, I would have been, I would have gotten into, you know, drug addiction most likely. You know, I was, I was kind of heading a little bit down that path, you know, drinking too much and, and dabbling in some, some other substances or a bit too much. And, um, and flying gave me a way to, you know, have some light, some brightness, some joy without having to poison myself, you know, drugs, alcohol. So that was, on one hand, that was, I think, really, really great. I really appreciate that. And it also gave me a way with the natural world, you know, just generally having that, getting outside and connecting with my own body and that kind of sense of, you know, mind over matter, you know, that mastery, that self-discipline that goes with that.
So all those factors were huge. Like, I think they really, I probably saved my life. I mean, in many ways, I mean, I would have become an addict or Who knows, I might have even got, you know, I was suicidal at times, um, and so I definitely attribute that, and I see that in my own work now, like for people who are in a really dark hole, if you can find a way to connect them to the outdoors, it finds it doesn't have to be flying, but you know, something that they're passionate about that's also outside. There's just something naturally healing about getting outside and getting under the sun and the wind and connecting with our fellow earthlings and connecting with your own body and, and you know, mastering your own body and, and you're pushing your limits in a healthy way. All these things are just so good for mental health, I think, um, and then, but ultimately, it was like a stepping stone and, and, and then it was a bit, it kind of, it you might say in my life, it was a bit like kicking the can down the field, like it definitely helped a lot, but there was still stuff from my past, it wasn't really properly resolved.
And I ended up getting into mindfulness meditation in my late 20s. Somebody's, you know, I was kind of bummed. I was in this state, a little bit depressed, and somebody said, "Why don't you try this 10-day mindfulness meditation retreat?" I don't know, sitting there for 10 days looking at your breath, I mean, I just couldn't. I didn't really get it, but but I did it, and it really, like, all that, so much of that stuff I was holding actually came out. Like, I could feel it sort of coming, coming out, and actually I came, I felt so much better. And it was quite interesting if you look at it in the context of my hangline career. I was just starting to get into kind of cross country racing. It's my late 20s, and I was as most of us do who get into cross country racing, you're often rest, you know, you're like your own worst enemy, you know, you wrestling with our own, you know, ego.
Oh, I gotta win, we get, you know, or oh no, I'm getting low, I'm gonna bomb out, I'm gonna look like a real ass, or you know, we we get totally caught up in all of this, and it's easy to do, and um, and that takes us away, it takes us out of the moment, right? In order to fly really well, you want to be super present, you know, you want to be able to see, you know, the birds circling and the clouds forming and the different, you know, be able to keep track of the different wind layers and lift layers, etc., etc. Um, and the more you're, you know, you're obsessed with that trophy, or you know, not bombing out, you know, whatever you get into all the emotional Or you might have a lot of fun with it, but it's egotistical, sort of aspect of it. It takes us out of that, and so I did this, I did this retreat, and it was like this kind of real life-changing experience on the psychological level. But then, when I went back to competition, what two things happened?
I was more present. I just seemed to not, like, I just wasn't as obsessed with all that kind of more ego stuff. It was just, I was just kind of able to just enjoy the flying more. I was more present, and so I didn't, in some ways, had less of the eye of the tiger. Like, I didn't have to win; I could just go and enjoy myself, but just be present, do my best, and I suddenly started doing so much better. Like I said, I like, quickly, I actually won the u.s. nationals, like, not long after that, and won quite a few more over the next few years. And yeah, so that was kind of it. Ended up being a personal healing on one level, and on the other level, it actually really, um, accelerated my own, uh, flying abilities. Yeah, and then I'll just say one more thing that's I learned about the Chicago Bulls, I
And how actually, yeah, and the coach brought mindfulness practice into the team, and that played a huge role in their sudden acceleration, you know, to excellence, you might say. So, yeah, so becoming more present, being able to work with my own emotions more skillfully, was like a huge contributor to, you know, actually flying much better. Interesting, would
you would you say that you were just able to find and stay in flow state better? Absolutely, yeah.
training, yeah, because that's basically what mindfulness training is. It's really just about presence. Like, every, you know, when you do something like that, you realize your mind is the natural—mind is actually really quite wild. Like, it doesn't like to be present; it's jumping, thinking about the past, future, here, there, it's all over the place, right? And a few moments presence, and then it's off again. And when you do that training, it's like going to the gym for your mind. You actually get—you, you definitely get better at being able to just be more present and more at peace with what you know you're not so obsessed with worrying about doing, you know, like striving after winning or worrying about losing, you know, that stuff just becomes weaker and you can just be more present. Um, and so, yeah, so there's their muscles, basically. You can—you can cultivate those capacities with, with that kind of practice.
And then, and then it, it definitely bleeds over into, you know, and to. So, if you're—if your aspiration is to excel and find, whether it's competition or going, you know, maybe going for personal bests or whatever it might be, the more you can be present and tame your own, you know, your wild mind and your own emotions, then certainly you're going to do better. How
Did you transition from the silent retreat? You got that out of it? How did that manifest in your flying? Was it automatic because you just done this and then you realized, "Oh, wait," or or were you just doing this and then you realized you literally bringing something? Were you using mantras, or did you, right, yeah?
It was, uh, it was, was kind of automatic. It was a little, almost even a little surprising. It's like, oh, I'm actually flying a lot better. Like, well, you know, it was kind of, then it was clear why. Um, so part of it was automatic in that way. It was again, it was like, imagine going to the gym and getting certain strengths, and then you go and you do a sport that you've been doing a while, but suddenly you find it's easier because you're actually stronger now. It was like that. It was like, oh, this is actually a lot easier now because my mind is stronger in certain ways. Um, and also I had the skill. So in the methods I did, it wasn't mantras; it was just really putting your attention on your breath, or your, whenever your mind starts to get a little bit wild, you just bring it back to like your breath or sensations in your body, and that use as a kind of an anchor to keep bringing yourself back to the present. So when you start, for example, and so I was doing that intentionally like, let's, you know, I'm flying, and as you do, you're doing a race and you get low, it happens, and you start to feel like you're doing a race and you get low and you get thinking, oh shit, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bomb out here.
And then it's easy to start obsessing and worrying about that, and then, and then that actually creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now you're so worried about that, you actually land, and it's just like, nope, back to my breath, and just, and then back to, I just need to be present, you know, forget about all that. Yeah, I've still got 500 feet. You know, look around, there's something, there's something here. You know, what is there? What's the wind doing? Is there some little three-dimensional feature that I could look for? Maybe there's a little bird. You know, so as you get lower, the birds become more apparent, and so the more you're able to stay present, the more you're able to notice all that stuff. And, and so I would do that intentionally like, just keep using my breath as a kind of anchor whenever my mind starts to drift and get a little bit wild. My
My nemesis is the last 10 of the race. I started to get a better handle on this, but if I start thinking I'm in position, I'm going to win this one. That's... that's the death of me, exactly.
As soon as I
start thinking, you know, oh, it's time to break. I've got these guys, oh.
Man, that's because now you're—now you start, you're imagining the podium, you're imagining, you know, you're not. I've got the
score, I've got the score. Start thinking about the next day. I just want more of this, and I've got this one, you know, and
Now you're not present. That's not present. That's right, so that's so those are the extremes where you where we get lost. Either, you know, you're doing worse than you hope for, you're getting lower, and then you start, "Oh no, I'm going to get lower and I'm going to blow it, I'm going to look like a fool, I'm going to have this terrible score, blah blah blah," or you're doing really good, you know, and you're like, "Oh, this is great, I'm going to be the hero of the day, blah blah," you know? Either, either extreme is going to take you out of the present and and gonna and gonna hurt you, right? You're gonna end up... it's yeah, it seems like to me, zero
Expectation is the death of good flying, it seems like. You know, you know, last year at the Monarca, I've been going to the Monarca for a long time and I'd gotten close and close and close, and really the year before I just gave it away. Same exact, I mean, I was so in position and just gave it away. So last year finally won it, you know, and just had the monitors. I've gotten some help from Cody Mittanck, you, he lives down with by you. It was there at the point and we've done some work together and it was just, it was beautiful. I didn't even need to fly the last day I got it. So of course this year I went down, I gotta defend my title. That was what was in my head, and that's just the worst. I, yeah, worst comp. I mean, it was all awful. It was fun, it was a wonderful week as it always is in VA, but
Holy cow, you know I couldn't get out of my own way.
racing, racing yourself to the ground, that kind of thing.
Oh god, just dumb. You're just constantly going, "I'm smarter," "you didn't no discipline," you know? Just, not only am I gonna win, I'm gonna crush. And I didn't do either. That's
Right, and every, every moment you're, you're thinking about the future, about when you're not thinking about the present, right? That's right, you're not, you're not. Yeah, yeah, so that's, yeah, that's totally. I mean, that's, I attribute that more than anything to, you know, succeeding, just really being present.
Were there, as you know, as the years went by and you you stacked up some some nice success, it sounds like a number of U.S. Nationals wins and world team, uh, memberships, that kind of thing. Were there, I'm sure there was, but was there times that it was would slip? Did you do, you have a kind of a secret sauce to coming back to that kind of performance I've
Definitely, you've definitely had some slips, yeah. Um, got a lot better, but it was basically falling back into those habitual patterns of, you know, losing presence, of letting my mind get wild, getting fixated on the achievement rather than the, you know, present. And so, kind of catching, so I could come out of that a lot faster. So I didn't, you know, the early days, I, I had a lot more
Yeah, a lot more where you, you know, you get in that death spiral, you do bad and then you feel like crap and then you do worse, you know, and then you race yourself to the ground. That whole, I think you probably know that death spiral, most competition pilots know that. You see, I'm nodding my head. Yeah, that's right. And, uh, and so, but it was, I was able to recognize getting sucked into that death spiral and how it just pulls you more and more of the present moment, right? And you just end up all emotional, right? You're just like, uh, this longing and this fear of failing and this longing for, you know, success and, and I was able to catch myself. Okay, back to your breath, just what's happening right now, that's all that matters. You know, this moment, all I have to do is just be here at this moment, fly the sky, forget about everything else. So I got a lot better at being able to do that.
Yeah, not perfect, no doubt that we had my bad days we're
Talking about an interesting conundrum, it is a subject that comes up a lot on the show. We're humans, and we've created things like X-contests and races, and race to goal, and these are all performance-based achievement, right? It's longer, better, bigger, uh, when it comes to proximity, flight closer, you know, the speed flying and in wingsuits, you know, it's not really that fun, and the closest person to killing themselves, right? Who's having the most fun, right? Uh, but these are not, to my mind, very sustainable ways to enjoy this sport, you know.
You, it was interesting because you talked about, you know, kind of the beginning of the of your career was just this passion for the for flying, and then, you know, but you had these mental health struggles, uh, and then you go to racing, which to me is, god, if you're having trouble with mental health, and that could really destroy it. I mean, god, there's nothing worse than just pulverizing yourself at comps, you know? And we're really talking about the ego, aren't we? But yeah, it's, it's quite, quite interesting that, you know, nothing I'm saying is going to be a shock to anybody listening. We all struggle with this. Is that, uh, you know, in the, wouldn't it be great if the sport could just be like it is that first time forever, you know?
The first, we all remember our first flight, it was just remarkable, and we didn't do anything, which don't, uh, but it really does become a, you know, you're kicking your helmet if you haven't gone more than 200k. You know, you know what I mean? It just becomes this weird can't
Can't get no satisfaction, right? Yeah.
Exactly, just you know, our desire for more is in everything. I mean, yeah, driving a car, I mean, just life. It's interesting how we're geared as as humans, yeah.
Absolutely, and and kind of looking at my own life, that it was interesting how that those two coincided. The the settling, the reducing of that, you know, that striving that you're describing—the striving for more and more and better—as that got less, I ironically started doing better. And so, and yeah, I definitely noticed that inverse correlation between those two. Like, the harder I really got to win this, I got to defend my title, with the more the stronger that is guaranteed the worst I'm gonna do, I almost guaranteed. And the more I'm like, "Hey, you know, this is great. I'm with my, you know, I'm with my flying mates here, and we got this amazing weather, and you know, we're just crossing over this beautiful territory." The better I do, like, you know, it's like so kind of letting that go and just, um, so yeah, in a way that I think that attempts.
But on one hand, there's the conundrum because it's the striving which pulls you to do it in the first place, right? So there's, there's a balance. There's a balance there. Um, yeah, right. We
We wouldn't even go compete if we, if we had, if we had this totally figured out, we just wouldn't give a... that's
Right, like, hey, I'm totally, I am like an enlightened monk here. I don't know, I don't need to compete, I don't need any glorification, I don't, you know, I don't need to prove anything to myself or anyone else, right? But I think, like, for me, the transition ended up being, um, fun. Just coming back to fun, like, you know? And companionship, that's one of the things I actually really love about cross country racing, is the companionship. Like, whoever you're with is your best friend, even if you don't know the person. It's like, okay, well, here we are, and I've got a couple wings around me. Well, they're my mates right now, they're my companions. Let's, you know, let's work together, and, uh, and I, and I love that we're all going in the same place, and you're totally helping each other, and you, you know? And, and so for me, when I get into that day, remembering that that's what it's all about, you know? Getting with your friends, pushing your limits, and, you know, enjoying that sense of self-mastery and discipline, and pushing those limits, and then whatever the outcome is, is the outcome is whatever it is.
Like, don't be, try not to be too attached to that. I know it's easier said than done, but if you could remember that, and I think that's what I'm trying to do, is I'm trying to remember the most important thing is the fun of it. Like you say, the first time you flew, right? What is it? It's like, we're just like, they're talking about presence here's like, oh my god, the wind passed your face, and you know the magic of just floating across the ground, and you know, can we come back to that? And if you stay in that space, ironically, I think you'll actually perform better. Like, it's by, by relegating your achievement to second before fun, ironically, you often do better. Certainly the case for me.
You, you mentioned again before we started recording that you, you had this period of pretty intense—a lot of comps. Sounds like I don't know if it's intense, but you, you do a lot of competition flying, a lot of worlds flying, and then you, you've just come back to it after a big break. Is that right?
That's right, so it was kind of... it was there was a kind of a flurry from about, um, so '98 was sort of... I did the, you know, the aerobatic comps hadn't done any cross country yet, but then it was after that I kind of a couple things happened. I, I sort of felt like I achieved where I wanted to. It's kind of like I felt kind of complete with aerobatics, like it's not like I stopped completely, but I didn't feel like I needed to do any more comps or anything. And, uh, also I was very poor and I needed sponsorship, and it was very hard to get sponsorship for aerobatics, whereas at that time cross country racing you could get sponsored. So, and I was getting more interested in the idea of that whole domain of cross country. So, so that's when I shifted. So, from kind of '99 to 2005, I just, I just really went for it. I really went for it, and I was like, "I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna really..." I did, you know, kind of all the comps every year.
I was, I ended up getting sponsored. First from Altair, and then from Wills Wing, and then from Icaro, um, and then from Arrows, and then finally I did a little bit of boys at the end. But yeah, I went through all the major competitors, but um, I was, I was just absolutely loving it, enjoying it. But then it was kind of like 2000, it's actually 2002 or three, I did have that's where I kind of had this, it was a kind of, for lack of a better word, I had, I did the, I had done that 10-day retreat things had really shifted for me. I was flying better, but at the same time, it was like, I, I found a sense of light at the end of the tunnel from a lot of darkness that I've been through on a personal level. But at the same time, I realized there was something more, there's more that needed to be resolved, and it kind of all, I don't know, there's a perfect storm, I won't really go into that, happened in my life, and I ended up having to kind of deal with all that, and I ended up getting actually much more serious about the meditation, because that was the only thing I didn't really trust the mental health system, and it's the only thing really like I trusted would help me to get through what was happening for me, got you know, a lot of depression, anxiety, and stuff like that.
And then, um, and I managed to work through that, and it kind of came out the other side. And well, I guess my passion shifted. It wasn't that I lost passion in flying, but it was more that I wanted to help others, like that, after having gone through that kind of dark night of the soul myself, I felt more inspired to want to help other people who are going through their own dark nights of the soul. So that, that was where my career took a turn. So I did keep competing off and on, and somehow I managed to keep it, like every time I did a comp, I would usually do often win, or, or you know, get on the podium, and somehow managed to maintain that. But um, but the, the intensity of my competition after 2005 went way down, um, and then, uh, and then, but I'd occasionally still do a team, um, you know, get on the U.S.
team, that it always would bite me back
and I would still do a team, um, you know, get on the back
And it's usually pretty easy to get on to it. And then, um, and then the last, I was in New Zealand for the last 10 years, and I kind of stopped flying all together for about six years, just as I was really focused on other stuff. And then when I came back to the U.S., I thought, I really want to get back into this again. So then, yeah, I went and I did the my first comp in a number of years at Florida last year, um, what, the national one? Yeah, that's interesting. I
Mean with that big of a gap, and being away from it for so long, and coming back and performing that well, was that I often think that distance and getting away from something, you can often get better, you know, because you're just—you're not doing it all the time. You're—you're—you—you gain perspective. That's sometimes, I think, hard to get when you're doing it all the time. I'm not sure, yeah.
No, I can, I can totally understand. Like, beginner's mind, you're kind of coming at it with sort of beginner's mind. Yeah, it's a different perspective. It's true, yeah, I felt I can resonate with that. where I think, because I've seen it go both ways, where you know you get people, great, you know, a good record of competition, obviously really good pass, they get out of it for a while, they come back and they totally bomb, right? It's actually definitely been a thing in our sport, not everyone, but that, that has happened, and it's really kind of frustrating, and um, so but what I think, and I've kind of felt that tendency myself when I've taken a long break, you think you're the pilot you were and you're not. It's been a number of years and you're trying, it's like you're trying to um, it again, you get totally achievement oriented, okay, I gotta, I gotta prove myself again, you know, I was just, I was this kind of legend back then, I gotta be a legend again, and uh, and then it kills you, like as you talked about, your last call, as soon as you have that attitude, it's like the worst attitude you can have, right?
And it takes you out of the present and you get all emotional and Um, and so I definitely made every time I took these breaks, I kind of knew that maybe it's my psychology training, I don't know, but I knew that that was like bad, like, don't do that, like, don't, don't get obsessed with when he just go have fun. And so I really made that like my mantra. My mantra was just, have fun, just make goal, even if you do it really slowly, just, just make it, don't like forget about trying to race, um, and kind of, you know, trust that you know, as long as you do your best and don't try to really charge that, you'll, you'll know, you know, you'll be able to fly efficient and, and each time I was able to like, I managed to do quite well that way. But, but I had to make the effort to not let the, not get sucked into that, I have to win, I have to keep the title, or get the title back, or, you know, I had really important not to go there.
Okay, yeah, interesting, yeah.
So, with this, coming back to it, you were down in New Zealand for 10 years? You said, "Yeah, about 10 years," and this was in academia.
Yeah, I ended up, um, well, long story short, I, I in 2006, I married a New Zealand woman, oh, and out here, and we ended up living in the U.S. for quite a while. But then her family was there, and she was there, and they were having a lot of problems and difficulties. So, uh, so we ended up moving there. I wasn't really enjoying the U.S. politics much, anyway, and all of that. So I thought, oh, I'll go try New Zealand out. So that was. But then after 10 years, a lot of combination of things happened, you know, my, my parents getting older over here, and, um, just things fizzling out in our relationship, and just I've really feeling the pull to come back here, come back home.
Were you in the South Island, North Island, North?
island for about four years, five years, about half the time, and then the South Island, yeah.
but no, flying, you weren't flying down there.
very little first few years, a bit um, and I, I just the only comps I basically did was just I'd fly over to Australia and they'd give me a light speed the moise, you know, the moise is over there in Australia, and then I did a couple comps over there. Okay, um, yeah, and that was, that was a lot of fun. So I ended up actually, you were kind of, you were still, you were staying
kind of tuned up, I mean, you weren't kind of, yeah.
Okay, yeah, kind of. And then there was like the last five years before I moved back here last year. I, I almost didn't fly at all. I ended up getting really preoccupied with other projects. I basically, we bought some land and we're doing a lot of, doing a ton of building work, landscaping and building, and trying to kind of regenerating this land. And that ended up sort of taking up a lot of my passion and time, but I was really missing flying. Like, I'm like, I was feeling it, I was missing it. So it's nice to get back into it here. Do you
Get, do you get that whole, I get this kind of, um, almost it's a rational stupid fear, and I was just bouncing that between my ears. But when I, maybe it was all the year, you know, I did the X House for a long time, and so I was just kind of in this constant state of training during all those. And so now I, what's the word? I, I get, uh, anxious when I'm not getting better. Does that make sense? You know, if I, if I, if I'm not training, I don't know. I have this phone, you know, the Superfinal just happened down in Columbia, and I was gonna go, and then at the last minute I pulled out because I'm not very excited about rule the neo anymore. It's, I pulled out, but I watched every day.
It's just because, anyway, my question is, do you, you know, when you're working on the land, are you able to leave the flying behind?
Yeah, I mean, um, it was—it was always the back of my mind, or back of my heart, where you want to put it, you know? Like, somebody was sort of missing because it just became such an important part of who I am and my identity and my, you know, what gives me joy. And so, it never really went away. Like, I was always kind of, I'm really missing that. I'd like to do some flying, but I'd made these major commitments and it was kind of conflicting with being able to do that during those, those years. Um, and so when I did come back here, it was definitely like, I'm gonna get back in a flight, like I'm gonna, you know, and and even actually take up paragliding. So I did that a year ago to just kind of expand my horizons a little bit. Oh,
Wow, let's talk about that. So you're, you're now flying paragliders as well, but
they collapse
Dude, isn't that I?
Know, I know, I know. I have, I have not got over, I don't know if I'll ever get over that fear of that. Actually, maybe I shouldn't get over that fear, I suppose. But, but I only, I only started a year ago. I mean, I'm, I'm like, I just got my, uh, P3 and, uh, so I'm, I've got 35 hours. I did one SIV clinic, so anyway, I'm pretty, I'm, I'm really new. I'm really new, um, but the reason I got into it was because I wanted to be able to hike and fly. Yeah, and it's really hard to hike and fly with a hang glider, so yes, so that way it wasn't—that was really the—but now I'm in this, I'm torn because I love flying big desert air, big thermals, and I'm actually terrified of doing it in a paraglider. Like, I'm still, yeah, I just, I had, uh, I've already had a few collapses and, and like, just even flying Inspiration Peak, not far from here, flying over the canyon and, and had a, had a full collapse, 100 collapse over this canyon.
There was a moment of like, oh my god, I don't want to throw my parachute here. I'm looking down on these rocks and canyons and Luckily, it opened, you know, within a couple of seconds. Um, but still, it was like, how do you—how do you get over that fear of your glider just suddenly out of the blue? It seemed like, I—I suppose that's the thing is, as you get better, it's—it's less and less out of the blue, I suppose, but
yeah
It feels like it just happens, you know? It also gets
to where they just don't do that anymore. You know, you're right. You get good enough that you just—I mean, you're still gonna have it, still gonna, you—I mean, especially in the air that we fly here in the Rockies, we're gonna put it in a spot that this is good. You're gonna take a whack, but yeah, I think they just become second nature. It's like your second skin, and they don't—you don't really. Also, this is maybe not very good advice that I should, you know, as you get better and as you start flying hotter gliders, things
are they're
giving you a lot more feedback, because that's a good way to put it, I guess. But you know, the two-liners just don't frontal and don't collapse like lower-end gliders do. You know, they're—they're, and at least they're—they're certainly, I mean, if they do, then of course things are worse. But, uh, yeah, I just less likely to, much less likely, especially if you're flying—well, if you're paying attention, they just, you know, it just doesn't happen much anymore. I remember 10 years ago when I was flying the NCS and stuff, I was taking hits all the time. But, right, I think that's a combination of things: the wing I'm flying and I'm a better pilot, you know? But, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, well, the big risk I see, and I know friends of mine who went from hang gliding and paragliding and ended up getting quite badly hurt, um, a couple things. One, you forget, you know, you don't have the same penetration into the wind; it's easy to forget that. And that's actually what happened when I... so, so when the collapse happened, I, I got back into this Canyon and I just so many years on a hang glider, there was some wind and I thought, oh, it's just, you know, I can still glide out. And I went to glide. I was like, oh. penetrating, and I'm in this canyon, and this is not a good place to be. And so I actually let my hands go up, up, up on the brakes to, you know, to get more speed, and then of course it made the glider less stable, or clap. So I mean, it was pilot in hindsight, it was really all pilot error, so I could totally see that.
But part of it is getting used to the fact, a) I don't have the penetration that I'm used to, and b) the glider can clap. You know, hang gliders don't clap so well. That's not harm set true; they can tumble, which unfortunately is very rare. And if that's really bad when that happens, but but you just kind of get used to not having to think about keeping your wing inflated. It's just, you know, you don't get used, so when you suddenly get on the wing that can collapse, it seems
Like, it's really a restructuring of the approach, right? It's, yeah, and I'm not a hang glider, but you know, I always hear that from hang glider, but but they collapse, and it's just in our world we don't think about that that much, of course we
Don't think about they do.
They, they collapse, but it, I think it's probably a restructuring I'm imagining of just margin and, uh, performance and attention.
Attention, right? You gotta, yeah, now you gotta, you gotta donate a certain percentage of your—we're talking about presence to—is the wing inflated and keeping it inflated, right? And so when you fly a hang glider, that's not really, you're just not putting your attention there at all. So, right? So that you have to kind of train yourself to have this constant 20, or whatever it is, percent of the time you're flying a hang glider and you're not, your attention on your wing stability. And that's, I think that's probably a big part of the learning curve from hang gliding to paragliding doing that. Sure, does that sound—would you agree with that, or totally? Yeah, 100. I
mean, jumping to a completely different, I just had a really neat experience out in the Sierras, uh, flying in really, really strong wave, and we, we flew at night with night vision gauls, and sold this guy Gordon out there's just doing some amazing stuff, and and we did a show on it, and there was an article on, but we, uh, you know, at one point we got pretty proper low, really deep in the Sierras. We were, we'd done a northern leg up way past Reno, and we're coming back down south, heading down towards Whitney, and now it's daylight, you know, we can see, and, uh, and we got what I would have considered really low, kind of dirty low, back and, and it was really strong wave. I mean, there was incredibly strong, right?
You know, in my mind, I, we got to get the hell out of here, man. We're going to get out of here. I mean, how are we going to possibly get to the runway for me? I mean, I know in a glider, you kind of want to land on a runway, and you know, for him, it was just no, and we got a lot of time. It's just a whole nother, yeah, and I'm sure, so there's a lot of that just between, yeah, you know, hang gliders and paragliders, it's just restructuring, you know, where I know exactly, probably where you were flying inspo back in that canyon, you just won't do that on a paraglider anymore, you know? That just, that's not a nice place to be, yeah, yeah, get bent right out of there.
And and and the big rocks make it a little bit, yeah, a little bit gnarlier with the the turbulence, kind of, right? Yeah, yeah.
tough, tough lessons that—that always is a thing, though. There, there's that, uh, one of our very first shows in my neighbor, Matt Bieschner—we call him Farmer. He has this great story of flying out in the Sierras, uh, on the the main chain, so not over in the Whites, but the main chain in the Sierras and, you know, getting pretty dirty low and really bad air and had a huge, has a big collapse. And his recovery stories is fantastic, But it's that whole we all always, oh yeah, you could just throw your reserve, but yeah, but not in some places, yeah, because you're looking down going, I don't think that's my safest option. You know, that happens in the Alps a lot too. You're just looking down going, yeah, this is not a place to throw a reserve, of course.
You at some point, you'd have to, yeah, to try to survive.
yeah yeah
Those are all mentally, those are, yeah, that's
Right, so I'm—I'm my my plan, and I don't want to—I don't want to hurt or maim myself. I love the idea of that being by wingule, um, but I'm going to take it easy. I'm not going to do middle of July, you know, middle day conditions for at least a couple years, I'd say. I'm going to just go back to my hangy for that, and so this year I'm looking forward to trying to maybe, you know, do some long, maybe even try to set some records or something here in Utah with a hang with a hang glider. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, excellent. Like this, yeah, we're
the same age. How? But you've been in this a lot longer than, than, than I have. I'm 25 years, I guess, or so now. But, uh, no, no, that's not right. 20 years, a little over 20 years. So you've been in twice the length that I have. But how, how have things changed for you because of age in your approach to the sport? Yeah.
I think, well, I mean, I... you recognize your more mortality a little bit more, I think, you know? And the fragility of your body, I just remember my 20s, it wasn't even a consideration, hardly my mortality. I mean, a little bit of consideration, but yeah, not, not as much as it probably should have been. I think there's a lot of luck that I survived that, but um, so yeah, just generally I'm more aware of, just more conservative in that regard, you know? Like, not, not pushing it, and I feel like I have other things to live for, you know? I guess back then too, I... I mean, there was a time where I just really didn't have anything else to live for, like it was kind of... that was my whole life, and so if I die, who cares? You know, die doing our love. Now it's like, uh, there's other things I actually do want to live for, so, so yeah, so that's a big shift. Um, and, and the priorities again, the stimulation isn't like, you know, at that age, I...
it was that kind of high I was looking for all the time, and um, I know obviously people might still chasing that, but I don't chase that intense. I don't need the big adrenaline rushes like I used to. It's, you know, I find the fun is a little bit more, I don't know, more of a relaxed kind of fun, you know? Just enjoying the beauty, pushing the limits, absolutely, but not... I don't need to like scare myself all the time. That doesn't... that's really something I... I try to do anymore. So those are probably the biggest, uh, changes I've noticed you
Mentioned maybe going after some records and stuff this summer. Love that. That's fantastic. What would you—what would your gear be? What are you flying these days? And the audience, obviously, not many of them are going to be very familiar with Utah, so let's not get too specific. But, uh, what are you looking for? And where would you—you know, what kind of—what lines are you looking at to accomplish that?
Yeah, so um, even though I lived here in the early 90s, I wasn't doing any cross country, so it's like it's all kind of new to me, you know? Like, from the, you know, the Monroe is a really great, as you know, well, a really great spot, so you can go in quite a few directions from there, um, just running along the Wasatch, so like over I
don't know
the Wasatch Range again, for people don't know, is kind of a lovely long north-south, you know, with 10, 11 up to 12,000 foot mountains, so kind of really running that range. Um, also on the border of Wyoming, there's like Randolph where you can, you can launch go over the back and then you just get right into the nice windy plains, do some miles there. I'm kind of more interested in running mountains in the flats, or at least a combination of the two. Um, we have a site called, uh, over by Park City called Heber that has been closed, but I'm gonna see if I can open it again because you can, it's east-facing, so you can launch in the morning, get the morning thermals, seeing elage earlier, and then you know when the west release kick in, you can, you can ride those, and that's kind of the lines I'm looking at.
I don't know if that was that the question or
Yeah, and and what are you flying? What will you be flying, for the record?
Yeah, so I'm actually, um, so I really like the idea of having a tail. So there's a Aeros Makes a Combat, which has a tail on it, and it's the only high performance glider that I'm aware of, um, that actually formally, you know, it's certified with a tail and all of that. And I think I've been thinking over the years that there's a reason why there aren't any—that I know of—any birds without tails. So that's right. And when you're flying big, big desert mountain air, you know, sometimes you hit some pretty rough stuff and people do tumble, um, and I just like the reassurance of that. So the Combat, I like the tail, and it's actually one of the—it's the—it's
Got the tail, and it's got the slingshot, and it's got everything.
smallest glide. It's the best performing little glider. I don't weigh very much, and so I've always had a hard time finding a glider that fits me properly but performs well. The larger gliders always perform better, and this particular glider, the combat um 12.7 is the size, but it is probably the best sort of blend for me and my weight as far as getting the best performance for the proper size. And again, that tail is great. It's very reassuring when you're, you know, shooting up at 2,000 feet a minute, you go over the edge, it's like, oh, there's that tail. Okay,
Thank you, but yeah, it's interesting you must mention Randolph. Uh, I don't know if you ever saw that film we did quite a few years back called 500 Miles to Nowhere, and that was a stop. It was called 500 Miles North because we never got anywhere we started. Okay, we started down at Hurricane and the plan was to bivy to Jackson, you know, just connect it and yeah, connected in the air. So we like, like I did with Will and the Rockies, you know, that one was wherever we ended was where we started the next day. We weren't connecting it on foot, you know, and so, but the weather was terrible and it od'd every day and it was, it was a very late monsoon season. But one of the places we flew was Randolph, and so those of you listening don't know this area is north of Salt Lake, kind of, I guess, kind of midway between, isn't it?
But it's a big ridge, big beautiful river down below it, and uh, I always thought it was just a ridge soaring site, but you're saying you could get up there and ping off the water and you could get up there and go off into the desert, yeah.
I mean, it's, it's just a an option I'm looking at, yeah, playing around. I love the idea of of Hurricane, and Hurricane I think is how you pronounce it, yeah, and just running north as far as you can. I mean, that, that's certainly something else I would love to explore as well, but you get into um, Wyoming had the foot launch world record for for many years, actually, because you just get these consistent westerlies that just, you know, pretty strong, but it's pretty flat, so you know, it's not too dainty, you
know it's not too flat, it's not too you
know, you can find quite strong wind, but not worrying about rotor and things like that. Um, and so when you get out, you get over the Wyoming plains, you can often just make miles. You can go pretty, pretty far, pretty fast. And so, I think connecting the dots from, you know, the mountains into the Wyoming flats, could potentially, you could get some pretty, pretty good miles that way. I think I was
down in Tesima in Brazil, when was that? In 2017, maybe? They had just broken the the foot launch record the year before, and they had just broken the the foot launch record before, uh, Rafael and all those guys, and they from Tesima, and there were hang gliders there too, uh, going forward as well. Is that—is that—does is that still where the foot launch record is for hang gliding? I
Actually, haven't kept track, so I don't know, but uh, the Wyoming one, I'm pretty sure was broken quite a lot, quite a while ago. You know, hang gliding foot launch record from Wyoming, I'm pretty sure that I think it was even broken in Australia was last I heard. I think it might have been Johnny Duran and in north in Queensland, Australia, I'm pretty sure got the foot line record. Oh wow, going, but that again, that was quite a few years ago, so I haven't, haven't kept up. I'm not sure where the most, the latest one is, right? But I know that I haven't been there, but I know the Brazil side you're talking about. I wouldn't be surprised if you know, because it sounds like such great conditions if you, it is really
Really, really tricky start, though. Yeah, yeah, the big stuff that they've been doing since then has been towing, and they're, they're actually, I'm pretty sure the Brazilian record now is, you know, it's now Texas for us for paragliding. It's in Texas, but for, for a long time, Brazil had it forever, and I think they beat the foot launch record by towing into Sema, so they've towed in front of that hill, which just gave them more, just easier, because foot launching from there, I think, for the hang gliders was reasonable for us. It wasn't very reasonable; it was pretty spicy and pretty wild, and then, you know, it's really early in the morning, you can't get high, and you've got to fly 40k really low over this kind of escarpment before it drops away, so the way more reasonable flying in Brazil is all being done east of, sorry, uh, let me think about the map, west of that, and they're towing and Keiko and other places, so you're, you know, your first moves aren't death defying, but then the problem with that is you run into the Amazon quicker, so that you can't, you're not going to get the 600k that they have in Texas now.
right right
Is Johnny, is Johnny's, uh, and Dustin, is that still the record in hang gliding as
Far as I know, yeah. So that's the, yeah, so not foot launch. That'll be a tow record done in Texas, yeah. So the they
still have that
And they do keep the foot launch and tow record separately, and uh, again, as far as I know, I kind of got out of looking at that stuff for a few years, but as far as I know, they still have it. Yeah, and that's—I can't remember the exact mileage you're getting up, they're getting up to like 450 miles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd
Be awesome, yeah. You know, your your neighbor Cody has had the foot launch record for a brief second. I might have my time screwed. I can't remember the the guy that's done it down in Texas did it both, you know, you got the foot launch and then you got the the tow one, both in Texas. But Cody had it for a while flying. I believe it's from Lab. You need one of your sites there in Wyoming out over the, you know, if you follow that, is that the 80 86? And you follow the freeway 80 east. Uh-huh. Yeah, but there there you always get that northerly flow that you know late in the day, it starts bending. It's hard to kind of keep going straight, right?
kind of stops you, yeah? So that's paragliding, uh, yeah.
Is that right? Yeah, he went for
430 or 440k? Wow, yeah, cool. Pretty sweet, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and then, you know, that's, uh...
I guess the fun thing about that, it doesn't have the same intensity like we talked about earlier with competition flying. You know, you're just really comparing, you know, I'm sure you might be comparing old records, but you're really just competing with yourself, right? Yeah, in some ways, it doesn't have the psychological intensity of that you get in an actual, you know, full-on competition, but on the other hand, you don't have the companionship so much, although you can, you get your buddies out to try to set the record together, of course. Yeah,
And I mean, there's something about that too, isn't? I mean, that you're—I think your odds go immeasurably up when you're flying with others, right? Because you're just—that's right, you're flying faster. There's no way you can fly as fast by yourself as you can, absolutely.
Absolutely. Well, it depends. If you have good clouds, sure, I mean, if you have—if you have really reliable clouds, and then you can usually come pretty close. But yeah, if it's a blue day, then absolutely. You know, having—having each other to mark for the thermals and find the cores quickly, and all of that, it's going to be a lot faster.
Here's something for... with with hang gliding, we talk about this all the time. So, you most of the time in the world west, we're flying downwind, right? We're going... we're going downwind, especially for the foot launch record stuff. You know, here's some valley in the Wasatch, these places, it's typically west and we're typically going east and we're flying downwind. But when we're flying the wreck going for the records, or just flying XC just in in general, I use my speed bar a lot less than when I'm racing. We all know we could go a lot faster if we were racing, you know, if there was 20 of us in the sky and we were really trying to belt one out. It's interesting, isn't it? Is it the same in hang gliding? Are you pulling the rope as much when you're just flying by yourself, uh?
Yeah, I'm just kind of reflecting on that, probably not quite as much, right? I mean, you know, in general, you do tend to push yourself harder in lots of ways, whether it's, you know, pulling that rope a little tighter, making, you know, which makes the hang glider harder to handle, um, and also feel a little bit less stable, you know, with the pitch and stuff, when you pull that rope further. And when you're a cop, you tend to push it a little further than you probably would comfortably do it otherwise. That's right, and you do tend to find yourself going into terrain where the landing is not as good as you might, you know, ideally like to go into, or getting a little too close to that Q and M, or, you know, so that's, you do get enticed into things in competition that that you wouldn't if you, you know, if you weren't in a car. Absolutely, I think most of us would agree, would agree on that. That's one of the risks of competition is you can get enticed to behaviors that are, you know, more risky.
You know, you're enticed to push it a bit further than you normally would. Something to keep an eye on, one...
More question for you, Paris, if you could rewind the clock to your, I guess, 14-year-old self, somewhere in there, 50-50 hours, 50 hours, 13 to 18, somewhere age.
17 18 yeah
17. Okay, what advice would you give yourself now you're 52 now? But you get, you get to go back and talk to that kid like, uh...
flying related advice, or any advice? No, how about
anything
let's do both
Okay, uh, I would actually just say, "Good job, kid. Keep it up. Like, keep, keep following your bliss," you know? Because that was one thing I somehow had, and in the midst of like, I was saying, there's a lot of darkness in my life at the time, was um, I somehow trusted I had this trusted, if I just keep following what really lit me up, like what really I was passionate about, that you know, like, I would enjoy life, it would work out somehow. And it, and it did. So I would actually, it's kind of interesting as I go back, I would say, you know, just keep it up. This is it, you know? Fall, keep following your bliss. Don't lose sight of your passion. Passion might change from time to time, and just keep, you know, staying attuned to that and following that, it'll work out.
That can actually, that goes both ways. That's for flying in from life, absolutely both, exactly. Follow, follow your bliss answer.
And yeah, that's right, yeah. And because it's easy to lose sight, you know, it's in the keyword, there's your bliss. You know, you can, you can still get pulled by, you know, maybe well-meaning parents or society or what, you know, that to follow a direction, it's not actually like your own spirit calling you in that direction, but you feel like, "I really should do this because that's what my family wants, or that's what society wants." You know, for drop that, what do you want? What lights you up? And so, so I think that's the key word in that phrase, follow your your bliss, and and that's
What I'm talking about, that...
is one thing I somehow managed to – I think I had a few mentors in the midst of some of the storms in my life that encouraged that for me, which was great. So that was – in hindsight, that was like the best advice. I'm really glad I did that.
Paris, thank you, man. That was a real treat. I really enjoyed that conversation. And me too. I hope I get to join you maybe breaking records or doing some cool flying or – I'd love to go fly a paraglider with you. I don't have the skills to keep up with you on a hang glider, but one of these days, I hope our paths cross.
Likewise. I'll have to work on the paragliding skills a little more so I can try to keep up with you.
Yeah, a lot of fun, Gavin. Thanks for having me. Thanks, man. If
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