I’m panicking. The 2024 US national championship will end in about an hour. The gear call for the last jump is coming. The morning brought bad news about business and family, both will need my attention tonight. My last two jump scores were below 480 km/h, the bottom speed in the competitive tranche. I can’t afford to lose any more points because I’m scared to lose my slot in the US Parachute Team for the second year.
My mouth is dry, my breathing is shallow, and sweat soaks my body because of the latex speed suit. I lost 1.5 kg of mass since the official weigh-in two days ago. Don’t screw this up, a jarring voice in my head nags. I look around our team room without seeing. The Ice Queen, my wife, tries to make me smile but whatever she says fails to register. Frustrated I storm out of the team room after grabbing a water bottle. I mumble the same hopeless mantra as I stroll aimlessly: how to go fast? How To Go Fast? HOW TO GO FAST?
Skydivers who want to get into competitive speed flying often ask me what they need to do to go fast. This is the first post in a series that distills 6 years of lessons on how to do it and what to avoid. Each post will cover a different topic that embeds technical discussion in a short contextual story. Bold-type sentences highlight situations tied to a topic in the technical discussion. Take the next paragraph in the story:
Anyway, Ice Queen catches up with me in the parking lot behind the hangar less than a minute later. “You need to get ready and do the job,” she said, handing me the SUV keys. “Stop looking at the scoreboard, turn the AC in the car, and go chill for a while.”
“Chill for a while” is a key concept addressed in the section about meditation and Deliberate Calm and how they help you go fast. Let’s get back to the what happened next.
I follow her advice. The excellent soundproofing inside the car kills the outside noise as I slide into the driver’s seat. The car audio automatically pairs with my iPhone and one of my favorite songs, Original Sin performed by Taylor Dayne, plays next. I recline the seat back, making myself comfortable. The song ends. I turn off the radio, set a timer for 10 minutes, and stare at the headliner. I take a deep breath, soften my eye focus, and make myself as comfortable as possible.
I close my eyes. I had allowed outside stimuli and events to mess with my concentration. Time to reset. First I engage in diaphragmatic breathing to fix my state. I start counting each breath, a simple and effective way to start a meditation session. Deep, comfortable breaths calm me down. My pulse slows down. I keep breathing and counting, now aware of the tension on my neck, shoulders, buttocks, and hands. I relax, one after the other. Breathe. Count. My whole body is relaxed. Keep counting. The nagging thoughts intrude, I observe them but don’t internalize them anymore. I let go of the anxiety from the bad news and let go of the fear of not performing. Those things aren’t important, focus only on breathing and counting. Forced calm gives way to real calm. Breathe. Count. Breathe. Count. A sense of well-being prevails. I spend what seems like an eternity doing this, enjoying it, until the timer alarm rings. I open my eyes and feel refreshed.
My next actions are deliberate. Now I must get to a state of flow. I drain the water bottle as fast as I can but without gulping it. It’s fresh and delicious. Next, I play my favorite tune from the “speed music” playlist, The Ballad of Serenity, and sing along the lyrics. I think of the Ice Queen, all our work to get to the championship, of how grateful I feel toward everyone who helped me get here. The short song ends. I leave the car, tossing the bottle into the recycling bin on the way back. I feel great.
The stress and doubts are gone now that I’m in a state of flow. It’s gear call. I smile at the Ice Queen and Jessy our packer when I walk into the team room. It’s time to go. My facial muscles are relaxed, my voice is soft and strong. We go to the staging area to grab my parachute and put my gear on. Ice Queen and Jessy say nothing, they can tell my state has changed. I let gratitude flood me when the Ice Queen gives me a final gear check. I kiss her lips before heading to the boarding area. All 18 other competitors get a hug or a fist bump from me after the judges hand me my helmet. I wish them all the best, then await the boarding call from a spot on the bench, away from others. Breathe. Calm. A few minutes later we’re on our way to altitude aboard the aircraft.
Breathe. Calm. Everyone is quiet and I’m in a great mood. At 10,000 feet we all do our final gear check and encourage one another with a fist bump. The whole ride to altitude I visualize the perfect skydive. What I’ll see. My body position. How many seconds to the next operation. How the air will feel around me. We reach exit altitude; someone opens the aircraft door.
Nik, the soon-to-be repeat US champion spots the jump, gives a thumbs up, and readies to exit. Green light! Nik leaves. 8 seconds later Brianne exits. Then my teammate TJ Landgren, and then it’s my turn. I’m so calm now that the 8 seconds between his exit and mine feel like 5 minutes, as I leisurely watch TJ dive away. I set myself at the door for exit. I look at the sky, then at the ground, and glance at the competitors awaiting their turn to exit the aircraft. A peaceful sense of gratitude washes over me. I get to do something I love while competing and sharing it with the best skydivers in the country. I fill my lungs from the 6 to 8 seconds mark, and exit. I exhale as I bomb out of the airplane with the most perfect exit I had in years, aiming at a spot on the ground 50º in front of me. I streamline my body, and go — I’m a meat missile! As the seconds pass my body is in constant acceleration. My head, arms, legs, and torso are firm as I engage my flying position. The air flows around me, I cut through it in an effortless dive. There are no wobbles. There’s only the ever-steeper dive asymptotic to a 90º head down angle without ever reaching it. It’s the optimal speed skydive. I’m calm because I know that I am going faster than I have ever flown in a competition. I smile and enjoy the ride.
I reach the break-off altitude and celebrate with a barrel roll as I track away from the jump run. Next comes my “deceleration froggy maneuver” to slow down enough to open my parachute. I deploy it and head to the landing area. I know I’m in fifth place, securing my spot in the US Parachute Team. Photographers corral the top 5 performers for an end-of-meet picture as we land. I flash the biggest grin to the cameras because I know the job is well done.
The final score is 488.06 km/h with a top speed of 491 km/h (303.27 mi/h and 305.1 mi/h). It’s the best score of my speed skydiving career. It’s faster than what the fourth and third places scored in this round. I get hugs and kisses from the Ice Queen, and kudos from my teammates and most other competitors. US champions Nik and Brianne congratulate me. World champions Marco Hepp and Natisha Dingle texted their support. Messages and social media posts from several world-class speedsters hit my INBOX. I thank them all, humbled. I didn’t get a podium, but we all know that at last, I learned to stop screwing around and Just. Go. Fast.
Mental conditioning is how you go fast
To go fast you need to be calm and transition to a state of flow when you need to perform. Speed skydiving is a very demanding mental sport. You must train your mind to be quiet and focused in the moment. This leads to a state of flow, in which each action will be economical and purposeful. Mental conditioning must be integral to your training routine, along with the skydives, strength training, cardio, and nutrition. Every action I described in this essay to regain calm and purpose is a direct application of these techniques:
- Transcendental meditation reduces stress and anxiety, improves focus, enhances mental recovery, boosts confidence and self-awareness, and studies show that it optimizes brain function. A daily 5 to 10-minute session is all you need. Find a teacher or use an app like Headspace to guide you.
- Learn and practice Deliberate Calm, a state of being that combines intention, awareness, and self-regulation to manage your emotions and physical responses in a way that promotes calmness, clarity, and focus. It makes you more effective. It helps you make better decisions and builds resilience. Deliberate Calm will give you the tools to intentionally regulate emotional responses to stress and overwhelming feelings. Listen to combat pilots or Formula 1 racers radio chatter. They are always super calm while making split-second decisions and performing effective actions under tremendous stress.
- Find reasons to be grateful every day. Train yourself to ask, “What’s good about this problem?” if something upsets you. Your brain is conditioned to find answers to direct questions, so it’ll start trying to find the good side of the situation. Be sure to thank everyone, including yourself, for everything that happens to you or around you. Gratitude leads to peak mental and physical performance.
- Learn about Flow, that state of ultimate focus and enjoyment where you’re immersed in the moment, your skills match the challenge, and time flies by. Neuroimaging tools like fMRI and EEG show that meditation and flow are associated with similar brain activity patterns. Meditation trains our psyche to deactivate the brain regions involved in distraction, mind-meandering, and self-referential thinking — the nagging squeaky voice of doubt and self-consciousness that screams in our heads and undermines our capability. Meditation is the mental exercise that leads to faster transitions to a flow state and better performance during speed training and competition, Think of meditation as doing mental weight lifting reps, and state of flow as instant access to that strong, resourceful state. Some music, images, and ritualistic behaviors like fist bumps act as anchors for triggering the state of flow.
All these techniques, by themselves or combined, result in higher production of dopamine and serotonin, the neurotransmitters that control motivation, pleasure, and mood regulation. Improved neural connections lead to a state of flow. And when you’re in a state of flow your athletic performance excels beyond the limits of your conscious skills.
Next: your first speed skydive
I have a bit over 5,000 skydives; I started doing this at around 2,000 jumps, so it took me 3,000 speed runs to achieve competitive performance. I didn’t put out consistent high scores and improvement until the latest 100 speed runs or so. If nothing else, I learned 2,900 ways of how to NOT go fast, and the common denominator across all of them was that my mental state was crap. Mental conditioning is the most important requirement in speed skydiving competition and training.
In my next post, I’ll talk about what you’ll need for your first speed skydive. Thank you for spending your time with me and you’re welcome to drop a comment here, on X, or on Facebook. Until next time… blue skies and #gofast