I, Janet White, take you, The Sky, to be my wedded beloved.  To jump and to fly in, from this day forward, in good skydives and in reserve rides, for low jump prices and expensive jump prices, in sinus infection and in adrenaline rush, to love and to cherish till death do us part.  And hereto I pledge to you my faithfulness.

Consider this your formal invitation to stop by the LAS tent, congratulate me and altitude on our re-commitment to our relationship, hang out on the couch, and enjoy the idea of adding to your skydive wardrobe without sacrificing an entire jump ticket.  Maybe we can make a jump together…a 3-way with me, you, and my beloved Sky.  Maybe you’ll bring the cake?

Awhile ago I visited a gym in Cedar Rapids to watch what appeared to be a bunch of kids running around jumping off of stuff.  I was there to witness Parkour for the first time, at least in the indoor sense.  For those of you unfamiliar with Parkour the best I can do to explain it is imagine the desire to get from point A to point B by dominating all the obstacles in between, and at some point a couple of Frenchies started calling it Parkour.  It’s climbing, scrambling, acrobating your way to your goal without going around.  For a newbie it looks like ninja/stuntman/acrobat training.  In fact, for a lot of people this tends to be the reason they become interested in Parkour.  It looks awesome.  Amidst the chaos at the gym I singled out Roan to teach me the truths behind Parkour, so in my benevolent grace I can bring his teachings to the good people of Live Action Sports.

Talking with Roan is like talking with an alien teenager that gets it.  (I say alien because I’m completely unaware of any other teenager that gets it.  I didn’t even get it till I was 30.  And if you don’t know what I mean by getting it, then rest assured you don’t.)  Roan is 17 years of age.  He attends Kirkwood Community College.  He’s a waiter at an Italian restaurant in Marion.  And he is a practitioner of Parkour.  To give you a brief history lesson of Roan, when he was 13 he caught some Parkour videos on the internet.  Interested, he found some online tutorials and started teaching himself.  At 15 he traveled to New York to attend a ‘Jam’; which is a large Parkour get together. He traveled to Chicago, Indiana, and Florida to attend more.  In May of 2010 he participated a three day seminar in Ohio called “American Rendezvous” where he met some of the most influential people in the sport.  In the meantime, back in Cedar Rapids Roan met some local contacts via American Parkour’s website and found some like minded people with whom he could practice and hang out.  This led Roan to Sokol Gym, where he currently instructs a class on the basics of Parkour; which consists of conditioning balanced with playtime and the fundamentals of safety.  His Parkour goals are to attain his first level Parkour certification (A.D.A.P.T) in Ohio, and move on to higher levels of certification in Europe.  Eventually Roan would like to make a business out of Parkour teachings; however if that doesn’t work out he has his sights on deception detection, or busting liars, by way of a college in California.  Now while it was great to learn the facts about Roan, I was especially fascinated listening to him just talk.  To hear how as a child he just wanted to move move move and tried a few different things like Wushu marital arts and gymnastics.  To hear the stories about how he handled conflicts in friendships.  To totally not be surprised when he says he listens to Mozart when he is practicing, or that one of his hobbies is analytical reasoning.  Even understanding his Parkour nickname “Apex” turns out to make perfect sense, if you know the meaning of the word (vertex/summit/peak).

Quick quiz:  do you understand Parkour yet?

But after I got the who/what/where/when of Roan out of the way, I was most interested to learn the why.  Like I said, to the outsider it just looks like a bunch of running and jumping and flipping.  Like a highly unorganized and delinquent version of skilled gymnastics.  I get what attracts younger kids to the sport, but what keeps them going?  Why get training?  What’s the purpose of it all?  By nature its non-competitive, except perhaps with yourself, even though thanks to the far reaches of reality television you can find shows like Jump City that try to reign in athletes to be judged.  So what’s the pull?  Well physical fitness, yes.  That’s a given.  Looking cool, yes.  Well, if you do it right and are not a chronic face-planter.  It’s these things that get you into the Parkour tractor beam, but what sucks you in as Roan tells it is the freedom of movement.  The freedom of spirit and mind.  As Roan says, “envelope in movement and progression”.  And the vision of the environment.  As you evolve as an athlete you develop Parkour Vision.  Everything you see as you walk or drive along, your brain sees as a challenge or obstacle for the body.  I liken it to the way a skydiver watches the sky, understands the clouds and the wind, and daydreams of freefall conditions.  Or the climber that looks at a structure and can see holds, considers the difficulty, and daydreams of trekking up.  The brain changes the way it sees objects or the environment.  It changes how it would assess and overcome the objects or environment.  The brain changes the body to fit the assessment.  And so forth.  The beauty of Parkour Vision.  When your brain evolves in this way, it can’t help but apply its newfound vision to other aspects of life.  A different perspective visually and mentally. The brain has learned how to look at something differently, and subsequently learned to handle a situation differently.  Are we talking about hurdling a park bench or hurdling a personal crisis?  Yes.

Quick quiz:  do you understand Parkour yet?

I’ll restate from above: Roan is 17 years of age.  He attends Kirkwood.  He’s a waiter at an Italian restaurant in Marion.  And he is a practitioner of Parkour.  All of these individual statements sound rather simple.  But joined with Roan’s Parkour vision every aspect of him is rather extraordinary.   He’s a 17 year old that has a deeper understanding of how to navigate through obstacles and priorities than your average 27 year old.  He’s insightful and eloquent and frankly straight up refreshing.  He’s a terrific model of the Live Action Sports spiral, but in contradictory point A to point B kinda way.  He found something at a young age that he has incorporated into his being and developed to teaching others.  Like I have always said about Iowa, we DO have almost everything here, just on a smaller scale.  Roan, along with a small population of others, is taking steps to bring Parkour to Iowa, and you can be part of the moment, too.  Check out his class at Cedar Rapids’ Sokol Gym.  Visit www.crpkmovement.com.  Look up some videos.  Maybe someday you’ll get it.

Answer to quiz:  If you understand it, then you don’t get it.

It’s a niche that has been long overdue to be filled in the Cedar Rapids and Marion area, and the non-profit Streamline Kids has come bounding out of the gate, drawing interest and attention not only locally, but well out of the Iowa area as well.  I wonder if you can think back to when you were in school, and remember any schoolmates that wanted to join an activity but had no financial assistance to do so?  Maybe you were that kid?  Maybe your kid is that kid?

Whoever you are it’s unmistakably how activities are beneficial to the growth of a child.   How would you like to benefit Streamline Kids?  Or benefit from Streamline Kids?  LAS urges you to visit their website at www.streamlinekids.org and check out all the goodness they rain down on Iowa.  In the immediate, and I mean immediate future, the Cedar Rapids Country Club is the location for Streamline Kids 2011 Gala tomorrow night, that’s Thursday, February 10th, at 6pm.  This fundraiser offers an incredible menu, a tasty wine bar, magnificent music, and some mingling with the fine and fancy people at Streamline Kids.  Not to mention, it’s another opportunity to spend some hang time with your favorite Live Action Heroes, Shawn and Janet. Today is the last opportunity to get your tickets, so give a shout below, send a message to janet@liveactionsports.net, holler on the LAS Facebook page, or hit up the Streamline Kids website.  Send a smoke signal if you have to, but get yourself some tickets!  It’s the social event of the season and probably the only time you’ll see Janet in a dress for the rest of the year!

Who needs some fancy Janet in their February 10th evening?

I’d like to encourage everyone reading this to make plans to show up and support the event. Live Action Sports is a PROUD sponsor and we are looking forward to having our faces rocked off by the talented contestants.

When I was 28 years old I suffered trauma to my neck that dissected my carotid artery.  As the artery tried to repair itself it formed a clot that blocked approximately 98% of the blood flow to my brain and I suffered a minor stroke.  Stupid artery.  Mostly you don’t endure morphine-resistant head pain for days on end and not wish that someone would just chop your head off.  And mostly you don’t recover from an alarming experience like that and not consider the reality of your own funeral table.  If I were to have died from this craziness, how would my loved ones have summarized me?

Boss Lady ready to fly

It’s a bummer that so many humans seem to lack an instinct to seek adventure.  Some people have dreams that aren’t motivated until something happens that rocks their faces off.  Not like an awesome Tool concert rock your face off.  But scare yourself with a stroke rock your face off.  My experience led me back to a list I wrote in 4th grade of things I wanted to do before I died.  Number one on the list was, of course, skydiving.  So that’s what I did.  The plan was to do one skydive, get a totally rad picture of me in freefall, and move on to my next great experience.  But hours after I did that tandem skydive my brain was demanding I do it again.  Days later I was searching for a drop zone nearby to become a student.  I had no intention of doing another skydive strapped to some dude.  I was gonna be a real skydiver.  In terms of the funeral table the point of this history lesson is now I have a bevvy of skydiving pictures to chose from.  But even better than that is somehow I snuck into the cool kids’ secret club.  This skydiver over here also flies his own hot air balloon.  That skydiver over there has taken multiple trips to Mount Everest.  This husband and wife skydive team race street bikes.  And this one skydiver dude over here, well he was part of the largest formation skydive world record and I got to tag along to Thailand to see it.  Skydivers are the friendliest and most interesting people I know.  Getting to know them is getting exposure to an endless sea of exciting experiences.  By the law of the funeral table I’m gonna try each and every one of them.  In the end I plan to let the table do exactly what I’m doing right now: brag about the cool adventure club that I joined and all the butt I kicked dominating my own club chapter.

Isaac loves airtime

My most recent funeral table photo op entry was last week, when Home Team was invited to the Iowa City Airport by Jennifer Eicher, General Manager of Whirlybird Helicopters.  Whirlybird is a flight instruction school that also does tours and other commercial ventures.  Isaac and extended Home Team member, Kaylee, both took turns on their own private helicopter tours in the company’s Robinson 22, a fun little 2-seater.  Then it was my turn, but rather than take a passive tour, I opted for the Discovery Flight.  The pilot, Gareth Ellis, took us up to 500 feet and explained the basics of flying the helicopter.  And then put his own life in my hands when he allowed me to take control.  I cruised around Iowa City, laughing in my head at the absurdity that I’m even ALLOWED to do this, and attempting to convince Gareth I’m not a complete spaz.  It took 100% of my concentration and attention to keep the helicopter steady and somewhat at Gareth’s requested altitiude.  The sucker is touchy (the helicopter, not Gareth) and the slightest control input results in a big response.   In other words, you gotta work for it, baby.  We flew over the Hawkeye’s stadium and after awhile headed back to the airport.  Aside from ignoring the thoughts of chaos I could wreak in this thing, I couldn’t help the feeling that we were spying on the residents of Iowa City; which I admit was a small part of the fun.  Back at the airport Gareth explained how differently the helicoper responds to the controls when it is hovering versus flying, and again I was allowed to take the controls to attempt hovering exercises (which I sucked at).  I was truly sad for the lesson to come to an end.  It was a educational and interactive.  I think my experiences are far better when I’m an active part of the adventure and not a passive passenger.  The tours were so great for the younger ones (and might I add an exciting gift to give), but for me, ooohhhh you know Mama needs a little control.

So make a little room, funeral table, I flew a helicopter.

When was the last time you were in a chopper?  If you’re interested in a tour, a Discovery Flight, or showing your cojones and become a flight student, shout at Whirlybird.

Kaylee dug her ride

We may just go where no one's been.

Maybe you’ve noticed, maybe you haven’t, that I refer to the spiral, to spiraling out, or to riding the spiral often around the website. Maybe you’ve noticed the spiral is part of Live Action Sports’ logo.  Maybe you’ve cared, maybe you haven’t, why I do it or what it means.  If you would like to understand the plight of Live Action Sports and a glimpse into the gnarly mindworks of Janet, give this a whirl.

Early on we’re taught that the most efficient and fastest way from Point A to Point B is a straight line.  And subsequently a great majority of people apply this rule to the way they conduct their lives.  Decide what you want to do with your life. Finish high school. Complete college.  Get a job based on what you decided to do with your life in high school.  Work towards a corporate ladder climbing career.  Get married.  Have a family.  Die.  Congratulations!!!  You made it from Point A to Point B!!!  Linear means no looking back.  The straight line allows for no growing or changing. It is straight forward.  It doesn’t care what surrounds it, or maybe is afraid, so it looks straight ahead.  It makes no detours, it gains no momentum, and it truly makes no decisions.  It sees Point B and it sprints to it.  I’m not a fan of Point A to Point B for the long haul.  I am, however, a HUGE fan of the spiral.

A spiral has a starting point, yes.  It can boast a strong foundation as a matter of fact.  But what the spiral does from there is grow, curve, circle around that foundation and derive more strength from it.  The best part of the spiral is that it has a full 360 degree view.  It sees all.  It can climb upwards, like a tornado.  Or expand outwards, extending it’s reach.  Changes in life are inevitable and if you live by the theory of the spiral you will welcome these changes because your perspective allows you to see the Grand Scheme of Things.  It builds on itself and has no defined end.  You can spiral yourself out for as long as you want.  Infinity, baby.

You can imagine that if you are on your straight line you won’t have much time for action and adventure.  You would probably avoid it as to not be distracted from your one goal.  Don’t be in a hurry.  Don’t push your life from Point A to Point B in the most efficient and quickest manner.  You’ll miss everything.  In the genius words of Tool from the song Lateralus (a heavy force behind Live Action Sports), “We’ll ride the spiral to the end & may just go where no one’s been.”

Feelin’ me?

Do you have any thoughts about the spiral?  Shout at me, kids.

Janet’s note to our gentle readers wondering who the crap this “Ben” person is that Nick refers to so often.  Ben, otherwise known as Fat Head, is simply another graduated AFF dude.  Anyone that has any length of conversation with Nick will inevitably hear Ben’s name mentioned.  I’ve decided that they formed some sort of competitive friendship as students which has transitioned to buddy status.  It’s kinda annoying.

Jump #7

Woo hoo!  Two more jumps and I’m done.  This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.  I love hanging out at the DZ.  I did two jumps Saturday and and the last two today.  I even went for my first solo jump.  What a rush. Today was the first time I’ve jumped with Jay.  He has a ton of experience and I’m glad to have him with me. Heck, the man deserves some type of award for maintaining such an incredible DZ.

The approach to the door made me a little anxious today, mostly because these last two jumps have front and back loops in them.  I mean, there was no way to practice before jumping.  Crossing my fingers.  My exit started out stable, but I lost it and started to tumble.  Jay was there to save the day.  It’s a strange feeling when someone is trying to get you back into a neutral position.  My first instinct was to try and get away.  I think it might have something to do with the fact that I was already disoriented and partly because I was falling through the air at 120 mph.  Oh well, it all worked out.

I got into a stable position and went into my very first barrel roll.  I pulled my right arm in and stuck my left out. The wind caught my extended arm and flipped me onto my back.  Being on your back is a strange feeling.  I switched the position of my arms and flipped right back over onto my belly.  So cool!!  The back loop didn’t work out as well.  I kicked my knees up towards my chest and tried to push the air with my hands, but I ended up flipping off to my side.  I made it back into a neutral position, which was the main point.  The instructors want to make sure I’m able to correct myself if I start to tumble.  Mission accomplished.

I lost Jay after that and made an attempt at forward movement.  I think I made some progress.  It’s kind of tough to tell if your moving unless you have another jumper to use as a reference.  I checked my altimeter and locked on at 6K.  Waved off and deployed at 5K.  Nice smooth opening.  Controllability check went well.  I saw Ben pass by and I gave him a friendly yell.  It’s not easy having a conversation while under canopy.  I had a great landing.  There was a ton of wind and I learned the importance of pulling on one toggle while attempting to run behind the canopy.  I’m happy with my progress so far.

Jump # 8

My final jump!  I’m so ready to be finished with student jumps.  There’s a lot a pressure involved in these first 8 jumps.  You have to get everything right or you’re doomed to repeat the jump.  At $190 a piece, nobody wants a redo.

I was pretty confident in my ability to pass this jump. My previous jumps have all gone well and I’m prepared. Plus, I’ve got Jay following me out.  It’s comforting having pros like Jay jumping along side you.  They always have you covered if you mange to make any mistakes.

My exit went well.  Not perfect, but it was good.  My dive flow started out with a couple 360’s going in both directions, followed by forward movement and docking.  My previous attempts at docking failed.  It’s so hard to get your legs to function while freefalling.  This time I locked my knees and pulled my arms in towards my chest. Success!  I achieved forward movement and docked with Jay. It’s a good feeling when you complete a task that previously eluded you.  I repeated the docking process until we were out of altitude.

I waved off and deployed at 4.5 K this time.  We earn the right to deploy later as we progress in our jumps.  I think the pros are pulling around 3K, but I’m good with staying above 4K.  My canopy opened as well as always and the controllability check was normal.

Even though I beat Ben out the plane, he still managed to land first.  He has a little extra weight which helps his decent.  That being said, I’d say graduation was a tie.  Yes, I’ll be the better man and call a tie.  Man, what a great feeling knowing we’ve graduated.  Now it’s onto the solo jumps.  Hell yes!!

Wipe your tears, kids.  If there are enough comments left, perhaps our rookie friend will sent us some updates, allowing us to follow his skydiving career.  With the critter set to arrive this winter, his fans will surely want to see how his favorite hobby adapts to fatherhood.  And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to hear about Ben.

Box of Socks. No foolin'.

No one is accusing Home Team spendy guy, Shawn, of being cheap.  In fact, there are two ways to sell almost ANYTHING to Shawn.  One is to convince him he can’t afford to NOT buy it.  And two is to wave as many bells and whistles as possible in front of him and his consumer-driven gene will kick into overdrive.  Shawn also has his other, thrifty side.  The one that loves to get a good deal.  The one that will work the system and talk to whoever is in charge and ask for as many discounts or freebies as possible.  On occasion to the extent of being embarassing.  As a result Home Team Headquarters has a lot of stuff it doesn’t need, AND a lot of stuff it does, for cheap.  But the best finds are the ones that take no work and no brains to get a good deal.  Such a heavenly place exists at Sierra Trading Post (www.sierratradingpost.com).  Sierra Trading Post purchases name brand overstocks and closeouts in outdoor clothing, shoes, home furnishings, etc, and sells them to us (like TJ Maxx).  As a result the purchases we’ve made over the years has probably averaged a 60% savings off of retail price.  We’ve bought an array of items such as shoes, sandals, boots, coats, long underwear, and most recently the radist array of socks ever.  Ordering is always easy.  Returns and exchanges have also been a breeze.  The customer service for us has been excellent as well.  We’ve even picked up some tricks, such as if you don’t purchase anything for awhile they will tempt you back with ridiculously spectacular coupons. What’s the attraction for Shawn?  He buys name brands like North Face and Alpine, and believes in their quality.  And also thinks that he can’t afford to NOT buy them.  What’s the attraction for me?  Shawn buys me socks.  Now if Sierra Trading Post would just start selling skydiving gear, we’d be all set. 

Note to friends and family:  Yes it IS possible I will buy you woolen, outdoor, toasty-warm socks for Christmas.  Yes it IS possible I may already have.