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A jump that clears your head
The lost headspace
Retired Navy SEAL Andy Stumpf found it by losing it. On deployments, a washing machine breaking at home, the rent, an argument with a spouse, and missed holidays all crowd the mind, and then the helicopter heads toward an objective. From about a minute out, all of it falls away until the only thing left is the next three seconds. He didn't realize how much the job gave him until it was gone, and then the static of everyday life became overwhelming.
The first jump
BASE jumping gave that headspace back. On his first jump, his teacher climbed with him over the rail of a bridge with 486 feet below and tested the wind by spitting. Track that spit and it shows where you would land if the parachute never opened. The teacher held the pilot chute so it would be pulled for him.
What it was worth
The deepest conversations with friends came on four-hour hikes that led to a 90-second jump. Two weeks of those jumps left him in a more dialed headspace for months, better at business and a more patient father and husband. It probably took the deaths of friends, along with other activities that began to provide the same reset, to move the risk past what the reward was worth.
Why does danger silence everyday worries?
Psychologist J. A. Easterbrook proposed in 1959 that high arousal narrows the range of cues a person pays attention to. Under intense focus, attention locks onto what matters for the task and drops what does not. The idea is known as the cue-utilization hypothesis, and it has been used to explain both peak performance and tunnel vision. Researchers have found similar narrowing in pilots, athletes, and soldiers.
How did BASE jumping get started?
BASE is an acronym for building, antenna, span, and earth, the four kinds of fixed objects jumpers leap from. Four men made the first intentional jump from El Capitan in Yosemite in 1966 and pulled their parachutes by hand. Filmmaker Carl Boenish documented later jumps from the cliff in the late 1970s, and the name BASE came out of his circle. Jumpers from fixed objects fall for only seconds before the parachute has to open.
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