The
adrenaline hits the moment you decide to take that leap of faith. At that
moment you not only need to trust your equipment, more importantly you need to
trust your body to handle the forces of reaching terminal velocity. Throughout
the ages, man has looked to push his body beyond what are accepted at the time
to be most extreme measures in order to release what is possibly the most
addictive drug, a simple natural chemical known as the hormone epinephrine or
adrenaline. Don’t fool yourself; this drug is known to produce an addiction on par with heroin, to the point where soon a person needs this feeling
to live. Cliff diving, bungee jumping, big mountain skiing, skydiving, tow-in
surfing, hang gliding, and BASE jumping are examples of how risking your life for an adrenaline fix
can also be called a sport. And it's just amazing to think about the people who
actually attempted these sports first.
While
bungee jumping can be traced back to the Aztecs, the New Zealander AJ Hackett was the first commercial jumper. Laird Hamilton is known as the
co-inventor and the poster child of tow-in surfing, which is the utilization of jetskis or zodiac boats to tow surfers into waves ranging from 70-100 feet. Andre-Jacques Garnerin became the father of skydiving when he
made parachute jumps from a hot-air balloon in 1797. These are just examples of
the iconic figures who made a decision to defy physics, and to a certain extent nature, but like all great evolutions there have been countless other innovators along the way. The world of
extreme sports has been altered, elevated, and expanded by individuals willing to progress the definition of what is humanly possible until these athletes are literally threading the needle of life. A lot of these individuals, like for example Shane McConkey who was recently the central figure of a Playboy article about how Extreme Sports are exploding into the mainstream, die pushing the envelope. However, currently no living human personifies this
necessity to try to push the limit and progress extreme sports and what is possible like Jeb Corliss.
First
off, how fucking cool is it to have your job title be Professional skydiver and
BASE (Buildings, Aerials, Spans, and Earth, the four categories that make up this sport) jumper? As man who loves his job, he continues to push his profession
by adding different elements. He's jumped off everything from the
Eiffel Tower to Seattle’s Space needle. He's almost died many times, broken countless
bones, and has an admitted suicide wish and so he continues on like a fiend
in search that last hit. In fact, he risked a steady paycheck as the host for the
show Stunt Junkies when he was arrested for attempting to BASE jump off of the
Empire State Building. He was restrained, arrested, fired from the hosting gig,
and got three years’ probation, but it would've been worth it to him if he'd at least gotten off. From an early age he had a typical male desire to fly without the
constraints of technology and yet he's gotten closer to self propelled
flight than any human. High risk, high reward appears to be his only M.O.
He was also banned from the Empire State Building for life, which is
fucking hilarious. Nobody's done that since King Kong. If you want to comprehend how epic he truly is, check out this video:
A little something to close the week with a tingle.
- Kyle
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