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Friends and Family

This page is a chapter in 'BASE Wiki Training'

Friends and Family: Once you have decided to get into BASE jumping, it is important to make your family and friends aware of your decision. This can be a hard thing to do, but it is absolutely necessary to do so, for several reasons.

  1. BASE might consume your life for at least part of your BASE career. Your family should be aware of such a big part of your life.
  2. Taking the time to explain BASE to your family will show them that:
    1. You have put a lot of thought into this decision, and that you care about their feelings.
    2. The true risks of BASE are not necessarily what layman think.

  3. Your family will understand that your decision to BASE jump was entirely yours and that only you can be held accountable and responsible for your actions.
  4. In the case of an incident, they will realize that nobody but yourself got you into that situation and they won’t unduly attack other members of the sport or the sport itself.

It is recommended you tell your friends and family before you actually start BASE jumping. Perhaps you can occasionally drop the word BASE in conversations while you are still skydiving, to gauge their reaction. When the time comes though, sit down for a serious conversation and touch on the following subjects.
  1. What is BASE jumping?
  2. Why am I doing it?
  3. What are the risks of BASE?
  4. How do I plan on getting into it?
  5. What’s important in case of an accident?

Make sure you spend time explaining what the risks are. Many people think the biggest problem is your parachute not opening. Explaining that this rarely happens, and that Off Headings are the real enemy, can go a long way to reassuring your family.

Also explain your strategy to get into BASE. When your family and friends see that you are putting a lot of time and preparation into BASE and notice that you are approaching it in a rigorous manner, they’ll gain more confidence about your safety.

You don’t have to be overly pessimistic when talking to your family. There is no point in printing out the BASE fatality list and showing it to them. In fact, feel free to present BASE slightly more optimistic than you believe it is. As long as you are not telling blatant lies, you will be able to share your passion for BASE, the true risks, but not get them overly worried.

Jaap Suter says: I didn’t tell my family until after I had over thirty jumps. It would have been easier if I had told it sooner. I worried about telling them for a long time and in the end I wrote a long document explaining BASE, my motivations, and the risks. Their initial reaction was not good. This may be unavoidable. Over time, it has improved a little, but they still prefer it if I don’t tell about my BASE adventures.

If you plan on telling your family, remember this: “Conflicts are like a cold shower, it sucks when you’re in it, but afterwards you feel great.” It absolutely worked that way for me. In hindsight, I’m glad I’ve been honest about BASE.



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