Some things happen along the way that may leave us down, either temporarily or permanently. Death seems to be a certain permanent happening, one day, but we’ll be old on that day. It’s the temporary hits that can take a toll and affect the future. I’ve experienced many of these temporary setbacks in my life, both inside and outside skydiving and wingsuiting.

But we’ve come for a reason today, not merely a discussion of injury, only partially a discussion of injury. The most recent injury being a broken collar bone (right clavicle). All my fault, and without getting into the intricacies of my inability, I smashed the ground at good speed after a ski jump on a 20m hill. Skydiving feels much safer to me than ski jumping, just so you know.

Cancel all plans for the two months following that day…… FML….

Sit around healing, not having full use of the arm, being refused a beneficial surgery in one country, holding the knowledge that without surgery full use of the arm won’t be possible, examining the possibility of flying to the US to have surgery and fix this thing, knowing that flying with others is one thing that brings immense joy along the journey… Surgery time…

Alright, metal additions make for strong, straight bones (photos at the end LOL). Within a few weeks, there’s a return to wingsuit activities. We’re back jumping and flying, but the stamina and strength is gone. The beginning of being back is tough. I can jump, I can move my body, but it’s not what it was before the injury. I gotta get back to that. And after that set up, we finally reach the flying lesson contained in this seemingly unrelated story.

Getting back to flying is much easier than getting to flying the first time, for sure. But the path from not being able to being able could be the same. That gets down to doing the right stuff the first time, having an understanding of what you’re looking for because of some prior knowledge. Let’s discuss shoulder movement.

I might say that shoulders are one of the most important body parts for wingsuiting. Precise, independent control of each shoulder is crucial to precision maneuvering of the suit. But really, the most important thing to learn is the feel, the feel of the air, the pressure, the power, the pull, the push. The feel comes for different parts of the body. Targeted practice to feel the air is what I use to get better at feeling and moving.

Physical therapy exercises for the shoulders are what I use now, and they are what I used prior to injury. They fucking work, end of story. The internet has plenty of resources, and most of it’s good stuff, such as this website listing 13 shoulder exercises: Sporty Doctor.

The goal here was to emphasize the importance of having use of the shoulders and the importance of shoulders generally. Equally important though, if you get knocked down, remember that it’s temporary. We have it within us to keep going. It might be a little different now, but we are always learning our bodies and learning to fly our bodies. This injury has definitely given me the opportunity to take a deep dive into how certain parts of the body move in relation to flying. Time to get better at flying for me!

Blue skies, my bird friends!

-WSL