One thing we talk about a lot is what you can do after the course, not just the technical flying, but what you can do when your feet are on the ground to become a better pilot the next time you’re in the air.
On the flying side, that might mean knocking the energy back and simply going out to play with your wing. Play with roll, play with pitch, amplify the movements, cancel the movements and start recognising those same movements when you’re thermalling. The aim isn’t to perform manoeuvres. It’s to become a more efficient pilot by understanding what the wing is doing.
But there’s also a lot you can do when you’re not flying.
You can study the weather. You can study airflow. You can spend time on the sports psychology side of flying. You can work on your affirmations, your breathing techniques and understanding your own triggers.
The important thing is not to wait until you’re under stress before you start working on those things. It’s no good trying a breathing technique for the first time when you’re frightened. You need to practise that at home so it’s already familiar when you need it.
The same applies to understanding your triggers.
It’s easy to say,
There’s so much literature available now, particularly in sports like tennis and golf. It might seem strange to learn from sports that don’t have the same consequences as paragliding, but there’s a huge amount we can take from them. They’ve spent years studying confidence, focus, performance under pressure and mental preparation. We can apply those lessons directly to flying.
We spend far more time with our feet on the ground than we do in the air.
That means we have far more opportunities to become better pilots than most people realise. Flying develops your technical skills, but the time between flights is where you can improve the mental side of your flying, and that’s something our sport still doesn’t do enough of.