To most people who read, “extreme skydiving” is a redundancy. But there is a difference between skydiving and extreme skydiving. And yes, people still use parachutes. Perhaps the ultimate extreme skydiving would be to not use any kind of parachute, but so far that has not caught on.

Right, Then! What Is It?

In regular skydiving, you jump out of a plane and pull the parachute chord and float down to earth. You have to learn that before you can do extreme skydiving. After several jumps of normal skydiving, things start getting a bit blasé and you decide to make things just a little more interesting. Then you get into the area of extreme skydiving. Invest in a video camera and, if possible, a paratrooper cameraman. You will really want to film this.

Taking The Plunge

Before you have to pull the parachute cord, there is about a minute or so of freefall, depending on how high the plane is above the earth. If is during the freefall that extreme skydiving happens.

There are teams that make patterns in the air before they have to pull their ripcord. There are couples who prefer to get married while dropping out of the sky – a most apt metaphor for marriage if there ever was one. You could even do what “Jonas” did in Sweden in May of 2007 – he was the first person in the world to receive a tattoo while freefalling. Now that is EXTREME extreme skydiving.

Fleafall

Depending on what species you are, just making any kind of skydiving attempt is extreme skydiving. A Dachshund named Brutus holds the current world record for extreme skydiving dogs – he’s made the highest jump of any dog.

Now, Brutus is not kicked out of a plane. He is strapped snugly underneath his extreme skydiving owner, Ron Sirull (who is the author of the term “Fleafall.”) Brutus shows none of the signs dogs in distress give off when in a jump. Brutus does not cringe, show his teeth or go off his food. Brutus has jumped over 100 times – more times than I would ever do.

Not An Olympic Event

So far, extreme skydiving is not an Olympic event or even an exhibition event. Skydiving is still considered an extreme sport like bungee jumping, extreme ironing (I kid you not) or base jumping (which is illegal.) There has not been enough evidence to support that extreme skydiving is a sport, with judge able criteria on how to judge that one extreme skydiver is better than any other skydiver. Perhaps Brutus could write the rule book.