48. Atlanta Skydive Spaceland Organizing- Ladies!

woodburyroland
Oct 18, 2018
3 min read

This past spring and summer have been all about focusing on my work as an AFF instructor and videographer. After my dream year of traveling all over skydiving, I had to switch my mindset to the importance of staying rooted in Houston. This was necessary to become the best I could in my work, get as many jumps as possible, improve my flying and make that $$. I also made it a huge priority to focus on my health- with working out and eating healthy. This is always a priority for me but after all the traveling and change, I wanted to re-focus on this.

As a super goal-focused person, it felt great to have the means at Spaceland to focus on this in a community where there is so much talent to help me grow. It also felt good to be more settled somewhere with a home and comforts. It was also amazing to be part of such a welcoming community there. Did I also miss the traveling? Of course ;)

I got a message from the Spaceland events director asking me to fly to Spaceland Atlanta to organize jumps for a girls event- all expenses, jumps and daily rate paid. Some people make a full time salary off of doing this so I was always curious what it was like. This was super on a small scale of that but I knew it would give me a taste. I was thrilled and immediately agreed to it.

Skydive Spaceland owns 5 locations so I was excited to check out a different one. Two of us flew from Houston Friday evening, renting a car and driving the 2 hours to the countryside. I loved getting back that addicting thrill of traveling with my rig, going to a brand new dropzone, having adventures with new people. It brought back so many happy memories of my previous year traveling.

Spaceland Atlanta was especially welcoming to us and the ladies that weekend were INCREDIBLE. The dropzone was smaller and in beautiful countryside. I originally got into working in the sport to help grow other women skydivers- so the mission of the trip was especially meaningful to me. We had belly groups and freely groups as well as jumps all together. The staff ladies joined in on a couple jumps too. All summer I had been focused on work jumps and it felt great to go do some more relaxed jumps. Saturday night the whole staff came over to our hotel pool and we got to know their stories.

My admiration for professional organizers grew immensely. I learned as I went that weekend and definitely found myself so concerned for everyone's safety on each jump. I always want to succeed with anything new and put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure everyone learned and also had fun.

Traveling and the experience was amazing but my gratitude for where I was in life in Houston grew. Being gone that weekend gave me such an appreciation for my community and life back "home." I found myself missing my co-workers, my students and shooting video. It also reminded me to continue following my goal of improving flying skills to do more of this work....more on that to come ;)