The Social Benefits of Skydiving

The positive effects of skydiving are unrivaled, and the social benefits that come from joining our worldwide community are virtually endless. After doing a first jump and inevitably falling in love with the sport, many people choose to learn to skydive solo. Through the entire student progression and beyond, it becomes clear how supportive, caring, and passionate we are about not only enjoying the sport but encouraging others through their journey! The communal benefits of skydiving range from meeting and bonding with like-minded people to acquiring essential leadership and communication skills. Let’s jump into our top five social benefits of skydiving! 

Making Friends

Okay, we’re starting out with the obvious one here – new friendships! 

Once you start skydiving consistently you’ll realize that the sport is much more than meets the eye. Of course, there’s actually jumping out of the airplane, but there’s also the bonfire nights, sunset swoops, going out to dinner after a long and happy day of jumping, and enduring the dreaded weather holds together. All these shared experiences encourage growth with one another and you’ll soon realize that people who were once total strangers are now your closest friends. 

Skydiving brings a lot of like-minded people into one space – people with an unquenchable love for the sky! It also brings people together who are totally different, which is a huge distinguishing factor of the sport from other extreme physical activities.

Skydiving helps us to realize that we aren’t all that different from our fellow neighbor. As long as you show up to the dropzone ready to skydive with a positive attitude, you’ll be accepted with open arms, regardless of anything else.  

You Get Close, FAST

Skydiving is an extreme sport, and with that comes some degree of inherent risk. When we go through the experience of jumping from an airplane over and over again, it forces us to trust ourselves and the other jumpers that are with us. The act of jumping from a plane is downright nerve-wracking! Having people that you can rely on makes the encounter with the wide-open airplane door much more bearable and, eventually, really fun. 

You will quickly realize that anyone who doesn’t skydive has little to no interest in hearing about it. Still, your non-jumper friends and your mom will think it’s super cool that you spent the day sky surfing, but they won’t understand the gravity of how accurate your landings were, that you mastered a skill you’ve been working on, or that you signed up for a canopy course to start pursuing a new license. People who do jump will be able to share in your hype and relate to your skydiving journey. 

Increased Confidence

Does skydiving increase confidence? Yes! Doing something seemingly scary and absolutely crushing it while being supported by your sky fam is the best confidence builder on the market.

Tandem skydiving teaches you that fears can be conquered, and may even give you the confidence to learn to skydive solo. The process of getting your skydiving license is intensely challenging but abundantly fun. Essentially, it requires that certain skills be mastered on each skydive, like various maneuvers in freefall and under canopy, while coaches and instructors train and guide you along the way.

With each skill(s) (level) passed comes a surge of confidence, and when a level is failed there is an inevitable punch of disappointment in yourself – which we agree is the worst kind. But, when that previously failed level is eventually passed, the feeling is straight-up euphoric! 

The sustained surge of confidence that happens when you learn to skydive is so neat! Along with mastering new skills, the peer acceptance that comes from joining the sport also nurtures confidence. Skydiving hands down has the most accepting community EVER. You can unapologetically be yourself. 

Strengthen Leadership Skills & Communication

Everyone in the skydiving community takes on the role of being a leader. Yes, even you, the person with two solo jumps! Guess what? You did the dang thing and are a superstar to all of us, but especially to the person who’s nervous about doing their first jump. Skydiving is all about ceaseless learning. This includes learning to communicate effectively on the ground (pre and post-jump), and in the sky. 

Skydivers use hand signals to talk while in freefall and leg movements to communicate under canopy – both are essential in fostering a safe and successful environment. Whether you’re helping someone with their parachute packing skills, debriefing their AFF level post jump, or giving someone a gear check, it all adds up to building a community with a strong foundation of reliability and trust. 

Amplification of Accountability

Goal setting and support from others to get ‘er done keeps the motivation going! Skydivers get better by setting clear goals for themselves that are tailored to their skill level and what they personally aim to gain from the sport. It’s important that we check in with others about our goals to have someone other than ourselves hold us accountable. Let’s say you have a personal goal to land within 10 feet of a preselected target (which is totally possible by the way!) and after 10 failed attempts you start to get a little beaten down – totally understandable. If other people know about your aspirations, they’ll be able to give you solid pointers and encouragement to keep going. Skydivers don’t let skydivers give up!

Do you know of anywhere else that offers such fantastic social benefits? Yeah, us neither. Book your first skydive today and come see our awesome community in action! We can’t wait to have you.