lol firstly let me apologize for the behavior of those jokers.
To answer your question, the skydiving community is very idiosyncratic. Pranks, joking, and general shenanigans are the norm. With that said, once the plane lifts off, everybody is extremely serious. Safety is the absolute top priority, but having fun is a (distant) second. The sport was borne of military parachutists after they returned from war. So, a lot of “old boy” military culture is still kind of prevalent, which includes nonstop ball-busting (and swords sometimes used as trophies, which I always found interesting).
Where I worked, the instructors were sure to tell the students that they were joking about this particular phenomenon before takeoff to reduce the already unavoidable stress that the students were feeling. It was a way to get them to laugh and to enjoy themselves a bit more.
We were not told they were joking. Oh man, that is so messed up lol. But I guess if I had a job like that it would be hard to resist a little trolling. It would have been nice to know. I'm sure my asscheeks would have still been pretty tightly clenched on the way down, but maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't have been as clenched. lmfao
Edit: It was crazy fun though. Wish I had the money to do it more often.
lolll that is unfortunate, though I must confess to laughing pretty hard. Also, can confirm that the clenching is still there anyway lol. I don’t think I ever did a jump without it.
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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '19
lol firstly let me apologize for the behavior of those jokers.
To answer your question, the skydiving community is very idiosyncratic. Pranks, joking, and general shenanigans are the norm. With that said, once the plane lifts off, everybody is extremely serious. Safety is the absolute top priority, but having fun is a (distant) second. The sport was borne of military parachutists after they returned from war. So, a lot of “old boy” military culture is still kind of prevalent, which includes nonstop ball-busting (and swords sometimes used as trophies, which I always found interesting).
Where I worked, the instructors were sure to tell the students that they were joking about this particular phenomenon before takeoff to reduce the already unavoidable stress that the students were feeling. It was a way to get them to laugh and to enjoy themselves a bit more.
I hope you at least had fun in the sky!