A Champion's Journey
A Champion's Journey
From Trauma to Triumph: A Red Bull Athlete's Journey
Few comeback stories are as awe-inspiring as Mike Brewer's journey from a hospital bed to the elite Red Bull Air Force team. After a devastating accident that left him weighing just 120 pounds on his 6'1" frame with a traumatic brain injury, Mike transformed his recovery into a relentless pursuit of excellence that ultimately caught the attention of one of the most prestigious extreme sports teams in the world.
The mysterious Red Bull selection process culminated in a surprise announcement when team leader John DeVore presented Mike with his official helmet during a team debrief. "I had no idea until that helmet was in my hands," Mike reveals, describing the surreal moment that changed his professional trajectory. Within months, he was performing pyro jumps into the Hard Rock Hotel and landing in the starting grid at the Formula One Miami Grand Prix.
What makes Mike's story particularly compelling is his approach to training and risk. Through the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center, he received customized training addressing his unique needs after injury. Instead of shying away from danger, the accident transformed him into a more methodical athlete: "Now it's more like, have I checked all the boxes? Am I prepared? Are all the variables accounted for?" This mindset shift allowed him to continue pushing boundaries while managing risk effectively.
Beyond his professional achievements, Mike's involvement with charitable causes like 22 Jumps (22jumps.org) showcases his commitment to traumatic brain injury research and suicide prevention. Completing 22 base jumps in a single day – requiring nearly 11,000 feet of vertical hiking – demonstrates how he uses his platform for meaningful impact.
Whether you're an extreme sports enthusiast or simply someone seeking inspiration to overcome your own challenges, Mike's philosophy sums it up perfectly: "Have as much fun as possible without ruining it for anybody else." Subscribe now to hear the full conversation and discover what it takes to transform setbacks into extraordinary opportunities.
Welcome to a Champion's Journey podcast. I'm Matt Davidson. From an early age, I've had the privilege of learning from world champions and world-class performers, and I've always been fascinated by what drives them to the pinnacle of achievement. Thank you, who have stood on the top podium in arenas of high-level competition, but to learn from those who have conquered life's greatest challenges and have dared to live life on their own terms. I'd like to welcome my next guest back to the podcast, extreme sports athlete Michael Brewer. Mike, welcome back, brother.
Speaker 2:Hey.
Speaker 1:Matt, Good to be back. Appreciate you being here. We've got a lot to catch up on the last time we talked. You've done a lot since then. I guess we can add to your list of things a Red Bull athlete now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess so. You were hinting at it. Last time I was on the podcast and now here we are.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so if we can just go right into it and you can start to tell us all about that how did you get selected and then tell us all about the experience so exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's super exciting. Uh, I might be the worst person to tell you about the selection process. It was. It was all fairly mysterious and uh, kind of I was out of the loop the entire time. So I actually didn't know most of the story until I listened to, uh, john DeVore give a podcast on on the exit point podcast, and then I was like oh he told a lot of the story there.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh thanks, I never heard any of that, but as far as I know, the shortish version is back in like 2016. I think they were thinking about looking for, like, who they would keep their eye on. Jason Russell threw my name in the hat, or so I'm told, and then nothing happened for a long time. I kind of just he told me about that and then I forgot that that ever happened. And anyway, um, fast forward to somewhere in 2023, late 2023, I think. Um, maybe Shemlecki kind of was like hey, are you like not interested in being on Red Bull Cause? I've kind of been like subtly dropping hints, maybe that the guys kind of might like you and want to take a look. So if you want to not let that opportunity pass by, you should write an email. And I did and um, it was all very like a slow start, but basically, um, they started kind of bringing me on to little training camps or places where I could kind of just help them out using, like, maybe, my film skills or then, you know, brought me on to like crown crew demos, basically learn what the team does, and just see if I get along with the team and through that whole process, never once did they tell me how anything was going, like none of the team. I don't know if they would like get together at the end of uh of an event and like have some backdoor conversation, you know like debrief or whatever. I don't think anything like that was actually happening. But yeah, that's silly. Basically, uh, no one ever told me anything.
Speaker 2:And then in in late late november of last season, like 2024, uh john came to the, uh had up world record attempts and uh just was like hanging out amy was there, obviously, jeffro was there, our manager was there and I just figured it was because it was a world record event. And during one of the big team debriefs of like the the core, you know the 40 people uh john kind of like interrupted and was just like hey, I just want to you know like kind of change, change, change the channel here for a second. I'm gonna like give you a little speech and started talking about the team and how they hadn't added anybody in a really long time and you know whatever. And then kind of just pulled a helmet out from behind the television that we're debriefing off of with my name on it. That's awesome. It was a pretty wild moment and you had no idea.
Speaker 1:I had no idea I was gonna go down. That's cool, yeah, even like my friends.
Speaker 2:There were kind of mad at me because they thought, oh for sure, you should have known something was happening and you didn't tell me. And I was like I had no idea until until that helmet was in my hands. And then I was like, oh, here we go, Um so man, that's cool.
Speaker 1:I yeah I wonder if, um, I mean, in the skydiving community it's relatively small, right, and uh, I think if they have their eyes on, on someone, I would imagine that the you know, they're just you know, kind of gauging behavior experience and you know just how you interact with other people and those kinds of things I would imagine. Do you have any ideas how much of their selection is based off of, um, how to, how good of a teammate you are and you know how you talk to the public, uh, uh, as opposed or including, you know your experience and, uh, you know up to that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, again, I'm not the person to speak to this, I'm the new guy, for sure, um, but it it seems pretty safe to say that they care that a, you can do the job Like you represent the brand Well, you've got the skills, um, creativity, kind of that little extra I think that most people would expect from Red Bull athletes, um, and then definitely you need to be personable, um, and the Red Bull Air Force has been around for so long and it's been the same group, group of people more or less, um, and they get along really well and they work super well together and it's very important, I think, for them to preserve that. So it is. It must be scary for them to bring on somebody new and, um, yeah, I would expect that making sure that you fit into that equation is important, um, so, yeah, that's, I think, kind of the basics that I could safely speak to, but outside of that, I'm I'm the new guy.
Speaker 1:Right, oh man, so cool, it's gotta be so exciting. I mean, you're, uh, from all the media that you know, I see that you post it's uh, you know you're living my dream when you know, when I think I was, I was a younger guy and uh, you know you're just doing all the cool stuff. It's great, great to see and I'll bet it's really exciting. What was the next step for you? Uh, you went to um a couple of training camps, right?
Speaker 2:You're talking about like during selection, or like once I'd already, but once you'd already made it on um yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 2:It was pretty straight into the fire. You know like it was. It was a pretty, pretty hot start. I guess, um, I started kind of just doing, uh, some demos right away. And um got to do a demo back home in Salt Lake city, which was cool, and uh, yeah, a couple of projects, I think, um, I went and you know, filmed like a production gig, putting putting like a red camera on my head and helping out with that, and then, um, yeah, it's just been kind of straight into what the team does, um, and then, yeah, we did a training camp in the Bahamas Um, so there's like an annual training camp that the global team, the global aerial team, does, um, to kind of like get, get together, share ideas, uh, come up with cool content and then, you know, obviously like push ourselves and each other. So, uh, this year it happened in the Bahamas Um, and I mean it, it kind of broke the internet. I mean, if you're in air sports like you definitely saw all the videos if you're in air sports and you're on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, one of the ones that, uh, I remember was the uh, the aerobatic pilots doing some crazy low level stuff. You know around the Island there, the aerobatic pilots doing some crazy low level stuff. You know around the Island there, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean I really big shout out to those guys on the team. Um, yeah, aaron, uh, kevin Kirby, I mean like, uh, everyone kind of from the skydiving point of view, looks at what the Red Bull Air Force is and does and sees the skydiving side. But man, the aerobatic pilots that we have on the red bull air force are are absolutely next level super cool, super easy to work with and just like so good at what they do.
Speaker 1:and, uh, it just adds this insane dynamic to the team oh, it looks like all the athletes are you know up to that that incredible level too. And uh, seeing some of the stuff that you guys have done. You know over the to that that incredible level too. And uh, seeing some of the stuff that you guys have done you know over the past several months, like the, uh, where you guys were flying with Luke Aiken's plane, and can you tell us something about that? That looked really, really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was something that I got to do for the first time, uh, last April April I think um, during during like a a U S team train up, and uh, they were kind of all sitting around the hangar just like, oh yeah, we're gonna. You know, what should we do next? And Luke was like well, I have the, I have the silver plane, you know, like the one with the air brake on it, um, so we can free fall next to it. And so, you know, within 15 minutes, that evolved into like all right, cool, we're all going to like strap on a bunch of smoke, jump out of the otter, go carving with the, with the silver plane. And you know, like, again, that video just went crazy and the experience was insane. I mean, it's so beautiful, it's like the world's coolest sky ball ever.
Speaker 2:So, and I just remember thinking like, wow, that was 15 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon for these guys. Like I'm living in a different world right now. And wow, that was 15 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon for these guys. I'm living in a different world right now and yeah, that's so.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you to, like, walk us through what, something, how, something like that goes down from concept to execution, and so you're saying that that literally took 15 minutes. So you guys just came up with the idea, discussed it amongst yourselves and then, if you could, you know, just kind of walk us through the process.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean that would be a bit of an oversimplification because there was a lot of design work that went into making that plane.
Speaker 2:Um obviously, uh, the plane wasn't just, it was made for a plane swap. The stunt that Luke and Andy were doing together right, um, and with that plane, you know, like being designed specifically to be free fell next to by, uh, you know, by skydivers. Um, it was just kind of there and ripe for the opportunity. But to come up with, like the concept to go carve around it and just have a sick time around it and you, you know, strap a bunch of smoke on and get a good angle, filming it and some pictures and whatever, like yeah, that's kind of how the team works. They, they know what resources they have available and they're really creative and they like to have a good time and they know it looks good and it was just, yeah, that's kind of how the guys are.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and it's going to be super exciting to be around a group like that where everybody's you know operating at just another level as far as creativity, not only skill, you know, with uh, with what they specialize in, but but also you know that level of creativity. That's going to be really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and everybody on the team kind of like compliments each other. You know, um, like they're not nice to each. I mean they're nice to each other but, like. I don't mean, they compliment each other, you know like oh, you're so good at this.
Speaker 2:Like they each fulfill a role and you know each person is pretty good at everything, but one person is always going to be like really, really good at like one specific thing, and then those are all complimentary skills and, yeah, it just allows them to pull off crazy stuff and to be in that environment is super cool and it's like a little intimidating. Every once in a while I feel silly because creatively I'll kind of like bring up an idea and be like hey guys, what do you think of something like this? And they're like oh yeah, we did it in like 1998.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, okay, I'll, I was five. Um, I'll try again.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool. You know you're not afraid. It seems like an environment where you're not afraid to. You know, bring stuff up like that and you know who knows. You know, if you are find yourself in an environment where you're afraid to bring those kinds of ideas up, then you might miss something that wasn't done before. That might be the next you know thing that breaks the internet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one thing I can say is uh, I mean as much as the guys have done. They all still like to have a good time. So you know, even if it's already been done or whatever, maybe that we're just putting a twist on something new, like everyone seems really stoked to help out and that's really cool to kind of walk into, because I mean those. It was really intimidating for me. Uh, still is a little bit, and for sure was for like the first six months doing stuff for those guys.
Speaker 2:I was watching them as a teenager on the internet thinking like oh, one day it'd be really cool to do something like that. You know, it's kind of like pretty wild feeling to walk into that crew now and, um yeah, the fact that they're so open and willing to help and kind of stoked um to uh to help push ideas forward is, yeah, it's really helpful Um and in order like, toward like fostering creativity and keeping them keeping the energy high.
Speaker 1:Right, you're watching it when you're a kid and now you're doing it now. It's so awesome and especially considering you know some of the things with your uh, with the accident that you had a few years ago and how you've recovered from that, you know you just, you're just thriving on a thriving on a whole new level. We'll get into that a little bit. Um, I do want to talk about uh, oh, before we move on, uh, too, too much further. I would like to, uh, I wanted to ask you about the jump with the red camera. What was, uh, where were you shooting that for? And if you could talk about some of the preparation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, into that um, so red bull has recently gotten back into nascar so we were out there kind of like shooting a fun, silly little social content commercial. Um, where the Red Bull Air Force delivered some NASCAR tires to the drivers. Um, and uh and yeah, like we were just kind of like coming in to save the day or whatever.
Speaker 2:Um, so, yeah, we just needed someone to strap a camera to their head while uh, I think it was Luke and Andy tandemed some big NASCAR tires out the door of a caravan and uh, yeah, that was kind of the job. It was pretty fun. Um, as far as preparation goes, I know that they test jumped the tires and me is just like haven't really had the opportunity to jump cameras that big before, so I actually went out and rented a red camera. This is pretty easy to do and it's not very expensive actually to do that.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of companies out there that offer that service. So, yeah, I rented one um to help. So just so that I could like design the mount for it and make sure that it fit my helmet and that it was secure and that I I knew the ins and outs of the camera, Um, and then I went and test, jumped it a few times, shot some video of like.
Speaker 2:James Rogers doing a free routine in Z Hills kind of around the years. It was a really it was. It was fun kind of like side gig, just pick up some cool media and get to try something new and then that way I was able to show up on the day of the shoot and be comfortable and feel prepared nice.
Speaker 1:Oh, did you find any major differences?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a, it's a bigger camera than what you normally jump right yeah, um, and it's also more kind of like big film oriented, which in some ways means it's actually like way easier to use. It's very purpose-built um and when it's stripped down to its smallest size, it's still, yeah, a little bit bigger and more awkward than, like, some of the mirrorless cameras I typically shoot with, but it's actually not that bad, um.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's cool, cool and uh, and you know, talking about the creativity with some of the shoots I'm trying to remember, uh, uh, didn't you guys jump into I believe it was vegas. Uh, uh, the hard rock, uh, the hard rock hotel okay, I see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, flashing lights and giant guitar shaped hotel. Yeah, I see why you'd get that confused. I was actually in miami oh, okay right, probably one of the coolest weekends of my life so far. I'm super stoked that, uh, I was able to slide in on that one, but it was, uh, three demos in two days and was it for the?
Speaker 1:that was for the f1 race, right yeah, so it was f1 weekend.
Speaker 2:There was a uh the new york red bulls the soccer team versus inter miami um there was a match, so we jumped into the match. Um, that was really, really cool. Uh, it was a cool stadium. Uh, pretty pretty fun experience. And then, uh, we hauled tail straight from the stadium to the hard rock hotel well, to the airport to go get on the helicopter, to go jump into the hard rock hotel like an hour later, or something hour and a half.
Speaker 2:So then it was a night pyro jump into, uh, into the hotel. So it's this big guitar shaped hotel with lights, you know, like all over it just like neon crazy casino looking place. Um and uh, there's like a soundstage in the back and there, uh, sophie Tucker was playing an EDM concert, and then there's like a giant pool. So, um, we got to fly high performance parachutes with pyro on out of the helicopter at night past the hotel and then swoop into the pool so cool and just land in the water and then go to the sophie tucker party which was really really fun, oh yeah I love her music.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I bet that was fun it was fun and I had a. I had a total new guy moment on that one. I uh, I had flight issues getting in the night before, Uh, so I had like two hours of sleep or less.
Speaker 2:Um and uh, on top of some other little bumbles that day. Uh, I forgot, I brought the pyro. I brought the activators, you know the mount, everything, um, but I forgot my trigger, actually the to um fire the pyro at the hotel. So, um, sitting there panicking at the FBO as we're about to get picked up by the helicopter.
Speaker 2:Oh no what am I going to do? I'm going to have to do this jump with no pyro. It's kind of like the point of the jump for the crowd. It's just really embarrassing. And luckily I had, uh, sean and some buddies uh back at the hotel uh, who were able to kind of drop off the remote up by the helipad. So we did, we did a quick little pit stop on the helipad next to the hotel and then grab my pyro remote and then I was able to do everything business as usual.
Speaker 2:It was okay. But yeah, that was my my big new guy moment that week. I'm like oh never make that mistake again, right, yeah, um, and then, yeah, the next morning I got to jump into the starting grid of formula one, miami.
Speaker 1:Cool, yeah, super cool. Did you guys get to hang out in the pits as well?
Speaker 2:Um, not so much in the pits, but uh, red Bull has like the energy station there which is just kind of like three story constructed building with, like you know, like a couple of bars and uh places where you can watch the race, and it's like right on one of the hairpin turns at the end of one of the streets, so it's like a pretty high action area. So, yeah, we hung out there and watched most of the race and then bailed out.
Speaker 1:With so many highlights so far, what's? What's one of the ones that stands out to you most?
Speaker 2:I mean that weekend was huge. Otherwise, I think the Bahamas was one of my favorite just overall experiences and if I had to pick like a specific jump from the Bahamas, it would be jumping out of Aaron's helicopter over the water and then linking up with Kevin, um one of the aerobatic pilots, um under parachute, and then he was flat spinning his plane while I was spiraling my parachute and we were so close together so he's just basically doing the equivalent of drifting his plane like in control out of control. But he's just basically doing the equivalent of drifting his plane like in control out of control. But he's got it locked down, like uh, and I was right next to him like could hear the airplane, like can see, wow, like I could read things on his helmet. You know we're like really close together and just like. It was just one of the craziest visuals. It was one of those moments where I was really like, okay, is this real life, right?
Speaker 1:real life or a movie man. You get back to the back to the room at night and you're just like did all that just happen?
Speaker 2:yeah and it's kind of that same surreal experience of like that wasn't an insanely planned out thing that we spent a month prepping for. You know, I was like part of the air show routine that we do at air shows so I was actually just getting spun up to speed on what part of my job is it was.
Speaker 1:It was like kind of the quote-unquote boring work jump you know I was like, oh, this is one of the one of the routine things, man. Uh, you guys did the the jackalope Festival as well. Right, demo there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that wasn't with Red Bull, but that was a super, super cool event with a bunch of really good friends and good people. So basically, for people who haven't heard of that festival, it's called Jackalope Fest and it's kind of a traveling action sports festival. It's mainly based around skateboarding, but this one had some high lining base jumpers um, freestyle, motocross, skimboarding, things like that. So it happened in Virginia beach. Um, there's a couple other locations, but uh, ours was in Virginia beach, got to jump off of a small hotel and do like a base accuracy competition, Um, yeah, it was really fun time getting to jump off a legal building, uh, in front of a crowd. That's something that almost never happens, especially in the United States.
Speaker 1:So and so cool. Yeah, I was asked by, uh, one of the event organizers. They were doing something with some uh, some tandems um, for gold star families, I believe and they asked me to come down and DJ. I wasn't able to do it that, but uh, uh, hopefully I'll leave the schedule open if they still want me to come back next year. That'd be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you get the chance, I highly recommend it. It was super entertaining and I got to meet Bob Burnquist, who's like oh yeah, good vibes all around.
Speaker 1:That's great, those uh full circle moments, and I'm sure you know, being on the on the Red Bull team, you'll experience a lot more of those in the years to come, um, and I look forward to, you know, seeing and hearing about those. Um, now I'd like to get into your physical training. One of the things that I first noticed about you when you walked in the door was that you put on some, some muscle mass. You know you look really solid and uh, um, you know it's been quite the journey for you from. You know the injuries that you saying from your accident a few years back. And if you could just kind of uh, tell us what your program is like and maybe you know, walk us through. You know what you've done to to get to where you are now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, first of all, yeah, super cool and stoked that people notice that's nice, cause I've never been a muscular guy in my life. I was a cross country runner for my whole life and I still value endurance and I I train that pretty intensely as well. But, um, basically it started with recovering from my accident. I kind of lost all my muscle mass everywhere. You know what little I did have. Um, I got down to 120 pounds when I was in the hospital at six foot one, um, so I was just from that point forward working on getting my body back to healthy status to be able to base, jump and skydive and speed fly again. So I kind of started that and then never stopped and um, it's been super nice. Just, my routine is basically kind of just five, six days a week, training different muscle groups every day, so usually hitting them, kind of like hitting each muscle group two or three times a week and um, and then just doing endurance pretty much every day, trying to run at least like 20 miles a week and um, yeah, uh, the biggest thing that changed for me after you know, like you know, being super skinny to being only a little skinny is, uh, I started eating. Also, apparently, you got to eat big to stay big or whatever, right, so.
Speaker 2:But the big part of that process that changed the game a lot for me was getting to go to the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center, apc, and it's basically a training center offered to Red Bull athletes. There's one in Santa Monica and there's one in Austria, um, and basically when you go there, you have a team of kind of like health and fitness professionals all smushed into one small space. Um, so, uh, if you imagine, like a gym, on one side of the gym you have, uh, you know, people whose job it is to evaluate your strength and conditioning and your body mechanics, and then you know, you move to like the next room. You got like physical therapists and you move to like the next space, and you've got like personal trainers. You got mental performance coach, nutritionists, uh, like a ucla doctor, like an orthopedic surgeon, so you've got all of these resources that an athlete could prospectively need just kind of blended into one space like almost one room, and and then obviously all the equipment that goes with it and it's super cool.
Speaker 2:So it's something that Red Bull offers. And I went and kind of showed up, got evaluated, figured out where my deficiencies are and where I'm good and then came up with a unique training plan to me to help improve those deficiencies Right and balance everything out and get my body moving as effectively as it can and specific toward my athletic needs for my sport. So, yeah, I mean couldn't be more grateful. It's one of the many ways that Red Bull is like a very supportive partner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that seemed like an incredible experience. I was super jealous. I'd love to be able to attend something like that. You know, I would just imagine there are so many eye-opening moments for you as far as where you're deficient, because I consider myself a pretty fit guy. But whenever I go to any of those kind of assessments, my eyes are always open to where I'm lacking, and in some cases, a lot more than I thought I was. Was there anything like that for you that was really eye-opening? Or like, oh man, I need to focus on this particular part of my uh overall. You know, physical regimen, physical training regimen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some things were obvious, um, and some things not so much. Um. Even with the obvious ones, though, the impressive thing is that they're able to there there's so much information from varying sources in one space that the team is really able to come up with a good solution that suits your lifestyle, which is something you'll almost never get. As someone like me or really any of the other Red Bull athletes, where you're kind of on the road all the time, you're doing things that are not quite mainstream, it's really hard to find good medical and health advice that suit that lifestyle, um, but, for instance, I won't get too far into it, but like my right quad, because I had a right knee injury uh atrophied a lot.
Speaker 2:And then, um, using that knee in certain ways you know some conventional ways, like if I use a leg extension machine, it's extremely painful, um, which makes it pretty hard to rebuild your quad Um, and the team's able to like immediately identify that, then onsite, do an ultrasound check, like my knees, health in general and kind of like, and then come up with a plan to allow me to train that specific region without damaging it any further.
Speaker 2:And even in the last couple of months, after having that um consult, basically, uh, everything is starting to get a lot stronger and it hurts less and it's just like man, I'm so thankful because my quality of life is improving. My ability as an athlete stands to improve a lot If I, you know, just get that area stronger and I think, in general, like I'll be less injury prone by not having a massive imbalance. Um, so, yeah, uh, I think that's like the. The big cool thing is that they're able to give me a training plan for what happens when I'm on the road in a different country and don't know where the nearest gym is and don't have all my equipment that I would normally have at home and can't quite use my knee that one way, so I can do it this other way instead.
Speaker 1:It's just really cool, they give you like a hotel room workout thing, as an option. Yeah, they give me both.
Speaker 2:They're like here's what you can do at a gym and then here's what you can do at a gym.
Speaker 1:And then here's what you can do if all you have is like an exercise band and like a towel rack. That's awesome. Yeah, you'll figure it out. Macgyver, it right? Yeah, uh, very cool. What did you find most challenging? Uh, was there a particular exercise? Or like the? Uh, I've never done it, but like the vo2 max thing where you have on the, the mask with all the tubes and that kind of stuff. Uh, did you find anything that was more, more challenging than you thought it was going to be?
Speaker 2:Uh, the VO two max was fun it was. I mean, I have an endurance background so I kinda I was.
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, sign me up, let's do this.
Speaker 2:Um, and I was excited about that Uh kind of. One of the surprisingly challenging things was, um, when you're doing your kind of initial testing, your baseline testing for all of your, you know, physical whatever you've got all of these machines and cameras and timers and systems and whatnot that measure the way that you move. So if you're doing like vertical jump, you're jumping off pressure plates in a room with like cameras that are tracking your body movement and then the pressure plates are showing, like when your greatest point of acceleration was, and you can extrapolate that and see, okay, like what part of the jump was that? So, like, where am I strongest and which leg is pushing harder? If there, are they pushing evenly? And how am I landing? I mean it's insane, um.
Speaker 2:And then there's other things like there's basically like a raw leg strength machine or like head strength or like hip strength. There's like all these machines and basically what they do is either only let you move at a set pace, no matter how hard you push um, or don't, don't really let you move at all, which is such a defeating way to work out, like you're just maximizing pressure into something that will never give, which is the opposite of kind of like that motivating feature that happens when you go to the gym and you're like I'm going to lift a heavy weight today I'm going to move something around.
Speaker 1:And yeah, sometimes just moving the object is enough to get you going. Yeah, you're all stuck.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, you achieved a goal, right, and so here the goal is like, push it as hard as you can, but it will never move, and that, yeah, I think in the specific training session that was one of the most challenging things.
Speaker 1:Um, you also do some agility training, right, or a mental agility training. Um, you know like, uh, I think I saw you doing something and it was kind of like the F1 guys were there. You know there's a, a board full of you know lights or something to that effect. You know where you're having to if the light you know goes off and you're having to react to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's um pretty comprehensive testing options on the mental side as well, which is cool. So, like reflexes, decision-making, multitasking, um focus switching, like there's all kinds of ways to test and train that. And yeah, those are interesting, difficult, fun, you know it's uh. I think it's important to exercise your brain as well, especially in sports like parachute. Sports are so mental, um there is a physical component to them Absolutely, but at the end of the day, um a lot of what we do is like working memory, um reaction times, uh decision-making, um. So is the value of that is very evident to me and I'm very stoked to have the that training opportunity now.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, scott, having or any other extreme sports. You know, when some, uh oftentimes, you're required to real-time problem solve in a very condensed amount of time, you know, whatever, whatever you're doing, you're having to, uh, uh, you know, just just figure some things out. So, yeah, I can. I can see where that would be very applicable. Uh, was there any one test that you found that?
Speaker 2:um, that is, that has helped you I think um anything, cause I've only done one session of testing in there with them so far, so I haven't gotten to see like if there's been definitive improvement or whatever Um, I see some of the tests that would obviously help, right Um, and you know like I'll continue to do those exercises and whatever Um, but I I think, if you're asking like personally, um, the answer I could give would be that after having a brain injury, um, you're always curious where you stack up and how you're doing, and I find that mental testing is a really nice numeric way to prove to yourself that you're still on par with excellent athletes. So that was like one nice thing from that experience was doing that testing and realizing I'm still awesome at you know, I guess it came off a little, a little, uh, boastful.
Speaker 2:That's not what I meant, but you know what I mean, just like, okay, my brain still works at the capacity that it needs to in order to, uh, to, do this sport at a super high level right, yeah, that's got to uh just up your confidence level.
Speaker 1:You know a whole, whole lot, I would imagine yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's great to see you crushing the game of life, since you had, uh, the accident a few years ago, um, and it was such a severe accident that I think for a lot of people it would cause them to change the way that they were doing things, maybe reevaluate life choices and, you know, maybe consider a different path in life. But for you it seems to have done the opposite, like you seem to have, you know, ramped up and doubled down on everything you were doing before. How has that experience changed your perspective on the way that you live your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good question and I think one thing that I noticed, that you also noticed and stated in your question, is I seem to have, quote unquote good question, and I think one thing that I noticed that you also noticed and stated in your question is I seem to have, quote unquote doubled down, and it's not that I doubled down about, you know, like pushing harder, taking more risks or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Um, when, I woke up, um, from my accident, my first goal was to get back to flying, like flying is my life, it's part of who I am. I love it. It makes me smile more than anything else on earth, um, and that's why I'm where I am and, uh, with that being the case, um, it also the accident made me way more focused, and I think that's what you're seeing externally is me having doubled down, um, um, I had a lot of time in the hospital to think about everything that I hadn't accomplished yet, and I was, like you know, at I think it was 29 at the time. I was, you know, 29 years old, feeling old in the sport and like, ah, you know whatever uh a little bit.
Speaker 2:And uh then having that moment where I crashed and almost lost all of it and just seeing like, oh, I really wanted to make this happen, I really wanted to do that. You know all these things and didn't get a lot of things done, so better start doing them now. And uh, yeah it. It allowed me to have like a really strong motivation and just focus and clarity uh push me um, or allowed me to push myself uh to where you see now, I guess. And uh, it's cool because that that focus is uh self-propelling in a way, like it grows on itself, because you start getting more successes and getting those goals and seeing the next opportunities and it's like, okay, here we go off to the races again compounding interests and paying dividends for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a better way to put it for sure, um, how has the experience of the accident affected the way that you mitigate risk?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, definitely, being someone who had never been hurt in the sport, I was willing to take maybe more risks, even though I always considered myself fairly conservative, and I think I was, you know. But like there is kind of a line where what is it?
Speaker 2:Normalization of deviance or whatever where basically nothing's happened yet, so nothing will that's like the logical fallacy and uh, I I think I kind of fell into that trap a little bit of getting used to getting away with things, um, for whatever reason. And now I'm much, much more pragmatic. I'm still willing to to push hard and and grow and, you know, reach for the boundaries of what I'm capable of. But uh, there's not really any situations anymore where I'm in my head like, oh, I can't really picture exactly how this is going to go, but I think I'll give it a shot. You know, now it's more like have I checked all the boxes? Am I prepared? Are all the variables accounted for to the best of my ability? And I'm still human, so things could still happen. But I think they're less likely to happen when you operate kind of in that mindset.
Speaker 1:What do you do during your time to relax your time off?
Speaker 2:said what do you do during your time to relax your time off Skydive?
Speaker 1:I definitely go to work for fun.
Speaker 2:Um, but uh, there's some other things I'm really interested in. Um, it's really hard to actually to come up with answers that don't involve flying and doing what I what I'm very obviously do but, uh, I mean something that's like a little less well-known. I'm super in love with rock climbing. Um, it's something I've really really liked since maybe I was 20, 21 years old and, uh, I did it at like a a pretty high level for a non-professional for a while. You know, like, uh, did some amateur competitions and, you know, took it pretty seriously and had a period where I trained hard and I'm kind of very interested in seeing if I can combine that into some of what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2:You know, uh, so I'm back on the back on the rock climbing horse. Uh, pretty good right now and, yeah, excited to see if I can combine parachute stuff with it. But for the most part, it's still just something I really really enjoy for fun. Otherwise, I love playing guitar. Same thing kind of had a period where I hit it really hard. Now, you know, with the career and all my focus being dedicated somewhere and being on the road all the time, it's not as easy to keep up with all the time, but it still makes me so happy when I go home and just get to like strum out a couple of songs for a couple of hours or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same thing for me. I've been keeping in the living room just so, you know, I don't have to necessarily dedicate a whole big chunk of time to, but whenever I, you know, the mood strikes me and I want to go get in 15 minutes practice or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's super important to have those non air sports ways to kind of detune or unwind at the end of the day or kind of make your brain work in a different way. So yeah, I love stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Sure, getting back to the climbing, I remember you know climbing when you were at the gym a couple of times here at TRC in Fayetteville. You know you're just to me, you're phenomenal. You know I was maybe climbing, you know, trying to mess around with some 510s and you're doing, you know, 512s. Do you feel like you've gotten better as a climber now that you've got some more muscle mass, or do you find that that actually hurts you a little more on the wall? Or what's that experience like for you?
Speaker 2:It's interesting, I never stopped climbing during the period where I was exercising and I also haven't gained a crazy amount of weight.
Speaker 2:I've gained a little weight for sure, but like I remember reading an article once where they're talking about the debate, you know, amongst professional climbers between being light and being strong, because there's kind of like a maybe an eating disorder problem in the climbing community for a little bit and maybe ongoing, I don't know, because I'm not really super deep in that world but and someone just put it pretty flatly, like I would rather feel strong than feel light. And uh, that's kind of how I feel, right, like my body has adapted well to adding muscle mass and whatever. Um, because I've been climbing the entire time I've been doing it and now I just feel more stable, less likely to get injured and way stronger on the wall, and uh, I still seem to have like a similar level of strength and endurance. Uh, I'm not climbing at a lower grade, that's for sure. So, yeah, if anything, I'm climbing better than I ever have, and that's just before even throwing down a lot of really focused training.
Speaker 2:So going to TRC right after this conversation.
Speaker 1:Oh, cool, yeah, and can you talk about any of the ideas or the projects that you have that you know, combine climbing and skydiving? You'll see them. Okay, sounds fair enough. Um, I'd like to move on and talk about a? Uh different topic.
Speaker 1:I was uh doing some research on the 22 jumps uh website today and, um, at the uh, the bottom of the the the page, it had a video and it had uh, kiernan Wimmer and, um, he was doing a uh, a base jump.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, I believe it was a wingsuit base jump and it looked, you know, like a pretty normal jump. His, uh, his canopy open looked like maybe he had a uh, a belly or, you know, chest mounted camera and it was, uh, you know, looking up at him, you could see his face and the canopy in the background. After he opened that, you know, it seemed pretty uneventful. You can see him looking around, flying around and, um, he doesn't have a real excited look on his face. But then you see, uh, you know, he just says motherfucker and then he uh, you know, just dropped straight into the water. Then the screen goes black and a quote pops up. It said said lesson learned If you die before your edit is finished, you don't get the final cut and that, uh, you know that that kind of uh gave me some goosebumps, but if you can talk about the 22 jumps project, your involvement with it and uh, uh, how that relates to Kiernan's story, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So basically, for those of you that don't know the kind of statistic that got thrown around social media a while ago, there's this statistic that 22, uh, veterans commit suicide daily um in the United States, and obviously that's a very sad statistic, but it's where the name 22 Jumps comes from. The founder's brother incurred a traumatic brain injury, did not recover well from it and eventually wound up taking his own life, and the founder started this initiative to try to help make sure that that never happens again. So the goal of 22 Jumps is to use base jumping and air sports as a vehicle to raise awareness and raise funds for traumatic brain injury research and suicide prevention. And, from what I've seen, they do a really good job of that um, with what they have to work with. And, uh, I got involved with the organization loosely um back in 2023, uh, just kind of met some of the guys, learned a little bit about them and it was post injury for me, um, so obviously it's close to home.
Speaker 2:I work with the military. Often I've experienced a traumatic brain injury. I understand how lonely that place can be and how helpless that place can feel. So, um, I wanted to do what I could to help out, um, so I did media for them for a little bit, just kind of like volunteered my time to make some videos and do some edits and, uh, little things I could do to just help promote the message. And then, um, this year, uh, I was invited to participate in a fundraising event at the pride bridge where me and two other jumpers, um, went and made 22 base jumps in a day. So really you know fun up front when you think about it, like I'm going to go make a bunch of base jumps, but at the same time you start thinking about the logistics. It's all foot powered right. So if I jump down 22 times, I got to climb up 22 times. It wound up being somewhere just under 11,000 feet of vertical hiking in seven hours with 22 base jumps in there.
Speaker 2:So it kind of becomes, uh, from that regard, more of a an endurance effort, with base jumping breaks and uh it was. It was a really fun experience, super humbling and uh, really motivating. It kind of reminded me of, maybe like the wings for life run, uh, that kind of uh feeling where you're pushing your body really hard, but it's for a good reason, so you're willing to do it. And yeah, um.
Speaker 1:I had a great time. Uh, were there packers? Uh, that that helped you, so you didn't have to worry about that part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a team packing for us. I mean, that was hugely helpful. It would have taken way longer if you had to stop at the top every time and pack.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And also there were like medics on site. There's a nutrition team down at the bottom who was kind of like keeping track of your hydration levels and your energy levels and kind of like what was going on with your body? Are you cramping? What do you need? Do you need this or that? And just basically, every time we land which wound up being every 15 to 20 minutes um would just be like shoving food down your throat or, you know, like if you start bonking at the end cause your body's all tapped out of energy, and like shoving Red Bull and honey, water and whatever you need to kind of carry you through the last couple hours. So they were super helpful. Yeah, it was a good team and couldn't have done it otherwise. I mean, I could have, but it would have taken all day and all night.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I've only done that jump once and you know the hike out was pretty, pretty leisurely, uh, you know, so I can imagine you guys were having to to push pretty hard to, you know, to make sure that you get those 22 jumps in. And um, yeah, I can't remember how did you have a? Uh, did you have any kind of lap times on that? Were you keeping track of any of their? Were any of the the team kind of keeping track of that? Yeah, I was keeping track of it because their were any of the team kind of keeping track of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was keeping track of it because, uh, I got a little competitive, especially with one of the other jumpers. One of the guys jumped like first, you know, in the event and so there was like a couple minute gap, um, between him jumping and then me jumping and then the other guy jumping, and maybe 10 jumps into the event. Uh, the guy who had jumped first was like had almost caught up to me and it became, it became a thing. So we started racing each other and I ended up being able to like put a bunch of time back on them and I think it was more or less even by the end. But, um, yeah, so I was thrown.
Speaker 2:I think we were doing three jumps an hour. So it was basically, you know, when you include putting the gear on and you know like stowing your stash bag and getting prepped on the railing and then doing the jump and then stashing your gear and whatever, like the hike is pretty fast. Um, I don't know how long it usually takes, but we're doing it fairly quickly so yeah, probably like 10 years ago when I was, when I was doing it.
Speaker 1:so, uh and man, that was such a fun jump with uh, um, yeah, with miles and Travis Pastrana, oh man. Could have picked a better crew to go jump with Um, well, man, I really appreciate you coming out. Uh, you know, it's been cool to to quickly catch up, you know, on on a lot of things that are going down in your life. And, um, I was just wondering, uh, before we uh shut things down here, what's uh, what's next for you?
Speaker 2:Um well, uh, I've got uh the next kind of like out there thing that I'm pretty excited about. I'm heading to Italy in like two and a half weeks and, uh, hopping on a helicopter and doing uh some kind of like heli base tours for a few days in the Dolomites. So we'll just get motored up to the top and dropped off and basically just boogie and get a bunch of jumps from really high altitude base jumps out in the Dolomites without having to do any hiking. So, yeah, a whole bunch of wingsuiting, playing with friends. That's kind of the next thing. I'm pretty stoked on.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, and if you could sum up, your, your approach to life.
Speaker 1:what would it be? Uh, have as much fun as possible without ruining it for anybody else. I love it. Thank you so much, brother. Yeah, Thank you.
