posted Oct 20th, 2016 - It is very difficult for me to disconnect from the core part of formation-skydiving competition, the athletic part, with numbers on scoreboards, especially when an event like the world championships at the Mondial 2016 are just around the corner. Round 1 starts in eight days...

However, I decided to drop a preview of the event when Lara and Kolla at Blue Skies told me they plan to cover an area of skydiving very close to my heart as well, with a great question for the October issue: "Who's making your jumping life better right now?"

I thought that the aftermath of the Mondial 2016 would probably be more interesting than a preview anyway, as we will know the scores, the stories and the new world champions. So it makes only sense now to follow their lead and give credit to all the people who are making my own jumping life a better one.

Turning Points - Thank you from the heart

I am still jumping and tunnel flying, however, I will relate this question more to my professional life, where skydiving is luckily a very big part. In fact, not much in my life is not related to skydiving, besides the family, although they all know the skies too.

There are quite a few wonderful people making my skydiving life better right now - besides all the other ones who are still alive and have done so in the past. It would have been impossible for me to bring the National Skydiving League with its international network and the SKYLEAGUE.COM website to the point where it is now without the voluntary help of league and event organizers.

This is not a professional organization that can compensate for any services that are needed. In fact, the income is barely enough to feed my own family on the lower level of the suffering and slowly disappearing U.S. middle class. I wish I was able to hire staff and league directors and pay them well and turn this into a real professional organization. It's only a wish, even though I have not given up on this idea...

Anyhow, I could do pretty much everything by myself when it was only the Florida Skydiving League at the very beginning. This changed when other regions started their own leagues and then joined to form the National Skydiving League.

People like Glen Hauenstein in Georgia, Sandy Grillet in the Northern Plains, Alan Butt in the Midwest, Jan Klapka in the Czech Republic, Andy Scott in the United Kingdom, Mike Pennock and Gerhard Schut in the Netherlands were and are just as passionate about 4-way formation skydiving competition and the social network that comes with it as I have been since I started skydiving. They have put their own time and efforts and sometimes even money into the regional leagues that made it possible at all to run such an organization.

Now I have only mentioned the friends who are not so active any longer, except for Jan Klapka, who still can't get enough of it in the Czech Republic, and I surely miss the intense interaction and conversations with all of them. There are still many people with the same passion and desire everywhere right now, who I am honored to know through my job.

I can find this new generation of selflessly giving people in all kinds of different areas. There are new league directors in the South (Brandy Verhalen), Al BeVier and Ginger Gese in the Northern Plains, Lori Connor in Northern California, Yo Owyeong and Josh Hall in Southern California, Deb Correia in the Northwest, JaNette and Steve Lefkowitz in the Midwest, and John Meyer in Virginia, who all keep 4-way competition going in the regions.

It does not stop there. The new Indoor Cloud League and all the related indoor activities have their own supporters, who are often highly engaged in the regional and national outdoor competition, as well. Amanda Lampton (Dallas 360) brings skydivers into the 4-way world in Texas, together with Spaceland Lite's Katrina and Devon Shows, supported by never-tiring Scott Latinis in Dallas and in Houston both.

The brave new indoor world has also one person in the background who never appears in the spotlight and who was a crucial supporter of the ICL beginnings. Trevor Thompson has worked for SkyVenture and iFLY forever and got never tired of supporting any new ICL team. Of course, it is also business on his marketing end, however, everybody who knows Trevor also knows that there is more behind his support than only the actual job.

And it still does not stop there. The NSL website has become a deep and complicated monster on the back end. There is no way that I would be able to tame it without any help. The actual webmaster, who is also a passionate 4-way competitor (pick one of the 99 Teiwaz members...) puts a significant amount of his own work and time into it, voluntarily, because he likes it (and wants to remain anonymous...)

Last and surely not least, there are the numerous 4-way fans who bring events and stories to my attention as voluntary reporters. The journalistic end of the NSL would be different without them...

Let's keep it short, and forgive me if I forgot someone: Thank y'all, from the heart...