A delayed happy birthday to me

For my birthday much earlier this year a group of people lead by my sneaky wife got together and surprised me with gift voucher. It wasn't for socks either it was to do a stuntman course at the Filmpark Babelsberg with their resident stuntcrew. Mainly we were training and doing the stunts inside the Volcano where they do a regular show based on Mad Max.

There are videos from this little adventure too, I'm out of disk space right at the moment so can't edit them, After all I need to remove all traces of me squealing like a little girl. Will try and post them later on today if I get a chance.

We got to climb over their "set" and see what it looks like to jump off the places where they do it. Sure is a great view from the top of that 40m mast, pity the air cushion looks like a hanky and there's about 6m of sharp painful looking metal stuff that you have to cross horizontally before you reach it. Needless to say they didn't let us jump from the highest points.

Most of the first morning was learning how to fall and roll, forwards and backwards. Got a bit boring but is probably better than breaking your arms, legs or neck later on ;-)

White man can't jump, but they can fall. It was falling from a modest height of 2.3m (left photo) to start with - effective fall to the mats about 1.7m. Nobody else in the group wanted to be first, so in order to actually get on with it I scrambled up the ladder. It isn't a great height, the mats are soft so there's no drama right? Well the mat is only about 50cm wide so you shouldn't miss or it's concrete for you. Also to jump you are supposed to kick up one leg thus swinging you forwards and tilting your body back so you land flat on your back. This has the disconcerting feeling of letting you think you will bash your head on the rusty metal platform. Thankfully that didn't happen.
Then it's time to go again, in the same order - so me first again only this time it's from 4m (right photo) effective fall 3.4m. A 50cm wide mat from hear does look a bit more like a postage stamp. That and I think all those years in SES where you were supposed to stay on whatever it was you were on combined to make it a bit harder to get off of this one. Though I did actually manage it the landing didn't feel any different to the shorter jump - some very nice softish mats they've got.

You're on fire baby - The first day ended as all good days do with a nice little fire. The difference here was that it was us that were on fire. Unlike the big fat guy I did manage to fit into the heat proof racing suit, over which is a glass fibre outfit, then a blanket doused in petrol. Just add matches and you're practically cooking with gas. The disappointing thing was that wearing all that stuff you could hardly even hear the fire, let alone feel it.

On the second day we got to release some of the days frustrations by beating each other up, this tall muscular guy didn't stand a chance...

Then we did some abseiling, about 35m. Nothing unusual and always fun.

And to finish a nice quiet ride home into the sunset

A huge thank you to everyone who put in to get me this gift it was great fun and definitely a top present.

Jack...