Why I fell in love with Adventure Sports?

Sometimes in life you stumble upon something, with only your curiosity leading the way and you happen to discover that you like it. Serendipity, perhaps. It happened to me when I went for my first skydiving experience, few years back. Until that point of time, I hadn’t dabbled in adventure stuff much barring few hiking or trekking. In the run up to my skydive, I watched lots of videos on skydiving and adventure sports in general, read quite a lot on the subject and even spoke to a person in my circle who had done it. But I wasn’t prepared for the aftermath that followed- the rush of adrenalin and the feeling of high energy that it provided got me hooked on to exploring more adventures. Looking back, I think to myself what’s it about adventure sports that keeps me coming back to them. To my mind, it could be distilled down to these 5 attributes —

1. High energy — sports, in general (so do adventure sports) demand energy and thinking, preparing, participating in them sets you in a high energy zone, even super-charging your efforts in other facets of life. Talk about the rub-off effect!
2. High motivation and drive to explore more of the world actively — if you just want to get physically fit, there are other avenues like gym, running and so on. Then why choose adventure sports? Because, there is more to it than just the physical aspect. The inner drive to explore and do more is inherent in every human, it’s just laying dormant in the busyness of day-to-day life. As PADI Scuba certification program proclaims, ‘Your world is about to get bigger’.
3. Resiliency — you get back in the arena again and again, despite injuries or setbacks. Nothing can keep you down. This doesn’t mean though that you go out there and indulge yourself in adventure sports in a flippant manner, making yourself prone to injuries. But rather you go out there mentally and physically prepared, actively managing the risks involved.
4. Courage to push the limits of your comfort zone — not intimidated by the challenges but choosing instead to push the envelope of your abilities.
5. a process of Self-discovery , — doing something that you never thought possible before by ignoring those non-affirmative voices in your head, for ex., “I can’t even swim, how can I do Triathlon?”

In nutshell, the immense mental growth and positive psychological affirmations that adventure sports provide are immense, facilitating the creation of a better, faster and stronger You 2.0.

(The physical benefit aspects of it could be another post in itself).