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My youtube channel is kinda paraglide-centric, but also features philosophy and radical honesty as I bring technical lessons about flying as well as a deep inquiry about the emotional, philosophical and spiritual side of this amazing sport.

Ari in the Air

Ari in the Air
Paragliding tutorial on how to change the world! lol. Trying something a bit different with these philosophy of paragliding videos. Got some inspiration from Jordan B. Peterson, from Will Ferrell and Patrick Star. Paragliding has so much philosophy behind it, we'd be seriously missing out if we didn't dive into it. Support this channel! Please! www.patreon.com/ariintheair or www.paypal.me/ariintheair Also check out www.ariintheair.com - cool new website dropping this week! You can always get a hold of me at ariintheair@gmail.com for any questions, gear sales, or whatever! Cheers mateys
How Paragliding can CHANGE THE WORLD!
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_qtyOIz9WUyo
My thoughts on the recent fires and the surrounding anecdote that I'm wrestling with today. Support this channel by donating at www.paypal.me/ariintheair And become part of the movement at www.ariintheair.com Before dawn, I woke up with a scratch in my throat and a smell in my nose. The window was open in the living room and I instantly knew that was a mistake. The west is ablaze, and the smoke follows all of us. I’ve lived in Oregon for all my life. August and September are the months of the red sun, the one you can look right at, even mid day. But this year, the year of what the fuck, the year that we hear the ecology louder than we ever have, the year that we reap what we sow, this year has a different taste to the smoke. This year it tastes like a nuanced confusion. You see, the forest is beautiful. Most of us agree, yet for a long while we’ve been clear-cutting it down into the form of a paycheck. This is a pole on a spectrum that we are recognizing to be bad; a heavy handed, devastating form of resource extraction. Luckily, environmentalism came in a few decades ago and we started protecting these beautiful places by closing them to logging, to access and to exploit. Now we’re on the far pole of inaction. “Let it be.” Well actually, we’re beyond that pole and we’re in the territory of being a day late and a dollar short as all these beautiful forests that we’ve left alone burn in such a torrential inferno that they take entire towns down with them. We’re on a polarized pendulum of decision making, between our paternal instinct to control and our maternal instinct to nurture and to let live. If we go with all yin, we’ll chop down the forests in a matter of decades. If we gol all yang, we could lose all the forests and the towns inside of them in a matter of months. Either way, we end up stuck between a rock and a hard place ‘cause there’s no more trees to make soft shady spots to lay down. This isn’t about forestry, although it's a relevant and salient metaphor and although we’re currently inhaling forest mismanagement. This is about a deeper inquiry about making nuanced, difficult decisions that have ramifications that far outstretch our ability to clearly foresee them. It’s about swinging around on a polarized pendulum of opinion as opposed to aiming for the bullseye of wisdom. Questions that come to mind are; How much of my own struggle should I address myself vs reaching out for support? What is the healthiest balance between comfort and security and uncertainty and risk in my life? How much of your child’s struggle should you solve for them? How much of a ‘safe-space’ should college campuses be? How much welfare should the government hand out? How much of the forest should we deliberately manage and how much of it should we just leave alone? Here in Oregon, right now, within a 5-mile spread, we can go observe the negative sides of both approaches. We can walk through a clear cut - utter devastation of a natural environment, slash piles, bulldozer tracks, sawdust. And not far away we can look at a pristine forest with 300’ tall tornadoes of flames erupting from them. Entire communities literally burned flat, people dying in cars trying to escape, having the tires melted right off of em’. Let us take just a moment to recognize, acknowledge and mourn the loss that comes in the wake of natural disaster, and this natural disaster. A lot of fear and grief and pain burns across the west right now. I feel it and I’m sorry. Let's also recognize and acknowledge the pain and confusion that comes in these predicaments; in these places where we desperately need nuance and we don’t have it. In these places, both real and subjective, where we are clinging to a pole or are swinging wildly between them. In a moment of detachment from perspective, we can acknowledge just how painful this polarity of opinion really is. It’s an obvious swing when you see the space of opinion between a logging family and a liberal conservationist one, libtards and trump supporters. It's even more painfully obvious in myself as I swing between externalizing my experience onto outside circumstance- blaming the outside world, and internalizing it all as a fault of my own. Swings are supposed to be fun. This one, not so much. Wu-wei, the middle path, the nuanced way, the examined life, the tao, the godhead, the truth, the light. Harmony, balance, symbiosis, homeostasis, nature, peace, acceptance and love. This is the bullseye. But what do our thoughts, feelings and behaviors look like to move towards the truth? The path of right action is so thin, it is a razor’s edge and needs to be acknowledged as such.
The West is Ablaze
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_m_hWGe2yMQQ
Gavin McClurg is one of the legends of American paragliding. He's been the NatGeo Adventurer of The Year, he's competed in the Redbull X-Alps 3 times, he's sailed around the world and he's the host of the best paragliding podcast out, The Cloudbase Mayhem Podcast. Luckily, he's also a friend and mentor. In this episode, we talk about some recent flying adventures, we talk about my recent videos about glider class and unseen motivations, we talk about risk and reward in paragliding, we talk about family and what is important, maturity, growth and crashing. Its a great talk. You can find this in podcast format on the Ari in the Air podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. Support this show by donating! www.paypal.me/ariintheair
Gavin McClurg - Glider choices, Progression and Maturity
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_s7RwQctw9JA
Paragliding cutaway stunt from Lake Garda, Italy. We launched a tandem paraglider from Monte Baldo using BASE rigs as harnesses and once safely over the water we cut away from the glider into freefall. There was a slight mishap with the 3-ring system on Gabe's side, but all panned out just fine. This video is me telling the story in a bit more detail, some behind the scenese footage and some additional thoughts. Support this channel by donating! www.paypal.me/ariintheair
Tandem Paraglide Cutaway BASE Skydive Thingy
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_ii2L0vsldOU
Philosophy of Paragliding talk about why we want to step up onto more advanced gliders and how we should contextualize those decisions. These factors are only possible to consider once you becoming willing to look honestly at the way you feel. Yes, emotional intelligence is an absolutely critical skill to have if you want to stay safe in your paragliding career. We talk about a recent accident at my local paragliding site and break down the things that lead up to it. Support this show by donating! www.paypal.me/ariintheair
EN-B Paraglider to EN-C Paraglider?!? The Wrong Reasons to Step Up
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_HAoxIENQgtE
Paragliding Podcast conversation with Dr. Gregg Henriques of James Madison University on why we paraglide, the transformational power of risk and the different types of motivations we have. There is some really insightful stuff in here. Gregg is a legendary psychologist and is the author of The New Unified Theory of Psychology. He directs the doctoral psychology at JMU in Virginia. To find more of Gregg's work, check out his page www.toksociety.org To support this channel, consider donating at www.paypal.me/ariintheair
Psychologist on 'Why We Paraglide' (2020)
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_NC-9C8apKTI
A paragliding tutorial about deep stalls and tailslides. This video shows you what deep stall on a paraglider actually is, why its useful, what it looks like, how to practice it and how to stay safe while learning it. WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK! HAVE PROFESSIONAL MENTORSHIP TO TRY ANY ACROBATICS! DONT BE DUMB. Support this channel! Money is a tool for creation, and I need your support to keep creating! www.paypal.me/ariintheair
PARAGLIDING DEEP STALL TUTORIAL (2020)
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_Yv-qvd3mz78
Paragliding philosophy talk about the reality that we are, as paragliding pilots, emotional players in an emotional game. This is an incredibly important realization to contextualize why we are taking life-threatening risks in our flying. Why are we paragliding? What are we trying to get out of it? What does it mean? AKA What emotions are we seeking to find through flying? How are we trying to feel???? These are the real questions to ask about paragliding, and they are the questions that are going unanswered by students, instructors, clubs, associations, amatuers and professionals alike. In this video, I try to bring a little more perspective to the conversation about why you might be flying and how important it is to look at your motivations. PLEASE! Support this channel! Donate! Money is a tool for me to create this kind of content, please support me. www.paypal.me/ariintheair
Before You Kill Yourself Paragliding, Watch This!
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_yY11eny59fc
Paragliding is one of the most incredible things a person can do. It is exhilarating, it is spectacular and it is beautiful. Some of the most surreal human experiences come from this sport, but it is also fatally dangerous. We can die doing it. Some of the most talented and conservative pilots have died flying over the years, even though they tried to hedge their risks through training and practice. This is something I’ve always known, in an intellectual way, but last year brought it home in a more powerful way. In august, at my home site, a visiting pilot crashed on launch. I was one of the first to the scene and we did everything we could to resuscitate him for an hour before the heli medics arrived and declared him dead. This was more traumatic than I understood at the time. Not even a month later, I was flying a remote site with my best friend, my flying partner for my entire career. We have been around the world together flying in China, Morocco, Peru, you name it. We were soaring at sunset and he crashed into the top of this huge, steep, rocky ridge, that's in the middle of nowhere. I got to the ground as fast as I could and I ran to him, fearing that I would find him in a heap. When I arrived, he was coherent and telling me that he was alive, and relatively ok. I was in disbelief, but relieved. The reality was that he had broken his wrist, broken one ankle, severely sprained the other, had cracked his heel, tore his MCL, so he was in no position to relaunch or to hike down. Our girlfriends hiked up and carried our gliders down and after he scooted on his butt down the steepest slope at the very top, I ended up carrying him down the mountain on my back, for 4 hours and into the dark. We got back to the truck with relief, but it wasn’t over. He ended up having surgery and a lengthy recovery, of which continues to this day. These events brought into question my entire flying career. After all, I’ve nearly killed myself a number of times flying. And some of the questions were Why am I doing this? What am I trying to get out of this? What can I do to keep myself safe if I’m gonna continue flying? What does it mean if I die doing this? These are huge questions! This is the growth that paragliding is bringing into my life. I am being called to look deep at myself and my life, my choices, my activities, my sports. It seems that I have arrived at the Philosophy of Paragliding. I want to make a series of videos that invites you into my own process and thoughts around this subject in a way that is real, honest, vulnerable and hopefully - in a way that inspires you to examine your own flying so that we can all get the most meaning, the most joy, the most growth and the most inspiration out of our flying as is humanly possible. Philosophy is a pursuit of wisdom. In Greek, Philo means love, and Sophia is wisdom. I think that if we are to get the most out of this sport, it will be through a pursuit of wisdom. I don’t want to be an adrenaline junky chasing my next fix, I want to be a humble part of a complex system - a system of motivations and desires that is mixing and swirling with the real world, nature, the sky and what is possible. I want to be observant and reverent of what I’m doing and why. I want to be flying into more wisdom, connection, love, awe, wonder and bliss. My best moments flying are those when I dissolve into the sky - these are moments of flow, of oneness with the atmosphere, oneness with what is, with reality. I want to take these moments home with me, integrate them into myself and let them fill me up, build me up and help me grow up. The things that I think I want to figure out with the Philosophy of Paragliding are How to best contextualize my paragliding for maximum sustainability, joy, meaning, fulfillment and connection How to integrate my surreal flying experiences so they actually fill me up, not just make me insatiably hungry for more. How to support my friends and pilots to using paragliding as a practice too I’m not sure what this is all gonna look like, but I know it's important for me to consider. I hope that by sharing my inquiry with you, that I can support your inquiry too. So, welcome to the Philosophy of Paragliding. Who knows what we’ll find, but here we go. SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL BY DONATING AT WWW.PAYPAL.ME/ARIINTHEAIR
The Philosophy of Paragliding (WARNING: CRASH FOOTAGE)
YouTube Video UCLdxnh60DzDlR_AYhF3CzlQ_-tOjUqA1wBY
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