Name: 【TEDx】Choosing to fly | Steph Davis | TEDxBoulder
Uploaded: 2015-06-01T02:55:38.000Z
Duration: 10 min 52 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I want to tell you what it feels like to fly.

On top of the mountain, you're a little tired and sweaty.

You've been marching uphill for three and a half hours

wingsuit and parachute, helmet, ski goggles,

The temperature drops for every 1,000 feet you go up,

so it feels good to get zipped into the wingsuit.

It's just a single layer of nylon fabric,

Once you leave the edge, you can't go back.

Suddenly, it's time. You dive straight out, and time slows.

In the third second, your wings fill with air, and you shoot forward.

You roll your shoulders down to build speed,

and then pull your arms back and dive hard

skimming over the carpet of steep forest as it unrolls below.

I went rock climbing, and it changed my life.

attended law school in Boulder for a week

and then, in one fell swoop, I moved into my car.

I didn't know I would become a professional climber,

I was pretty concerned I might become a bag lady.

Stepping off the known road was one of the biggest risks I've ever taken.

I didn't have a plan, I just knew I had to go.

I don't think there's anyone who hasn't lost things in life.

But what's funny to me is how we always talk about taking risks,

like it's an option or a decision we get to make;

in which just getting out of bed doesn't open you up

some version of life in which things don't change, and nothing happens.

I'll be honest, I'd lost a lot of things at that point in life.

lost a house, lost an ACL, and lost my dog.

I could have written a great country song

but instead, I kept climbing and started learning to fly.

I fell in love with a pilot from Quebec named Mario.

He was also a BASE jumper, and a wingsuit pilot,

He was the closest I've ever seen to a perfect human,

We spent five years together making a home in Moab,

building a business, traveling together, flying together, and loving each other.

we made a wingsuit flight together from a mountain in Italy.

I was in front, and Mario jumped right after me.

I called his radio for five minutes, and then I called for a helicopter.

When some one disappears in a wingsuit, it means one thing.

Through the excruciating hours of searching,

I already knew I would not see him again.

I thought I'd become pretty good at losing things.

I've been a full-time climber for 20 years, and I know how to endure.

In the mountains, when you're cold and wet,

and hungry, and dehydrated, and exhausted,

you turn-off your emotions, and you keep going

No one is going to get you off the mountain but you.

And by extension, I used this way to deal with adversity in real life.

Lost your job, lost your husband, dog died?

it's about choking off all possible emotion,

it's about getting the job done instead of falling apart and giving up.

There's a lot to be said for enduring, and I know I'm good at it.

but never with the kind of grief on the level of losing Mario.

If you've lost the other half of yourself without warning,

you know the shock you feel as it starts to dawn on you;

that in one second, you've just lost everything:

your partner, your best friend your beloved,

your present, your past, and your future.

In the first months, every morning when I woke from dreams of Mario

I thought about walking to the top of a cliff without my parachute

It's not like I don't know how to jump off a cliff

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TEDx】Choosing to fly | Steph Davis | TEDxBoulder

life

resilience

edge

step