but really what you need is a place something like Woodward West
here, where you have a foam pit where you can practice.” And
practice she did.
“It was definitely many days of trying to figure out that
physics of when to pull and how fast to go and where to look. It’s
one of those tricks that it’s probably the one that I put the most
work into, which is why it’s the most special to me.
“The first time I got my wheels under me, I was not expect-
ing it. I go to do these tricks and I fully expect to fall, every single
time, so when I pull it off, I have a moment of ‘Wait a second. Um,
OK. Wait, I’m sitting upright, I’m not on the ground!’ In that eight
months, I decided that I’m not going to give up on this, I’m going to
stick with it even though it’s slower than I thought it would be, and
even though it hurts, and I’m tired, somebody else might get it
before me. Just keep going, ’cause it’s what I really wanted.
“If it’s easy, I don’t see the fun in that and there is less of
a reward. It feels so much better when you do something that’s hard
and finally land it. You might be able to do something very grace-
fully, but if it’s easy, what’s the fun in that? So I’m always looking
for that next thing that’s going to challenge me.”
While many high sensation-seekers certainly have grit, not
everyone feels grit is the secret weapon to success. In 2016, Kaili
Rimfeld and her colleagues discovered that grit wasn’t a big factor
at all for academic achievement in the 2,321 pairs of twins they
studied.^33 Other studies have found similarly disappointing
results.^34 While the concept of grit alone may not explain
Katherine’s success, her passion and sensation-seeking certainly
make a difference.Jeb Corliss: Rising above the Crux
When you think of a thrill-seeking extreme sport it’s easy to think
of wingsuiting and people sailing over and through the landscape.
Wingsuits work by adding surface area to your legs and under your
arms to increase lift. They give you wings. You end up looking like
a giant flying squirrel. But you don’t just leap into the air from the
ground. Wingsuit flyers jump from airplanes or BASE jump from
cliffs or mountaintops. After sailing through the air they deploy
a parachute to land safely.
Jeb Corliss is a professional skydiver, BASE jumper, and
wingsuit flyer. He has jumped from sites including the Eiffel82 / Buzz!Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:19:03, subject to the Cambridge