So, I decided to skip a week between jumps. I went to Academy to buy an exercise ball on my mom’s suggestion. I ended up with two of these strange peanut shaped exercise balls. I’m able to suspend myself between them in what sort of looks like an arch. It’s definitely really uncomfortable. My back doesn’t stretch that way. It’s pretty strange. I tried doing an arch against a wall and found it difficult to hold for a whole minute.

I had planned to get back to the drop zone after skipping a weekend but had to head out of town for a family death. The following two weekends have been full of bad weather and thus yielded no jumps. I’ve hit the 30 day between jumps mark and will have to do a refresher course when I make it back. I have a minor surgical procedure to remove a cyst that will keep me from jumping the first weekend in December. I may have picked the worst time of year to pick up this sport.

Over the last couple of weeks, I took some further advice from several friends and decided to go see a chiropractor. Something was not quite right in my lower back, and I needed to figure out what. To make the story short, my back is much tighter than is should be. We’ve got it a little looser and I find that heat helps. I may look like an idiot, but I’ve got a heating pad in my car to use on the way out to the DZ whenever I can get there. My last visit to the chiro raised a few flags that will be looked into more tomorrow. I may have a bit of scoliosis that has cause some extra muscle tension that may need to be worked on. So maybe it’s best that I haven’t been able to jump in a while. I may not physically be ready yet. I have some vacation time that I have to use up before February, so maybe I’ll use that time to get some jumps in, if the weather is good. I’ll find out more about my back soon and keep everyone posted. The doc says it’s been helpful for me to have a goal of arching my back. He’s tailored my care to achieve that goal, so we’ll get there. I’m just not terribly patient/

I’m not giving up. I’ve already prepaid the DZ a lot of money. I’m just waiting for the back to work out and for the weather to cooperate. This is one of those times living in Southern California would be helpful. They’ve seemed to have clear skies everyday the past month nearly. Oh well. I’ll get back up in the sky soon enough. Actually, I’m flying to Dallas for a Ducks game this week since I can’t do any sports. But I won’t get to jump out of that plane.

Blue skies!