Read about Jokke and underline the key points in his life on his way to becoming a professional wingsuit flyer. The first one has been done for you. Compare your key points with a partner. Work together to put the information into chronological order. Then report your findings to the class. Don’t forget to use the past simple for speaking about Jokke’s past. Are you a person who pushes yourself beyond your limits (at school, in sports, in your free time, …)? Work in pairs and: ■■ describe a situation in which you pushed yourself beyond your limits. ■■ talk about people you know who love risks and adventure. ■■ explain why you enjoy or why you don’t enjoy dangerous situations. ■■ explain in which situation you would take risks and why. 11 a Joakim (Jokke) Sommer has always been fascinated by everything that could fly and dreamed about flying one day himself. But as he grew up his childhood dream faded, and he started a career in motocross, which became his biggest passion and an important part of his youth. After several years of riding, he started to freestyle and built his own freestyle motocross (FMX) park where he and his friends met to ride and fly. During the summer of 2007 he and his close friend Jørgen decided to start skydiving, so they completed a skydiving course. He sold his dirt bikes and became a licensed skydiver. After watching dozens of wingsuit flying videos, he had no doubt that this was what he wanted to do. In 2008 he travelled to the United States and completed 250 jumps in two months to gain the required experience. After returning to Norway, he signed up for a BASE-jumping course and travelled to Kjerag to make his first jump off the huge local cliffs. He filmed his jumps and uploaded his first video to YouTube. It was called Wingsuit Base in Romsdalen, Norway. Over 10,000 people saw this video. Starting to BASE jump changed his life. His determination soon made him an expert athlete in the sport. When BASE jumping, the wingsuiters jump from fixed objects and use a parachute to break their fall. ‘BASE’ stands for the four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs). Jokke often talks about his love of wingsuit flying but says that it involves a lot of excitement and even panic on the way up to exit points that are hard to get to. He always takes good friends with him because they need to hold his hand whenever he panics. Right before he jumps he is very nervous as well, but when he is in free fall and feels gravity taking over, he usually experiences great peace of mind and feels disconnected from reality. In a video he calls this the “one minute when you can play around like a superhero”, but, of course, he is aware of the dangers of wingsuit flying. Jokke says, “… you’re kind of trying to ... focus on the actual line you’re going to do and try not to focus too much on the dangerous stuff.” Jokke was born in Oslo in 1986 and grew up in a small place called Son, which is just outside the capital city. It is a small, safe place where children can swim in the ocean and have fun. All in all he liked his life there, however, Jokke wanted to experience more action. He wanted to do something a little different from all the other kids. That was when he started to understand that extreme sport was something that he was more suited to. b 12 Speaking 10 Language skills Extras Explore 1 Free time Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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