posted Apr 15th, 2021 - The corona virus crisis had a significant impact on Formation Skydiving competition, which is nothing new. The implications have been covered numerous times by the NSL News. The same implications naturally impacted on the baseline of the National Skydiving League, which was exclusively built on the idea of advancing the young sport and offer more opportunities to meet other teams and competitors with the same passion. Unfortunately, bringing people together at live events has not been highly recommended these days.

The last complete and unharmed calendar of events was the 2019 season, when a total of 173 leaderboards from all over the world were a quite impressive result of NSL News services and events of the NSL Network. The number was down to 72 events last year, and most of the events had significantly reduced participation.

Formation Skydiving competitions do not only bring people together who share the same passion. Events create results, competition videos and content. It is almost a little miracle that the NSL News did not have to downsize from daily news to weekly or even monthly updates. The vast and still hardly touched NSL News archive has been helpful during the worst content-dry periods in the past 16 months.

There are other additional impacts, not only on Formation Skydiving competition. I used to write a monthly column for Blue Skies Mag, which used to be a beautiful and very special print magazine. The print-version was eventually discontinued, and I don't even see much of online publications any longer.

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TURNING POINTS - GOING BACK TO "NORMAL"?

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I enjoyed the TURNING POINTS space that Kolla and Laura gave me in their colorful Blue Skies Mag, which was truly an alternative version in the world of skydiving magazines. I almost felt like being out of place, as my own publications were surely not as funny and different as most of the other columns. However, it was the place where I would speak my own mind, next to the fact-oriented NSL News coverage.

One of my last contributions for Blue Skies Mag was published in May 2020. It was a time when we all began to realize how heavy the impact of the corona virus pandemic might become. Events were canceled, drop-zones and wind-tunnels were closed - it seemed to take the shape of a serious worldwide crisis.

Blue Skies Mag discontinued the print-version and slowed down with their operation, which was also the end of the TURNING POINTS, at least for a while. The 1-man business operation of the National Skydiving League was able to continue with a small budget and with the great help and support of the Formation Skydiving community - thanks again to Niklas Hemlin and Arizona Airspeed for the funding campaign.

TURNING POINTS even had a comeback when I realized in December last year that I was missing the opportunity to write my mind once in a while. In fact, it was a personal experience during my trip to Eloy for the coverage of the 4-Way FS Skydiving Championships that encouraged me to publish a similar column only for the NSL News.

I do hope that my boss will give me the same monthly space to continue with more TURNING POINTS contributions in the future. This time here, I would like to use it to make a point that is very close to my heart and the very basics of the National Skydiving League mission. It would be difficult to embed it clearly enough in any NSL News update, and TURNING POINTS seems to be the right place for it.

The reason for the coming statement was caused when some other serious fans of Formation Skydiving competition expressed concerns what may happen in the future once the so-called online/virtual/cloud events have established themselves as an alternative to live events.

I understood instantly what these good people had in their minds, and I am sharing exactly the same concerns. The whole world becomes more and more digitized and computerized, and there does not seem to be the need any longer to make more efforts than necessary to meet people in person and face to face.

The internet allows teams and competitors to attend indoor and outdoor events without ever leaving their home DZ or flying chamber, and there is an increasing number of organizers and events who take advantage of this situation and offer online activities.

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There is nothing wrong with it, as long as there are the crisis and the implications that we are dealing with. But what comes once the crisis is over? We all have heard often enough that the expectations of "going back to normal" are not very high. People expect a "new normal".

I understand the concerns, and I feel that it is time to say something loud and clear from my own perspective: the NSL will never support virtual events instead of live events under "normal circumstances". I almost feel guilty for possibly giving the impression that the infamous NSL Cloud events were a new invention that is meant to stay forever. I want to make sure that at least the Formation Skydiving competition community knows that I became addicted to this and stuck with it for my living for over 40 years, and this will not change.

It was not only the fascination and challenge of Formation Skydiving competition that got me here. It was also the social part of it, the community and the great like-minded people who I had the privilege of meeting and becoming friends with. This all would have been impossible, or at least not the same, without live events.

Yes, the National Skydiving League created regional networks to make the logistics of getting together easier and create more events with more participation. And yes, I connected the events and teams with each other via the internet and shared leaderboards. I did this 25 years ago when the NSL was launched, and I am still doing it. However, the NSL events were always live events where people met each other and had fun together - indoors or outdoors.

I just applied the same idea and format quickly when we had to realize that traveling and connecting with other people became unwanted, restricted, forbidden, or just uncomfortable when the corona virus crisis became a serious part of reality.

The logistics of SKYLEAGUE.COM have been in place for 25 years, and I simply applied them when it became necessary at the beginning of last year. The online/virtual/cloud events are nothing more or less than what the NSL Network has been doing for 25 years: bringing teams and competitors together via the internet with regular live events all over the planet.

The same original format becomes more and more popular and has been copied increasingly when it became difficult to run larger live events. I can only hope, together with all you other passionate friends of live events, that nobody will try to establish online/virtual/cloud events forever. It was only an emergency measure for me, even though it has created very tempting options and even some improvements that may stay and make the sport even better.

I will go back to promoting and running live events as soon as it is possible again without too many restrictions and limitations - whether it is indoors (World Tunnel League, Indoor Cloud League) or outdoors (National Skydiving League), and I can't wait to cover live events with the NSL News again, where I will meet all the great people in the worldwide Formation Skydiving competition community - live, and not on Zoom, or YouTube, or Skype, or Facebook, etc...