I feel low-altitude flying more intensely because at a thousand meters high, the relation to the ground disappears, but flying so close to the ground, that makes me very happy.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Urs
Aschmann and
Lucian Haas at the microphone.
No matter who you ask what you can do to become a better pilot, one answer will almost always rank among the top three tips you get. Ground handling. Playing with the glider on the ground, but without the inevitable goal of getting into the air.
Ground handling has many faces, philosophies, or even schools. There are renowned experts like Mike Küng, who would prefer to establish ground handling as its own sporting discipline. In that case, the glider becomes a tool to climb hay bales, lampposts, or steep rocks using only the pull and lift forces of the glider. Others see ground handling more as a gentle game. As a fun exercise to gain confidence in your glider, to learn to feel and anticipate its movements, and above all, to become a safe starter.
One who falls more into this second category is the Swiss pilot Urs Aschmann. Urs only learned paragliding in his mid-40s. However, he soon had some painful experiences. Eventually, he discovered ground handling as a way to start flying again without fear. Over time, he became so skilled at ground acrobatics with the glider that he felt like sharing his knowledge and skills. Under the charming name Groundhandlings. In this podcast episode, Urs also shares quite a bit from his treasure trove of experiences. I don't want to reveal everything that comes up just yet. Just this much: it's also about discovering the world. And about his slowness. Before we begin, a quick note on my own behalf. The podcast Podz-Glidz, like the associated blog Lu-Glidz, is not funded by advertising, but is supported solely by listeners and readers.
It would be great if you would also become a voluntary supporter of this project. You can support my work with a financial contribution. All the necessary information, such as a PayPal link or bank transfer details, can be found on the Lu-Glidz website, specifically on the "Support" page. How much you might want to give is entirely up to you. For those who are unsure, I recommend one euro per podcast episode and two euros per reading month on Lu-Glidz as a non-binding guideline. Now, let's get to Groundhandlings.
Urs, did you have a happy childhood?
I'd say yes. What
what is a happy childhood?
A happy childhood is about developing according to one's own abilities. Yes, being perceived by parents as an independent personality who is meant to find their own way. Yes, being able to explore the world.
You've spent years professionally planning adventure playgrounds. How important is this free, yet definitely risk-involved, kind of play?
I think it's extremely important because, over the last, let's say ten years, something has developed that is driven by parental fear. There are many helicopter parents who protect their children incredibly, who only want the best for them. And that's backfiring a bit. Yes, it's backfiring a bit because nothing is allowed to happen to the children. They are overprotected and, as a result, they no longer learn to assess the consequences of their own actions and try things out.
Because they are in a very strict corset. And playgrounds allow them to, so to speak, use it as a crutch for the forest—as an ideal playground—to try things out, learn to assess risks, and maybe even get hurt sometimes. That's part of it too, but nothing bad should happen in the process.
If these adults act like helicopter parents and all that, could it also be because we adults don't play enough either?
Yes, definitely. Definitely. I think we adults only have one, two, three years. That's a fundamental problem. Many people don't like to remember their own childhood anymore and no longer know what playing means. Trying things out, discovering, exploring. And they've developed into "head people," and I find that incredibly sad. Is flying a kind of play for you too? In the broadest sense, yes. From my understanding of play, there are actually no limits. Playing is discovering the world and finding your way through it.
And when I now have the chance to do that in three-dimensional space, I find it to be an extreme enrichment. And it never ends. I mean, flying is so complex and so versatile and so wonderful. And the weather is a thing in itself. There is never an end to the learning. And the playing—I mean, I stayed a child, otherwise I wouldn't have become a playground builder. And yes, I enjoy that very much.
How did you actually get into flying? Was it also out of a desire to play? Or what was the motivation that made you say, I want to learn to fly?
That was, that was... I've always dreamed of flying. So in nightmares, when I was cornered by bad people, I could jump up and fly. Then later, on a long hike with my father, I was tired and thought to myself, if I were to run down this slope now, really fast, and spread my arms, then if you ran fast enough, you'd have to be able to take off. That was when I was about four. It didn't work. Have you ever tried it? No, as you know, it didn't work.
But the funny thing was, much later I got a kite from my sister and played with it a lot, and I told a neighbor about it. And he said, "Oh, you have a kite? Ah, wait a second, I have something for you." He went into the basement, gave me a pack about this big, and said, "Well, that's also sort of like a kite. See if you can handle it." And I unpacked it and it got bigger and bigger. It was a paraglider. And I thought, "Well, let's try it out like a kite." And on a slightly sloping hill, in good wind, I tried it out.
And ran and back up and ran again. And I called him, it's not flying. And he came over and then we practiced a bit together and pushed it. The wind kept getting stronger and after that first jump I already knew, now I have to find a school and I want to learn to fly. I want to learn it properly, seriously. How old were you back then? I was probably—this was 15 years ago—yeah, I was 45, yeah. So relatively late, but it all worked out well, more or less.
And then you did the course and took off as a pilot right away, or did your flying career start off rather bumpy?
It started out bumpy because, yeah, looking back, the training wasn't really my thing. And it continued to be bumpy. I could do a little—take off, steer, land—but a lot more not.
And I actually always wanted to do more ground handling; I researched all of that online.
And I imagined a bit too much, yeah, and then I hurt myself, broke three vertebrae in strong winds. And that, that really set me back. So
That was intense. This accident—you mentioned ground handling, did it basically happen on the ground or were you flying and it was a hard landing with those broken vertebrae?
It was actually a good start in a lot of wind, but my landing hooks fell off. The wind was strong. And the speed bar didn't work. So I slowly flew backwards. And despite putting my ears in and everything, I got into a zone where it just, yeah, I ripped it off. Ripping an alpha is quite a difficult thing. But I managed it and then really barreled down at ten meters. And yeah, I was very lucky.
I have to say, did you start flying again right away after the vortices healed? Or was it a process where you'd say, was it also linked to fear or something, where you'd go, hmm, how do I get back into that?
Yes, I have to admit, I was addicted to flying. It was like a little flying devil sitting on my shoulder, always saying, "Yeah, look at the weather, check the weather, now fly, when to fly," and so on. I was pretty much a victim to it, completely at its mercy, and first I sold all my gear. That was the turning point, as I understood it. And I knew, this can't go on. After two years, I considered maybe starting to fly again. And whoosh, there was that little devil again. Haha. And then I thought, no, it can't go on like this, I have to find a way first.
And I took a course in autogenic training to become the master of my flying addiction. So, packing up all the stuff related to flying and putting it in a place where it stays. And then I go there and bring it forward again. And not having stuff come along and say, "Yeah, here's the devil. Let's go flying, let's go flying." And that's how it worked. And I slowly started again and really first learned ground handling to heal my wounded pilot soul and gain confidence and trust in my
skills. Did it work? I mean, did ground handling really lead to this reconciliation with flying for you? Absolutely. Because
I approached ground handling step by step. And it always made me happy. Setting up a glider is something beautiful. And being able to hold it up there and tilt it left and right and walk. And that gave me a lot.
Now, ground handling is always such a term. Everyone says you have to do ground handling, ground handling here. And when you ask people—it keeps coming up in my podcast too, when you ask some pilots—"Yeah, what can you recommend for other pilots?" It's always "ground handling." "You have to do ground handling." Just define ground handling for a second. What is it to you? What actually falls under that for you?
It's playing with the glider in a way where I let myself be surprised by the glider's reactions, but I can react to them adequately. Without being dragged around by the terrain. Without getting into an uncontrollable situation. And by feeling my way through it like that, I never lose the joy of the game. I never get overwhelmed, and I stay in the flow. In a way that makes me want more.
And that it's simply fun. If it's not fun, then leave it be. As long as it's fun and your gut feeling is right. And I can enjoy myself. And it makes me happy. And I'm sweating while doing it. Everything's good. Wonderful.
So, play and fun on the ground. The glider then is basically like a playground instrument, so to speak. One can do all sorts of things with it. Yes, absolutely. Yes. You also offer ground handling courses yourself today, where you guide other people and show them techniques and stuff. How did it actually happen that you said, I want to pass this on? What I've acquired for myself now. Was there something like a key experience where you said, I'm needed here, or something like that? Yes.
Yeah. Unfortunately, during the years I've been flying, I've come across various accidents. Or I've been there as an observer. And I've seen so many failed launches where I had to say to myself, well, if they had done the ground handling and had a good feel for the glider, that wouldn't have happened. And then at Col Rodella, if you stand around there for ten minutes or fifteen and watch the launches. There's a video, it's just revoltingly bad. I mean, if I were a pedestrian there and it crossed my mind that I could start flying, I'd be terrified.
Then it would be sealed forever and I'd never do it, because I'd have the feeling that they're all lunatics and daredevils who are going to hurt themselves sooner or later.
And because I was getting pretty good at it by then, I thought, yeah, I'll give it a try. I'll offer it. And it was very successful from the start. For example, a successful commercial pilot came to me. When he's up in the air, he flies. But he said he's somehow 70 now, and with takeoffs and such, he always gets a bit of the jitters. And we started right at the beginning. And he said it was the A and O—the nitty-gritty. He had never been taught before that it's such a subtle thing.
He was really happy. And I was too, of course. And that encouraged me to keep going down this path.
You call your offer Groundhandlicks or Groundhandlicks. I have no idea how you pronounce it. Are you a fan of Asterix and Obelix or how did you come up with that?
Yeah, sure. Yeah, of course I'm a fan. I thought when I was looking for a name, it should be simple and memorable. And Obelix and Asterix and Groundhandlicks, that would be something. I had this image in my head. Yeah, like a cartoon. And that's how it came to this
Names. Asterix has his intelligence as a strength, but he also has his magic potion. What makes you strong in ground handling?
Many small practice sessions. Someone who teaches you the basics. How to steer the glider effectively so that you can also stop when you don't want to anymore. And it's the small successes. They string together like a pearl necklace, giving you the confidence and keeping the desire to keep practicing.
That means, from what I understand you now, it's best to set yourself tasks when doing ground handling. Small goals, or whatever you want to call them.
Yes, absolutely. So if people just stand there holding the glider over their heads, it quickly gets boring in my opinion. But if you stay a bit creative and say, I'll go three meters to the right or three meters to the left, forward, backward. Or try to walk a circle very slowly with maybe a diameter of three or four meters. Then it becomes more interesting. And that way, you can keep trying out different things. There's the ground handling challenge, which was started back then by Andre Banderas.
With different ideas and exercises where you can also gradually inform yourself through videos. So it definitely won't get boring. It never ends.
That means you'd find a task list like this ground handling challenge very useful, in the sense of actually working through something like that for yourself in a certain way?
Yes, it would be great if people took the time for that. Usually, the excuse is, "I can't find a meadow" or "where can I do ground handling?" And yes, do you always have to go to the sea for it, or is the wind too gusty here, or do you have to wait until there's enough strength? So, people say it's not that easy. That might be true, but if you really want to, you'll find a way.
Let's talk about a few situations, including meteorological situations during ground handling. And what one might be able to do to adapt accordingly. So, imagine a flat meadow, no slope, but really completely flat. And I only have relatively little wind. I can't really keep the glider up; it won't stay up on its own. From your point of view, what's the best thing for me to practice then?
Yes, good question. If you were to leave the brakes clipped in and take two or three A lines from each side and lead your hands forward and upward, slowly higher and higher, just like you would to invite the glider to fly. The trick is to get your hands as far up as possible. With this technique, you can maybe compensate for two or three kilometers per hour of wind that you would otherwise have to convert into energy by walking backward. And if you have your hands up like that now, you can steer the individual half of the glider; if that's not enough, if the glider still isn't rising into a wall, if you were to walk backward slowly in this position now,
then the wind speed is sufficient for the glider to rise. Not much, but you can steer it that way.
About what wind speed do I need for that, for a normal glider? Not a singleskin, which already rises on its own in the slightest breeze, but really something like an Alpha or something else that people would come to you for?
So that really needs very little, I'd say three to four km/h. Most people would say there's no wind, but even very, very little wind can certainly be used to learn a bit about the behavior of your glider. The inertia, how much force is needed, how much tension is in the lines—those are all things that incredibly strengthen your intuition for the glider.
Let's move on, the same meadow, so it's completely flat again, but now we have a decent, pretty strong wind. What should I be training for primarily now, or what is this best suited for?
Yes, maybe first the emergency exit. Stopping when it gets too strong. And there, I would suggest taking the glider into the rosette to lay it out, folding one ear out, and slowly stretching the lines while holding onto the rear risers with one hand each from the start. Ready to be able to steal the glider with the rear risers. If you now slowly move away from the glider, the A-lines are stretched and your hands are ready to tilt outwards to a right angle on the rear risers to make a steal, then you can slowly build the wall; the glider might twitch a bit at the ears, it wants to fly, it wants to rise, and you're holding it like a racehorse before the start that's really nervous and wants to fly, wants to take off, or rather, wants to run; you can feel your way with the force,
to hold the glider on the ground. Now, if that works well, if that functions correctly, you could give a pulse from the hips so that the glider rises just a little bit. To do that, you'd have to be seated, so first establish symmetry in the harness, symmetry at the leading edge so that a straight line is formed, and then a small pulse from the hips to see if the glider would rise. But it shouldn't actually leave the ground with the trailing edge, it should only get a few centimeters off the ground.
And then you have the certainty that it would rise. And before moving on, you could pull the glider with the rear risers, and here's the thing: imagine there was a large circle in the middle of the glider, and I as the pilot would be the pencil. Now, I run this circle around the glider with the rear risers pulled in, as far as I can, until the wingtip gets rolled back by the wind. Now the glider is dead, meaning it's no longer flying, it can't fill anymore, and now I can quickly
to approach the glider and pull upwards with the lines to form the rosette. It is
one of the most important exercises, would you say, in high winds, where you first learn to really... you call it a circle,
...towards one ear, or practically past one ear, running sideways so that you pull this glider out of the wind window yourself, so that it can't climb anymore? Is that something you should definitely practice first before actually doing anything in high winds?
Absolutely, absolutely, because otherwise you go into the exercise with a sense of, well, with too much uncertainty, and you want to be sure, like when driving a car, that the brakes work. A machine you want to master, you have to be able to stop it, and that's how it starts. If you don't know how to stop it again, then sooner or later you'll get hurt and ruin everything you've worked for, because the pilot's soul is wounded.
Even if you're only dragged through the vegetation for three or four meters, you feel like you've failed, like you're not good enough, and you remember it again—it burns into your subconscious, and that would be a shame. That's why you should first practice the techniques of how to effectively stall the glider when you...
do. At our practice slope, especially when people who aren't very experienced yet try to ground handle in slightly stronger wind, I see it happen very often: they kind of lurch the glider forward and then they're basically hopping after their glider. They aren't being pulled yet—so they're not on the ground being dragged across the meadow—but the glider just won't come up. They try to move against it, but the movement of moving against it and the glider coming up balance each other out so much that they're basically hopping halfway down the slope after their glider and don't really have control over it, but just feel like they're being pulled away from their glider. Is there a trick to getting that under control as best as possible? Or how do you get out of that situation faster?
So I would start by feeling my way through it in the smallest steps possible. Specifically, don't try to pull the whole glider up at once in stronger wind, but rather pull it up asymmetrically. That means I'll do the wall, and then I'll take just one brake and the A lines of one side and take a step out from the center, to the left or to the right, so that the side I want to work with has taut lines.
And the other side hangs loose, they're slack. And now I pull carefully on a single outermost or maybe two outermost A lines and only the wing's edge wants to go up. And to prevent the glider from getting too high, I apply some counter-pressure with my brake. And that's a fine balance, and I'd call it "Cobra-tonguing"—it only goes up a little, and I try to hold the glider, maybe a meter, the edge that's coming up a meter.
Now, this isn't entirely easy and it takes a bit of time, and above all, the tip is that you should do the exercise as slowly as possible. And if you feel like you're already going slowly, go even slower. So that you have plenty of time, and the little game with the ear can be done a bit, a bit, but after a good while, a bit higher. Then the glider might, yeah, it slowly pulls it to the other side until you're only playing with this ear.
If the ear were to go up to the Cobra now, you could use the same technique you practiced before, steal the glider, and start again. In my opinion, this is a wonderful way to develop a feel for the glider and the forces being generated, and you can stop at any time; you don't have the full power of the glider in the sail and won't potentially get overwhelmed. It's all within the safe zone.
That means, if I understand you correctly, also from your philosophy, you're saying to do things very, very slowly, to approach it gradually, just to feel a lot of these movements of the glider and then, step by step, but in tiny steps, to notice, ah, so much brake pull, so much pull on the A-line, ah, the glider is coming up a bit, I can brake it immediately again, and that you really approach these reactions of the glider very slowly, but also always saying, yes, I also know how I can always control it, and that you should ideally never get into that situation where you say, that was uncontrolled, because then I get scared myself, probably fear, and I say, now I'm going into a mental block, and then the learning probably won't work anymore.
That's exactly it, because when you have a negative learning experience—so, yeah, many people are too hard on themselves, they want to do well, they always want to do it right, they compare themselves to others, and that makes it a bit even harder.
to learn in an unbiased and enjoyable way, because if a mistake happens, they say, mistake, mistake, I'm bad, I don't have a handle on it, and that's like a nail being driven into the pilot's soul; it makes you feel smaller. That's why my opinion is that you should always stay where you can string together successes, and if something goes off the rails, it's not bad or a mistake, but simply an experience. Then you approach the exercise with the same positive attitude, take small steps, and build it up really slowly, trying to stay calm and not overwhelm yourself, and taking your time—you can take your time, you're not running away. We're at the age where learning is something we don't have to do anymore, but want to.
it's supposed to be fun, anything else makes no sense.
and then you have a good basic setup for
Success. We had the example earlier where I said you stand on a flat field—you could also imagine that as a slightly slanted slope or some kind of practice slope where you can also do ground handling, which sometimes just makes certain things easier due to the airflow conditions. Is there anything you would say, a specific slope formation or incline or anything else, that is ideal for ground handling, or does it actually not matter?
At the beginning, it certainly doesn't matter until you can somehow simulate a launch run on the flat field with your hands all the way up and really accelerate the glider as fast as you possibly can, just to then pull the brakes and convert the energy into height, and land smoothly again. Once all that works, I think it's definitely time to find a slightly sloped hill and practice the same thing there. Because the airflow conditions are already different; the glider behaves and holds differently than it does on the flat terrain at the top.
And working out these differences so they can be stored in your muscle memory is also very important to me. Over time, the slope can get a bit steeper, but I'd start with something like 10%—I mean 10 degrees—if possible. And practice everything you can there. Including high-kiting.
you can practice that beautifully. High-kiting, what do you mean by that? Just walking slowly up the mountain backwards with the glider, right?
No,
By high-kiting, I mean you're facing the wind, so you look at the glider with the wind at your back and then run up the slope diagonally to the left or right with the glider slightly tilted. That way you can see where you're going and can zigzag perfectly—meaning walk in a zigzag—and when it feels right, turn around and fly down a bit again. Or, which is also a very good exercise, close your eyes and try to go down this slope with your eyes closed for as long as possible to really feel it, to feel the risers, the impulses on the brakes,
that trains you incredibly. Just close your eyes for a moment and see what happens and try to keep the glider over you for as long as possible.
What I see more often with people who might do something like that or even walk down the mountain slowly with their eyes open is that most of them can work with the brakes, but very few work with their own weight or their body position. You can also drop down to your knees occasionally, even if it's only ten centimeters for a short time. This briefly increases the weight, which basically pulls on the paraglider. Because of that, it flies faster again. That means you can also bring a glider that's hanging back a bit forward again. But I very rarely see this technique, people using it deliberately. And when I think about it, flight schools are actually doing something wrong—that many of these basic techniques that you could actually have during ground handling aren't being taught enough?
Yes, definitely.
So I don't know many flight schools that consistently practice ground handling. I mean, for some, they do reverse starts, and for others, they're really good at it. But beyond that, very few techniques are taught. There are a few schools that are so privileged that maybe they have the school in a valley wind system, with a meadow right in front of them. And they learn ground handling first for three days. And once they can do that, they go to the practice slope and they fly.
They can fly because they can do ground handling. So for the schools, it's also a question, probably an economic one, of how much they invest in the students' ground handling. But those who do it are rewarded because the flight instructor is relaxed, because he knows his students, he knows what they can do. And there are no launches with a front collapse or anything like that. That's no longer an issue. So the investment would
pay off. Now, there are actually special ground handling gliders nowadays that are marketed as such. They're a bit smaller so that you can work with stronger wind speeds. Do you think something like that is useful or necessary? Or, put another way, would you say it's best to do ground handling with the glider you're mainly out flying with, so that you have the best possible handle on it? Or if you practice a lot with one of these smaller gliders, can that really be transferred to the other glider in a way where you'd say the techniques are actually always the same?
Well, I've heard that too, that you should practice with the same glider. But I mean, if you've done some hours of ground handling with any glider, you can transfer that to your own glider in a relatively short time, because it's not that different. Whether a special ground handling glider is needed for that, I can't really judge. I've never had one in my hands.
In between, you'd be a bit more flexible if you could use smaller gliders,
to feel out the forces a bit more slowly. That would make sense, but it could be any glider, a small one, like 17 square meters or maybe even smaller. They might be a bit more nervous then. But you can also notice that nervousness quickly when you take a different glider in your hand—ah, this one is calmer, ah, that's how it works. And the differences are felt quickly, they're back in the muscles fast. Especially at the dune, I find it a shame when people immediately burn holes into the exit edges with new gliders and treat the glider harshly for a week until they break it.
You
You just mentioned the dune. Is there actually such a thing as an ideal ground handling spot for you? Is the dune the ideal ground handling spot, or is it impossible to say that so clearly?
I think anywhere by the sea with a good, wide beach, laminar conditions are of course great. And if it—it doesn't necessarily have to be a dune, like the ones you know from Dune de Pila, for example—it could be any edge where you could work your way up after getting the glider under control on the ground, work your way up, turn back out, fly down, do the same thing again, a bit higher. It doesn't matter where that is, whether it's in Portugal or France or Holland or at a dike.
That
doesn't matter. Now, you've traveled a lot already, you've done ground handling in all sorts of places. Even so, if you were to say, okay, you've been to Namibia, you've been to Portugal, you've been to France, probably Denmark, Holland, and stuff like that. If I were allowed or had to decide right now—I have everything laid out as an option and I know I want to go somewhere for two weeks—I could pick one of these spots and say, I mainly want to improve my ground handling there. Out of the different options I just mentioned, is there one where you'd say, then most likely there? And why?
Tough, tough. I always get stuck in a dilemma there. So, my favorite spot is actually Dündepila, because there's just so much possible and you have a huge range from the very bottom to the very top across different wind speeds. If the weather is right, if the wind comes from western directions—no easterly wind and no rain—because otherwise it gets boring pretty quickly. In that case, Portugal would be the better solution because, culturally, Portugal has more to offer.
Nice little towns and maybe a different flying area where you could potentially do something in an easterly wind. At the dune, that would be the end of the day pretty quickly. Yes, Namibia would be very reliable, but it's too far for me. And if I can do something where you don't have to board a plane, I find that very appealing.
That means that if the weather is right, the Rundum setting makes Dündepila pretty much the ideal spot.
Very, very. But I don't know everything yet. There are also beautiful places, for example Meduno, where I've heard you can do groundhandling very well. Another paradise is still Castelluccio, even though unfortunately the little village is destroyed. The winches there are also very good. Yes, it's difficult. I keep going back and forth—and I'm torn. What should one do? But now I've found something in my area, an hour from Lake Seale. Super valley wind, very reliable, very regular. And now it's my favorite spot.
And that's my little dune.
I read that you've also been to Lanzarote twelve times, where you've flown back repeatedly.
Something must be drawing you to this island. Can you do good groundhandling there? Or is it so rocky that it would actually be glider-destroying if you started handling the glider with inexperienced technique? Yes,
there is very little forgiving terrain available. There are many sharp rocks. And there are some options to practice on wide sandy beaches at low tide. But the times are limited due to the tide. And there are other options too. But I don't think driving or flying there specifically just for ground handling is a good idea. Because you want to fly too, right? But I think Lanzarote is an island where you really should already be very proficient at back launching.
And then it makes sense.
Because it's, as I said, rocky and steep. And there's a lot of wind. And you can get hurt very quickly. So no, you really should be able to do that. I wouldn't go to ground handling for that.
You just said that sentence, and then you already want to fly. What actually appeals to you more, ground handling or flying?
Oh, I find the combination of both extremely attractive. My favorite way to fly is when I can let myself pull up the dune. So, with enough wind that I can slide up. Like on a ski lift. And anytime I feel like it, or the wind is strong enough, I can turn around. And fly out of the slide. And slide again out of the flight. And just casually drag a toe in the sand to make the longest trail possible. I find that very satisfying.
That means it's actually ground handling and air handling. Because you're moving while flying so close to the ground that you'd say it's actually this combination. Maybe you can't even call it real flying yet. Not in the classic sense of alpine flying, where I fly long distances. Instead, you might say it's sometimes a 20-meter jump, and then you're already on the ground again. And it flows seamlessly back into this ground handling.
Yes, that's one part I really like. And the other part, I love doing wingovers for the rest of my life. But I'm not really the type for more acrobatics. However, I also like flying high and flying far. And hang gliding in a beautiful alpine region, I like that incredibly well. But I experience low-level flying more intensely because at a thousand meters high, the relation to the ground disappears. But flying so close to the ground, that makes me very happy.
What is an ideal flight for you? An ideal flight? An ideal flight is a beautiful, confident takeoff that I really enjoy and celebrate. Because then I feel comfortable in the air too.
When the thermals or the turbulence are such that I can handle them, that I accept them. When the colors are beautiful, when the visibility is clear, when it goes up reliably, when I can fly with the birds, when I can cover a distance, when I can try something I've never done before. And ultimately, maybe at a new place.
...and I have a good landing again. Then I'm happy and content. That
is ideal. Have you ever had a flight where you'd say, nothing more is possible? You're so blown away that you say, that was basically the ultimate flight? Yes,
a few times. Some times. A few times I've already told my wife, that was the absolute hammer of a flight. I don't think it can get any better than that. It was so intense and so beautiful and so great. But then it happened again and again in a different form. It's just incredible that it's always possible. One flight was really quite amazing. What was it? The first time on Lanzarote. I had a guide there who explained the conditions to me. I was on the practice slope. We were connected by radio. He says, come up, I'm waiting there. We're flying the Risco.
The wind was so strong all day. It kept raining. You had to keep going back into the car. Towards evening, the conditions became softer, finer, more predictable. I was at about 700 meters, to the left and right of the island, with the sea to the north towards the tip. There were still clouds over the sea, and they were raining out. There were incredibly beautiful rainbows, vertical ones coming out of the sea. I was so blown away and moved. Thrilled. Tears were running down my face. It was so glorious. It was really one of those moments that gives you goosebumps.
It was really cool. When I told my guide about it, he said, yeah, some people would have had tears in their eyes from all the beauty. The colors, it's just magical.
Let's do a quick change of subject. At first, we were talking about your job as a playground planner. But then you recently, I think a year or two ago, hung that up and started something completely different. Why?
I worked as a self-employed playground planner and farmer for 19 years, and I did it with fire and passion. Then the fire died down and I thought, at some point, I'll be done. I want to do something else. It's a bit played out. Not burnt out, but I'm in the mood for something new. So I thought, at some point, I'll just pull the plug. At a suitable moment. But I didn't know what would come my way. I still had a bit of a financial cushion, so I just pulled the plug. And I thought, yeah, something will come to me.
I'll give myself two weeks, then I'll know what I want.
And all the signs converged to the point where I suddenly had this absolutely rock-solid, convinced feeling: I want to do a hypnosis training and I'm going to become a hypnosis therapist. That was it. I was surprised. But the signs were so unmistakable. I was really happy. I thought,
actually doesn't surprise me that much, because I've always been interested in the subject. But actually tackling it now, that has
...me. I was happy about that. You're already the third of my podcast guests who deals intensively with hypnosis. I ask everyone this, but everyone always gives slightly different answers. Also, what can hypnosis do for a paraglider pilot?
Hmm... He might be able to... He might become aware of his fears, his insecurities, his limits. He could potentially change and transform these limits, because the programs from the past might no longer be valid for the present and the future. And it could quite well be that such a command—the liberation from old programs—enhances the joy of flying.
What do you mean by old programs? Are these just fears that have surfaced? Or some kind of blocks that have set in? Or what could an old program be?
Yes, it's possible that you're convinced that flying is dangerous. Or that height is uncertainty. Or that clouds are dangerous. Maybe you have the memory of Eva Wisniewska being sucked into a cloud. Maybe these are beliefs you've adopted that are affecting you without you even realizing it. And if you... if you approach flying with hypnosis or some other mindset, then this excessive caution, or this fear, or these blocks change.
And you become freer. They say life becomes what you think. So what... what you dare to think has a strong probability of coming true. For better or for worse. So if you have a choice, you'd rather think the good. Because it moves you forward.
Do you also use the combination where you say, okay, I offer hypnosis therapy, I offer ground handling, those are like two pillars you have now, where you say I offer hypnosis and ground handling? Or can hypnosis perhaps sometimes help somewhere in your ground handling training?
Yes, I've already offered that. First, developing a new, positive learning attitude using hypnosis, in order to then make ground handling more effective, faster, and better. But that met with a relatively modest response. Nowadays, in my ground handling courses, I talk to the people first and, without actual hypnosis in the traditional sense, use words to bring them into a new mindset.
Because they might be,
tense, they feel like they're clumsy. And if you approach ground handling as a convinced clumsy person, it won't go well. So, you were clumsy yesterday, but today we're doing this very delicately. You'll find that you can do everything wonderfully, that the movements are calm, fluid, and joyful. And I change these words and the whole attitude with my words, so that in the end, people finally accept it, and I say that over and over again.
The boundaries are softened and broken down. Someone comes in and says they're always frantic. They're always frantic. So you have to work on that franticness with words, so that the client, the customer, the groundhandler is convinced that today there is calm in the system. Everything I do is calm. Slow and calm. And over and over again. And then also with pleasure and joy. And that's not difficult at all, because I give people an idea with my words of how they can do it. And they gladly accept this idea.
And I repeat that a few times and then it works. So, how do you say that? Wake hypnosis.
They are willing to accept my idea of how they can do it. And in that moment, the old pattern is pushed aside. The new one has space. And everything works better. Smoother, softer. And in the end, they are surprised by themselves. Because, hey, it all worked. And there's joy on their faces. And then they beam. So for me, it's also a...
Joy. But this also brings back that topic you mentioned earlier, doing many things very slowly. And probably in very small steps. Also to take out this sense of urgency. And something like that, so people really notice, ah, it's only about this, yeah, half a centimeter. And not immediately the ten centimeters of brake pull I give to control the whole thing. And to really feel into it like that.
Yes, absolutely. Because when you watch people doing ground handling, if the glider hits their face, or, yeah, it's usually about two seconds where they're too slow. If they hesitate to react—what do I have to do now? And if you could rewind this moment, in slow motion, until it happens, and then a bit further back, it doesn't happen at that moment where you have to think, oh, now I don't know what to do anymore. Instead, it's in the philosophy of small steps.
you get a bit further
and you know that if you keep it calm, you have more time to react. And that's the secret. And then there are actually fewer situations where things get out of control and the glider ends up on its nose. On the contrary, we do that on purpose. We let it, if you do it slowly, you can also let something get out of control slowly, so that it over-rotates the glider, so it goes onto its nose and ultimately lies with the leading edge facing down. But even that happened slowly and you have plenty of time to watch. And you could also say now, I have time to react again to prevent that.
And that also gives you a good feeling again.
You were just talking about waking hypnosis and the influence, so basically giving the thinking in your head, or the mindset, a bit of a new direction, so something like that. That means learning mainly takes place in the head too. And when you see professional athletes, they use a lot of that stuff too, for example, track and field athletes, they close their eyes, and you see, ah, they're going through the movement they have to do next again. Or sometimes aerobatic pilots, you see them at the launch site, they walk around a bit and imagine, okay, and now I pull the outer - and inner brake and let go again and weight shift and other things. It looks like a dance on the launch site. Are there also things where you work with people and say, now let's just try to visualize these things and then we'll work on them?
So is that also a method you work with?
No. Well, I recommend that people, after a ground handling day, take another look at the whole thing with their eyes closed on the bed, and just take one of the individual exercises and simply feel it out with their eyes closed. It's like a protected space and you have time, and you can remember how it felt. And in my opinion, that makes an extreme difference. And yes, that is the mental training.
When you do exercises on the bed or with your eyes closed,
then that is really a very powerful technique, a very effective technique to improve ground handling. What else would you like to learn in your flying career? I would like to, if I put in the time, I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to fullstyle. I've done a few already, but I'd really like to learn fullstyle properly, and the backfly and then the heli. That would be my dream maneuver.
So, a bit more aggression towards the ground games, a bit more playfulness in the air. Yeah,
That would be a lot of fun.
Last question, Urs: if you look back at your younger self—you were very young at the start of your flight training and during those first flight hours, maybe even years—what would be the most important piece of advice you'd give that younger Urs, based on all your experience today?
Look for
people with a lot of experience right after your training, who you'd go with, who would take you flying. Like a mentorship system, so that I could learn from them. I would also do a cross-country flight on a tandem. And I would find someone who could teach me the most important things of ground handling in one or two hours, so that I could practice more on my own safely.
Those would be about the three things that would have helped me a lot back then. And I think that would be the same for everyone.
Just security. What would have happened to you if you'd gotten that tip right at the beginning? Oh boy.
I don't know. I can't say, because I have a family, my kids are already grown, 25 and 23, but I have a lovely wife and I don't want to lose her. So it could have been that it would have taken my arm off pretty severely again. But yeah, probably about the same. I just took my time with my development and I'm actually there now.
So, you've slowly completed your development then. Maybe a nice summary of what people can learn from you now is that you should set many small tasks and do them, especially, building on each other slowly. Then you can really get very, very far, also with your entire ground handling. Urs, thank you for your story about your experience as a ground handler and ground handling training and what one can do there. And I wish you that you can still experience some of those beautiful rainbow flights or other magnificent flights that can be experienced somewhere else in the world.
Many thanks, Christian. Great. You're very welcome.
That was Urs Aschmann in conversation with Lucian Haas. In the show notes for this podcast episode on Fluglites, you will find several additional links, including to Urs's ground handling website and the ground handling challenge by André Bandara mentioned in the podcast. If you're looking for more input for your ears in addition to ground handling info, you can now find nearly 40 hours of additional podcast episodes on Podz-Glidz. Podz-Glidz is available on Soundcloud, Spotify, iTunes, and many other audio catalogs. If you don't want to miss an episode, you can also simply subscribe to Podz-Glidz in your podcatcher of choice. If you would like to support Podz-Glidz as a patron, you can find the necessary information on the Lu-Glidz website, specifically on the "Fördern" page.
And with that, I'm really coming to the end. Now, take your glider and go do some ground handling again. But take it slow. Because as paradoxical as it sounds, the fastest way to become an experienced ground handler like Urs is through small steps. Ciao!