19,000+ Jumps Out of a Perfectly Good Plane with Amy Chmelecki (094)

On this episode of Seasoned Athlete, we’re talking to professional sky diver Amy Chmelecki. She’s done over 19,000 sky dives, broken 20 sky diving world records, holds 5 world titles and 10 national titles…and that’s just some of it!

In this episode, we discuss…

-  How participating sports can help you find confidence

-  Why trying new things (even if they scare you) is so important

-  Why having a growth mindset helps with achieving your goals

-  What it means to be a woman in a male dominated sport

…and more!

Connect with Amy here: https://www.instagram.com/amychmelecki

Here are some highlights…

Amy’s early athletic life

I didn't discover athletics until about 14 and when I finally did, something completely changed in me. I remember realizing like, ‘wow, I'm good at this,’ and before that, I never really had felt good at anything. As a child, I was like, ‘I'm not smart, you know, just like kids stuff.’ And on the field, I felt good. Things were moving fast, I could really see things more clear and I could move better. I had asthma growing up, really bad, so it didn't come easy running around on the field, but there was something about it [field hockey]. The moment I discovered athletics as a young girl, it completely changed my life.

The first time she went sky diving

I went to a sky diving facility with a friend of mine, who I still skydive with to this day, he's on the Red Bull Air Force with me. That first day when I walked on to a drop zone, which is another name for a coding facility, I saw just all these amazing, happy people, and that was in New York. I grew up outside of New York City, and people weren't always happy like that. This was in 1996, it was a different time. People are happier in New York these days.

I walked into the ski facility and I realized that it was something that you could do [professionally], that it could be part of your life. Until that point, I just thought you did it once or you were in the military. I didn't really understand. And pretty much from that moment on, I never looked back.

All about the sky diving community

It's like-minded people that are enjoying [the same thing.] It's people from all walks of life. Maybe you're hanging out with a brain surgeon, and a lot of times you don't even know what they do for years, and it'll be someone in this intense insane career. I was a bartender to pay for my skydive in the first five years when I was becoming a professional sky diver. So you have really this big range of people, but everyone enjoys sky diving and for the most part, everyone is so nice and happy. It’s a total sub culture once you’re in it.

What it means to be a pro sky diver

There are a lot of different avenues you could take to become professional in the sport, believe it or not. There's a lot of opportunities and different roads you could take. It’s also a nice sport that you can do into your 40s and 50s. I have friends that are still going strong in their 60s as professional skydivers so it's really a great sport. I have one friend that was on his way to being a professional soccer player, and he was sky diving too and he saw that as having more longevity, he could do it for longer, so he decided to take that path and he excels now.

Right now I have three main aspects to my hustle. I work with Red Bull, they sponsor me on part of the Red Bull Air Force, and that's about a third of what I do. We do demonstration jumps, and we do project-based social media projects and VIP tandem experiences. We’ll take the IPs on tandems and they’re such an amazing company to work for. They hired me when I was 36. A lot of people think that Red Bull doesn't work with older athletes, but yeah, they hired me when I was 36.

I also coach different groups within the military, and that's also a big part of what I do. And then I work with a non-profit called the Women's Skydiving network It's a great endeavor. When we can, we're gonna do a world record, but it's a huge endeavor getting 100 women together to break a world record for sky diving.

Amy shares why it’s important to uplift other women sky divers

It’s always been a drive of mine from the beginning. There are not a lot of women that sky dive at all, and I always used to wonder why. I would hang around the drop zone and it would be like me and 20 guys. That is still a lot of the normal though it has changed in the last 25 years since I started sky diving, but I was always thinking ‘Gosh, it'd be nice to jump with a bunch of women.

 So even as a very young sky diver, I would get groups of women together and say, ‘Hey, let's all do jump together.”

And it really was just a different feeling because it was so rare to get to do it. It was just usually a lot of men, which I'm really not complaining, that was also kind of fun... Let's face it as a 18-year-old girl. That was fun.

It also became apparent that other people wanted to do it, so it was an easy way, not only to do things that got me motivated and were helpful to other women, 'cause it was inspiring when people saw women reaching certain goals and making this great things happen, but it was also something I could hustle, something I could do and make a business out of, so it was kind of an easy, clear path for me.

Robin shares her own goals for helping women become athletic

It's nice to help other women see the side of themselves that you were able to see at a much younger age. This is something that I really stand for too, as a coach, and part of this podcast is that I want to help women see this potential in themselves. When many women have been conditioned to think that things like skydiving are just not for them, and to be able to open up that opportunity and you're doing it by example, you're showing what's possible, you're helping to create opportunities for other women. I think it's so important because we are under-represented in many sports, it's just how it is.

Amy’s experience working on stunts in Hollywood

I feel like a lot of my career, I can't deny it it has to do with luck. I met some really amazing people early on in my career, and they got to kind of watch me grow, including the Captain of the Red Bull Air Force. They also do a lot of stuff in Hollywood, they're based in LA and we do a lot of cool stunts. Generally, if I fit the description, so it's gotta be kind of a blond woman around my height and around my build, I will get that job. That doesn't always happen, but when it does, it's so awesome 'cause Hollywood, anything you do where it's like a big stunt like that, it's always so challenging and you're with a group of extreme professionals!

The challenges of breaking world records

World records are a little bit like that. They're brutal through the process. It's freezing, you're jumping over and over again. You're getting the same sky dive over and over again. People are getting exhausted. You’re having to cut people from the sky dive 'cause they're not performing, which is always heart breaking. But the whole thing is, it's about the journey. Every job we're getting better, but really it's like, it’s about the journey. When you're done with it and now that's in the record books, that's where the reward is.

Amy’s perspective of the unique challenges of being an athlete over 40

I was afraid getting a bit older. I started thinking, how much longer can I do this? And am I still valuable? I wasn't sure. I was so used to this concept of like “Oh, I'm gotta be young to do this.”

Then there was this awakening in my 40s where I'm like, ‘Wow. I still have a lot to offer.’ I have so much experience to offer people, and although I've had to refine my performance and my strategy where I'm not doing 12-15 skydive a day, every day training for world championships like I used to, I'm bringing all my skill set and all my connections and all the experience I have,

So it really, it has been nice that discovery of how much you do have to offer.

I would say on the physical side, obviously any athlete in their 40s knows that it gets harder. You have to take more care of yourself. Big time. It used to be that I could stay up and hang out and socialize and have beers and then just travel across the world and get somewhere and then go to work the next day, and now I'm like, I have to really plan more strategically, make sure, I'm hydrated, make sure I'm rested.

Amy’s Parting Words of Wisdom

I would say be open-minded. Be in that growth mindset. I can't imagine a life without trying to wake up every day and be open-minded to being a better person. Don't limit yourself. There’s so much more possible than you think.

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