Why the hell would I want to jump off a cliff?

There comes a point in every person's life, when hurling yourself off a sheer cliff just seems like a good idea. I would like to say that it is to do with our genes, but that would be stupid because the human race would not exist if this was true, or at least not for much longer. For lack of any better explanantion, I'll say it's an environmental influence. Heck, behavioural scientists say it all the time, so why cant I?

Fortunately, there is a way of entertaining this highly irrational need, and living to tell the tale, or at least having a chance of living to tell the tale.

There is a right and a wrong way of cliff jumping, or at least a wrong way, and a slightly safer way. Thankfully, the gene that causes you to jump the wrong way has pretty much died out, due to the carriers of that gene removing themselves from our gene-pool (I know I said it couldn't be a gene thing, but blaming everything on our environments is self damning, as whenever somebody close to us kills themselves, we always feel partly guilty. Blaming it on genes is far easier). If you find somebody who does it the wrong way, and has been doing it for sometime, then make sure you get some gambling tips off of them, because they have what is known in the scientific world as the 'lucky gene.' There is no known way of using the wrong way for an extended period of time without having this gene. There is also no known way of testing for this gene so I wouldn't risk it.

The Wrong Way

The wrong way involves walking to a cliff edge, and jumping off.

The Right Way

The right way is the same, but with a few subtle differences. The first difference is that before you jump, you check the depth of the water, check for any submerged rocks, and check how far you have to jump out from the edge of the cliff. Suitable water depth is a point of debate, but when jumping from a reasonable height (20-30ft), then twice your height is usually more than sufficient. Higher jumps will obviously require deeper water. When jumping out from the cliff, you dont want to have to jump further than a metre or so, depending on how far down the thing you are avoiding is. If you are avoiding a sumberged rock from 30ft up, then you can usually jump about 3 metres out from the edge. If you are avoiding the next ledge down from you, then you wont be able to make more than a metre or so in length by the time you get to it. Always remember to jump out from the cliff, rather than stepping off, because looking down from the top of the cliff can be deceptive, and it may have more of a slope to it than you think.

The second difference is the increased chance of survival.

I've never done it before and I'm scared

Being scared is only natural. The reason why you're jumping off this huge cliff is because you want to scare yourself. I can't explain why humans like to scare themselves, they just do. For a first time I would suggest jumping where other people are jumping, or even a large diving board in a swimming pool. The knowledge that it's been done before is a great confidence booster. Once you're up there, on the edge of the cliff, staring death in the face and saying boo, a whole load of thought's are going to go through your head; "Why am I doing this?"¹, "What happens if I dont jump far enough?" "What if there's a submerged rock that i missed?"² But you must banish all these thoughts from your mind, and focus on jumping, because if you dont focus fully, you could slip, or hesitate, and can end up in serious trouble.

So there it is, the almost comprehensive guide to cliff-jumping. I hope that by making this I will save a few lives, and happy jumping!