Judgment in BASE

Survival in the BASE environment requires us all to apply sound judgment every time we put our lives on the line

In modern BASE culture it seems that “judgment” has picked up a negative connotation, even though we commonly refer to “good judgment” as being necessary to survive.  

In an attempt to examine this inconsistency, it’s necessary to start with some definition of the word, which is widely accepted to be:

Judgment: an estimate or opinion formed by comparing and discerning. 

In this form we can apply judgment to a wide range of precisely observable things like; parachute systems, exit points and the techniques we use to jump them. We can also judge things that are less tangible like; stated goals, designed progressions and intentional performances (which is the literal job of mentors and instructors and the implied job of friends). In the interest of personal and communal progression, everyone needs to feel comfortable applying judgment to these items for themselves and for the people they care about. Without us judging these items, we wouldn’t have progressed to the exciting and radical place that we find ourselves in now.

By contrast, there are a few things that become tricky to judge since they are largely imperceptible by modern human means and may in fact change by simply attempting to observe them. These tricky items include things like: motivations, subconscious reactions and unintentional interactions (though we often go slightly mad attempting to judge these things anyway). 

In BASE jumping, just like criminal justice, we often fall into making the same basic mistakes in applying judgment, which often point to a misunderstanding of the its purpose. In my humble opinion, the purpose of judgment is to work toward progress. This is not to say that passing judgment on things where progress isn’t the goal isn’t possible, just that in the context of BASE jumping, this seems like a waste of time. By judging something, we are essentially saying that there is room for improvement and pointing out the specifics of where work can be applied, in the most objective way possible. By being objective about our judgment, our assessment can be used to drive at a more universal truth, which is ultimately more helpful to improve whatever is under scrutiny. 

But how we understand the possible improvements of whatever we judge may lead to some basic mistakes.

• Judging something as “good or bad” – Good and bad generally speak to a desired outcome (“good” things leading to “good” outcomes and “bad things leading to “bad” outcomes). In BASE jumping, where death is expected and not universally understood as a “bad” outcome, it’s obvious that this type of judgment is subjective and therefore useless.Discerning ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ is also dishonest because we have a limited ability to say whether something will eventually lead to a bad outcome. For more on predicting eventual outcomes,  see this Classic Tale entitled Maybe So, Maybe Not, We’ll See. 

• Judging people for things out of their control – Judging people for their upbringing, skin tone, sexual orientation, IQ or anything they didn’t choose is categorically mean. However, I also believe that adjustments can and should be made to suit these things. For instance, if I or someone I know does not have the capacity to understand how dangerous what we’re doing is, we must train diligently to avoid that danger and – in the most extreme cases – consider not doing it at all. 

• Judging elements that cannot change – The best way I can describe this is someone who blames their parachute for producing a bad landing, or the jumping conditions for an injury. Both of those are illogical ways of applying judgment since the parachute cannot change and we have no ability to change the conditions once we’re in them, thus judging them in this manner is unreasonable. Instead, when we recognize elements that are unchangeable, we must adapt ourselves to be successful. This would look like learning to fly our parachutes better or getting another parachute to fly, jumping only in excellent conditions or training diligently to deal with increasingly chaotic conditions. Additionally, judging people who have shown us that they are unwilling to change (tempting as it may be) is categorically a waste of energy… heartbreaking as it is to stay silent in cases where they are destined to fail.

• Judging something as a whole for a single action – Getting down on ourselves for one bad landing or calling someone reckless for doing one dumb thing is an unfair application of judgment. A judgment that applies guilt by extension isn’t judgment, it’s shit-talk. Since we do not know if an isolated incident was a simple mistake, it’s unfair to extend that judgment past the incident itself and discredit the person making that mistake. It’s important to avoid this type of judgment (which often comes off as shaming) with ourselves and others because it reduces the chances for learning. Judgment becomes increasingly relevant as incidents continue to occur and a pattern emerges. This is not to say that a correction shouldn’t be made if one single occurrence is serious enough or that judgment shouldn’t be applied if the single occurrence is intentional.

Additionally, we have to consider the proper time and place to apply judgment. Categorically the worst time to fall into these ‘mistakes in judgment’ is when we’re actively jumping. A jumper who starts to unfairly judge themselves for mistakes they are actively making is incredibly likely to lose focus and fall victim to a cascading series of mistakes. 

There are certainly more examples of misapplications of judgment, but rather than belabor that point, let’s move onto the components that make up “sound” judgment. Sound judgment is the ability to make well-reasoned, logical, and fair decisions based on the careful evaluation of facts, experiences, and desired outcomes. 

To reiterate this in simple form, judgment is: an estimate or opinion formed by comparing and discerning.

For our judgment to be “sound”, we need to apply critical thinking (the most important component of which is open-mindedness) and balance our intuition (subconscious understanding) with rational analysis to arrive at a fuller understanding of cause and effect. To be critical in this way takes training and practice, but by no means requires us to be harsh or stringent – in fact, quite the opposite. If we consider  how much of this criteria is applied to the matter at hand, we can rate the resulting judgment on a scale of sound to unsound and weigh how much to trust it. Experience and training in the subject being judged increases the value of said judgment. But, people who are new to a subject can also apply sound judgment, it just may require them to put in more work and possibly require some guidance. Appropriately applied, judgment can be one of the best tools we have for survival

Appropriately applied, judgment can be one of the best tools we have for survival

• Apply without emotional content – While careful consideration of our emotions is necessary to arrive at a full understanding of the elements under scrutiny, no emotion needs to be applied in the transmission of judgment. An absence of emotion allows for an unclouded space for that judgment to be considered. In airsports, I have witnessed countless interactions where a student is being yelled at or a new jumper is literally hitting themselves following a mistake. In all cases  – from situations involving imminent danger to situations where the danger is past-tense – a non-emotional application of judgment provides the best opportunity for progression.

• Apply in conditional statements (if/then) – Simply judging something as suboptimal is incomplete. For judgment to be helpful we have to include the whole picture. In BASE jumping, these opportunities usually present themselves when we’re examining the probability of failure or success of a given plan. 

Example – IFwe’re jumping the Perrine Bridge and pull after 3 seconds, THEN there is a low probability chance that we will make the main landing area. 

• Apply towards an outcome – In the context of BASE jumping, this may look like telling someone that their input under canopy is likely to produce a certain result and then evaluating if those results are optimal for what they are attempting to accomplish.

Example – Pulling our rear risers down to our chest will probably stall the canopy and is unlikely to produce much backward progress. Therefore, this action is not the optimal response if we want to backslide away from a solid object.

• Apply in context and with the relevant context – For judgment to be valuable, it must be applied with the applicable situation in mind. It’s also helpful for that judgment to be delivered as close to the context in which the thing under examination occurred. This is why judging someone’s jump a year later with a single angle video  is a difficult task, whereas judging someone’s performance on the exit by simply experiencing it is relatively straightforward. ‘In context’ includes items like the lead-up to the jump, energy on the exit point and the jumping conditions. Relevant context includes items like the stated plan, the amount of experience held and the progression taken. 

Sidenote: The vast majority of judgment I have come across in extreme sports happens completely out of context and largely through hearsay (second-hand accounts of what happened). This is unlikely to produce valuable insights, but incredibly likely to create a toxic culture of shit-talk and a resulting resistance to judgment of any kind.

Once we reach an understanding of how to apply sound judgment, we still arrive at the crux of when to apply it. This question comes down to what we value. I value freedom as highly as I value life and so my judgment is reserved to preserve both of those things, which in some cases, are  in conflict with one another. No matter what your values, I believe there are a few situations where judgment needs to be applied if we care about ourselves and our comrades.

• If someone is interested in BASE jumping –  I think it’s our duty as BASE jumpers (at any experience level) to judge the mental and physical preparedness of anyone who asks for our guidance in pursuing BASE jumping. No matter who that person is, preparedness is something they have control over and such, something we should have standards and judge people against them, if we want to decrease the death rate.

• When a BASE jumper is under our supervision – I believe it’s categorically our job as educators, instructors, guides and friends to judge the actions of and provide non-polarized feedback to the jumpers under our supervision so that they can improve. I do not believe this responsibility is lessened in cases where we are not being paid. Judgment should be applied in non-professional relationships where any  jumper is under the supervision of another. If we are uncomfortable intentionally judging another jumper, we can simply avoid accepting a supervisory role.

Sidenote: If we’re being paid and not judging our clients this way, by definition we no longer qualify as “educators”, “instructors”, or “guides”.

• Between colleagues in education – If we want to decrease the death rate (which unfortunately is not everyone’s primary goal), It’s crucial to judge each other’s work and be open to hearing judgments of our own work. Being resistant to judgment or being unwilling to provide it for others is an admittance of a value system where reducing the death-rate is not the first priority. 

• On any and all exit points we end up on – No matter who we came with, no matter if we are known or strangers, no matter what our experience level, I firmly believe that everyone on every exit-point should open themselves to and offer judgment to each other. This comes down to the simple fact that, regardless of intention, we are all affected by the decisions made by the people we share an exit point with and as such deserve and owe each other the gift of sound judgment. 

For judgment to produce progress it’s necessary to apply it to ourselves or directly to the person who’s opening themselves to that judgment. Another toxic trap that extreme sports practitioners can fall into is to “snitch” on each other when someone is not receptive to judgment by spreading that judgment around their social circle. My best advice in cases where someone is not receptive to judgment is to leave that relationship intact and prepare for the next opportunity to help. My best advice when someone is “snitching” about someone else is, to offer help to connect them with the person their judgment is meant for, and remind them that by spreading their judgment around, they are decreasing the likelihood that their target will be receptive.

Even when we are skilled at judgment and operating in our area of expertise, we may still experience lapses in judgment where our faculties are not functioning at full capacity. Situations like this exist when we are under heavy strain (like after a big hike or at the tail end of a trip) or because other factors are confounding our better judgment (like while under the influence of substances or in group situations). In the rare case where we fall victim to a lapse in judgment, we can only hope that there are people who love us close by, to make a judgment call. Sometimes making a judgment call is as simple as pointing out a flaw in our thinking without prompting, but can be as intense as pulling someone’s pins. Intervention is sometimes necessary to correct a behavior that is beyond the scope of a jumper to comprehend and is totally acceptable so long as we are ready to explain ourselves and back our decisions with sound judgment. 

If we’re going to reduce the death rate in BASE jumping I think it’s necessary that we all judge ourselves and each other. It’s my opinion that some of us do this in appropriate ways and others in completely unacceptable ways. But more important than IF we judge each other is WHEN we don’t. For example: An athlete won’t judge you for skipping the bar to train, a company founder won’t judge you for working on a Saturday, a BASE jumper won’t judge you for risking your life and a drug addict won’t judge you for destroying your body to get high. Too often we trend toward people who don’t judge us for things they should and judge us for things they shouldn’t. Watch a drug addict not judge someone for going on a ketamine bender and then judge that person for wanting to be sober. Or watch a BASE jumper not judge someone for being reckless and then judge them intensely for not wanting to jump right after a fatality occurs. Ultimately, I’ve found that the least judgmental among us either don’t know how to apply sound judgment or don’t care about themselves or the people around them.

Over my years in several different extreme sports communities, I’ve also found that those who throw the most shade on judgment are actually the ones who are applying the most judgment  – ironically by inappropriately judging the concept of judgment itself. I’ve often found that those individuals who apply an unfair or unkind judgment in the background are avoiding any form of public judgment, so they aren’t exposed as hypocrites. I’ve also found that those of us who are afraid of, or resistant to being judged have usually already decided our path and see judgment as an attempt to change our trajectory – which we’re steadfastly and sometimes foolheartedly attached to – even when we know it will lead to serious injury or death.

In my opinion, those of us who care about ourselves and each other will spend the time and energy to apply sound judgment in healthy ways so that we all progress. No matter what our experience level, sound judgment can come from any one at any time. So please, if anyone has any sound judgment to offer us, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’ll be waiting to thank you for it.