1. Toastmasters Project #5
Your Body Speaks
Just a Jump - Bernardo Najlis
Madame Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters and welcomed guests...
Just by showing hands: How many of you know the TV Show “The Amazing Race”?
Good, good. I’m a huge fan of ‘The Amazing Race’ and sometimes I imaging myself
going through life doing the kind of challenges they have on the show. That’s how I
decided to better be prepared and try bungee jumping. I did this a couple of weeks ago
in Ottawa, where there is a crane over a sheer cliff surrounded by a lake.
So the first thing you have to do is climb that cliff from the base where the lake is, and
get to the crane. I got up with a group of around 10 other people. They put us in order
according to our weight and the jumps started. After a couple of guys jumped, my turn
came up so I started walking on the crane to get to the place where one actually jumps.
That walk was one of the most scariest things I did... at least until that moment.
They adjusted the jumping rope on my feet and an extra safety harness on my chest.
While I was sitting and waiting to jump, my mind went totally blank. Couldn’t think of
anything, neither future nor past.
And then they told me to stand up and get to the jumping place, where there were two
handrails . The instructors told me to extend my arms and just look into the horizon.
Then the countdown begun... five, four, three, two, oneeeeee.... I grabbed the handrails
and I couldn’t jump!!! So the instructors started with a pep talk: it is normal to be
nervous because what you’re doing is not normal, you’re probably feeling the adrenaline
rush, this is totally safe, thousands of people jump every single year.
And they put me back into the jumping position and the countdown starts again... and I
just couldn’t do it. At this point my heart was racing, almost jumping out of my mouth,
and my legs shaking. Believe me, if you want to do this, you better just do it from the
first attempt, the more you get cold feet, the worst it gets. I started to feel how nervous
the instructors got, so they tell me: “Ok, look, this is what we’re gonna do: turn around”
and I turned around, with my back facing the void. Then they grabbed me by the safety
harness and instructed me to lay back over the edge. So I put half of my feet on the
platform and the my heels out of it and laid back while they hold me by the string
attached to my harness. They instructed me to extend my arms again, I shut my eyes
and when they asked me, I gave the signal and they released me....
I stated falling, falling on my back and trying to grab onto something. The feeling you get
while falling is totally indescribable, I think the best word I can come up with is
overwhelming. It takes around 5 to 6 seconds for your brain to try understand what is
happening... and for me to stop screaming. After that you can start to enjoy the up and
down rebound that are really cool. After all the bouncing ended, they lowered my cable

2. to a boat that waited for me and then took me to out of the lake to the coast where my
friends were.
What can I say? It was definitively the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Would I do it again?
Probably no, but I think is one of those “once in a lifetime” experiences that you have to
go through. It helped me learn more about my fears and limits and how to face them,
but I can testify that it is not just a jump!