Dangerous Sports – dangerous guys”
The founders of bungee jumping were the Dangerous Sports Club, a group of wild Oxford University Graduates, many of them very rich.
It was a quintessentially English amateur sports club started by three people who have lived to see its ideas taken up around the world with many people imitating it and sometimes claiming world records which were long ago surpassed by club members who always gave priority to new ideas over making money from ones they had pioneered successfully. In this, as in many other ways, they may be different from other extreme sportsmen you will find on the net.
The picture shows one of the Clubs iconic events at St. Moritz. Another time they skied downhill on a grand piano, and the image has been used in many ads.
The Strange Adventures of the Dangerous Sports Club – buy it from Amazon
Their idea for bungee jumping was inspired by the invention of bungy rope and the practice Land-diving in Pentecost Island. Jumping from the highest platform from a Specially built 80 ft tower made out of local trees and vines. No screws or nails used.
Bungee Jump – all you need to get started £69 from Amazon
The DSC’s ideas are so whacky because the members are not yer typical sportsmen — they tend to have backgrounds in the arts and engineering. At Oxford, the club was comprised of people too intelligent to spend time and trouble on mere thrill seeking. The club was intended to have two basic functions – to innovate, going where others had not gone before, and to create lasting images and observations that were unique as well as life enhancing.
Once one club activity was developed another and different project was taken on. Events the DSC pioneered like bungy jumping, microlighting and BASE parachuting were taken up by others and spread round the world. The leader of the club, David Kirke, saw it as their moral and artistic responsibility to innovate and build up a collection of lasting images on film, video and camera as well as prose. He preferred to leave the commercial marketing of their innovations to others who followed them. When he had to choose between making money out of something developed or pursuing something new he chose the latter.
The DSC has had over 80 projects in 40 different countries.
You must log in to post a comment.