PWC Lifestyle: Klaudia Bulgakow

Take it as an adventure. Like many people call me like, because they hear like, if you go to fly competition, you're going to learn a lot. And then they are frustrated because they are at the back and they didn't learn anything. Well, I went for competition. I learned a lot because you observe others, maybe not in the beginning, but at least you try to fly the task and then you can land and go back to go and have a beer with those superstars and ask questions. Some of them will ask, answer the questions, you know, be curious. It was the World Championship in Valle del Bravo in Mexico in 2009. I was going there, I was pretty

self-confident, kind of a little bit arrogant young pilot, already flying a comp wing, having my first World Cup wins and completely ignoring the science that I might not be there yet where I think I am.

Klaudia Bulgakow: What is up, pilots across the world? Welcome back to episode number four of PWCA edition. Now, this is the last episode of PWCA, Paragliding World Cup Association, because the first couple of episodes were about navigating brand new sites for paragliding world cup, you know, which had just come up. One was in India, the other one was Kenya. If you're keen to check out those episodes, just scroll down in the show index and you'll find them there. Super exotic ones, a lot of knowledge over there. And then the third one was the president himself of the association coming around and telling us what basically goes on behind the scenes and how the show is run so successfully. But in this one, we

take a deep dive into how life is when you chase your dream as a paragliding World Cup pilot. And we are joined by none other than one of the most amazing pilots out there, Her name is Claudia and she has basically fulfilled the dream that a lot of pilots want when they start paragliding. And that is from going to a novice pilot to chasing the glory and actually making it happen by winning in paragliding world cups. Coming in as a minority in the sport of paragliding, you know, as a woman, she had to face a lot of challenges. Turbulence was not just in the air, but turbulence was on the ground as well for her initially. However, we all know it's very famously said that passion never fails.

And this woman is an example of how passion can actually take you places. Super thankful that you found time out from her busy schedule because currently she has been blessed with a baby girl less than two and a half months ago. So drumroll please for the effort. But still, since it's always a pleasure to talk about your passion, I think that is the side that we get to see of Claudia in this episode. So if you're someone who dreams about racing paragliders and even more so winning with racing paragliders, then this episode is for you. Because Claudia is a perfect example of how perseverance and believing in yourself and most importantly, working hard will pay off. So without further ado, let's

dive right into this last episode of PWCA. And needless to say, stay excited, stay tuned, because the next topic coming up in the month of March is for new technologies. And it's nothing but a wealth of information sharing from the bottom of the hearts of designers, the industry professionals, the ones who are actually involved in pushing the limits. And so I'm not going to spill any more beans here. You're going to have to wait for the episode to come out. But yes, all this talk that is happening around Stubai Cup and everything that is hitting our mailboxes will more or less be covered in the coming episodes. So until then, this is Claudia Bulikova sharing her insights on Paragliding

World Cup and how to make it happen. Claudia Bulgakov, thank you so much for doing this. Welcome to Paragliding Atlas. How are you today? I'm great. Thank you very much. We

have pretty podcast weather outside right now. Is that so? Yeah, it's raining heavily. Well, I share the feelings because I'm joining you

Klaudia Bulgakow: from Oslo, Norway, and it is kind of similar. So we both are in perfect situation to do this and get this done. Exactly. Well, along with you, I see a very cute guest in front of us. I believe if you can introduce her to our audiences. I mean, they cannot see her, but of course, you know, a little bit of an introduction. Yeah, you might hear in the backstage my daughter, Alexandra. She's two and a half months tomorrow, so she might

be hearable. Wow. Well, congratulations on the new journey. I'm pretty sure this is one of the most special moments for any person in their life.

Klaudia Bulgakow: So wish you all the luck in the coming years. All right. So, I mean, you know, your profile is fascinating and inspiring and needless to say, one of the most amazing, you know, ways to chase glory while racing paragliders. If you can just get us started on what basically gets you excited, because I have been spending quite a lot of time on your website and there are so many things that I want to talk about. But first things first, what is the thing that kind of got you into aviation? and racing paragliders in the air. Oh, that's a difficult question. It's so

multi-layered. And thank you for your flutter. Thank you for the introduction. Well, when I was small, I always liked to watch birds flying. And in an area where I grew up, on the countryside house of my grandparents, there were several airfields. So there was always something flying over my head. And it was kind of like... In my back head, it's fascinating, this all art of flying, but it felt like unapproachable. You know, I'm coming from Poland and we are post-communist country. So we didn't have that much money to even dream of flying. And I was always more into sailing. Oh. And then I discovered that there is this thing, paraglider, which is much cheaper than

airplane or cell plane. And you can travel with this and it looks like fun. So I give it a go. And from first solo flight, I completely fell in love and wanted to do it as good as I can, possibly. And the racing part is just because I'm kind of natural born. competitor and she couldn't motivate me any other way than in making competition on everything like including eating when I was like two years old so first I did ice skating then I did tennis and for me paragliding was my first sport I started early because I For ice skating and tennis, I was always too late, like

too old, too fat, too small. It was always some problem. And paragliding was the only sport that I started with 17. And the other guys were starting with 26, 27. So I felt like, oh, I have six years ahead of them to become good and beat them all. So when I started to fly, I moved on straight to my routine. from the previous year. So training and flying as much as I can and trying to understand how to become good. So this is a long answer to a short question. It's a very fascinating one. I can relate to this so much, you know, because I come from a land hockey and a

Klaudia Bulgakow: field hockey background. And I mean, I started playing field hockey kind of seriously when I was like 13, 14. And everybody was like, dude, people are doing this when they're seven, eight, like you're way too late. I mean, okay, I started paragliding when I was like 25, but I do get the vibe that you're saying, you know, being competitive in usual sports and all the pressure that comes with it. But since you turned back the clock a little bit, I really want to touch upon the topic about you zipping across the streets of Warsaw on a motorbike. No, I was never

motorbiking. I was dreaming of doing motorbiking like anyway. And that was my dream. And I don't know why my mom was like, for her, like my grandpa used to have a motorbike when my grandma was young and him and they were doing trips around Poland on the motorbike. But for my mom, it was kind of such a foreign concept to ride the motorbike. that when my neighbor moved in who got like enduro motorbike she went to him how to start motorbiking and completely weird like you do license right and he said no no no no motorbiking is too dangerous in poland it's really really life sentence it's better she fly And my mom bought into the concept. So she came home super excited and brought the idea of paragliding to me.

Because as with most of things, this was such a foreign concept to me. I've seen paragliders, but... I never knew anybody who was flying, so I didn't even think it's possible for me, you know. I'm like, I'm coming from a city, I'm coming from traditional sports. Her gliding was far, far concept, you know. So she was the motor into making me fly. what a blessing to have a parent like that and eventually she doesn't do sport imagine like she would drive a car if she need to go 100 meters to the shop you know she used to ride horse ride she used to uh ski when she was young

but then she never did anything she introduced me into skiing and that was the only sport she did and then when when she was in warsaw yeah hundred meter take a car to go shopping you know

Klaudia Bulgakow: Well, it seems like a luxury. She always called herself Mama Hen of the eagle-duck daughter because she was always running after me and I

would... Like when I was younger, younger, I was passionate about swimming, but I was never like training. It's just I was swimming. So she was on the edge of the river and I would swim till end of September. It's quite cold in Poland. Then I started to fly. So she sit on the ground and look me up. So she was always like, I'm like a cuckoo kid, you know, like where is this all coming from? But I mean, to be honest, it just sounds

Klaudia Bulgakow: like a blessing to have a parent like that. I clearly remember my mom freaking out saying, what the hell are you doing with your life? This is so like, you know, all over the place. But of course, we all have our own ways to chase our passions. So, no, super happy she got you into this and look how it eventually turned out your life. And I'm pretty sure you must be happy with that decision, no? Well, yes, she was happy, but she was

pretty sick. From 2012, she was in her own world. So, you know, it was kind of like separated. I don't know if she got really to understand everything what I did in my life later on. So it's... It's part of life, you know, but she supported me. Like, I think it's, it came from not being allowed to do what she wanted to do. And she was young, like her parents were very critical about her passions. She was an artist and for them, it was like for people job. Uh, so they were pushing her into something else and yeah. She couldn't understand, they couldn't understand her passion. So she wanted me to do whatever I want to do. And she was always like motivating me to chase my dreams, you know, like to not give a damn

about what other people say. Because she did kind of let other people suppress her and she didn't want it for me. I think like, this is my guess.

Klaudia Bulgakow: Makes sense. And we're so glad that you eventually did. And it eventually gave Paragliding World a female world champion in 2013. Yes, both of you did some things right there. But, you know, if I just have to start, I was just researching about this. You know, you started at 1999 and then by 2000, the very next year you were competing.

How does that happen? Within a year, you're still learning how to deal with the collapses and what the glide ratio is and what the speed bar is. How do you go from learning to pushing the speed bar all the time? Wow, this is a great question because I... For me, that was impossible as

well, as I'm coming from the traditional sports. You need to train hard and it takes time before you are ready to go to compete, you know? And to 1999 September, I did my license. By the way, it's 25 years ago this September. Wow. This is so crazy, right? Sorry, I made a small excursion about this. When I started to fly World Cup, I met Frankie Brown and he told me he's flying for 25 years and I was 23, I think. And I was looking at him like, this is like ages. And now myself, I'm flying 25 years. It is like really weird. Anyway, so I did my license, first license in 1999,

September. And as an athlete, you know, I made my program of my career. So I want to compete. I want to be on national team. So what you do, you need to, what are the steps? I need to do next licenses. So we used to have like a, no, I think it was L. It was beginner, a B. like limited was like, uh, Thermaling, then there was a full, and then there was a B. And so I did my program. Okay. I go for the A limited license in spring. I went with, because I want to compete. So I went with the national team coach. He used to have a paragliding school and did this all courses. So for sure, I want

to learn from the best. He was the first guy to compete from Poland on the World Cup. So I went here to Bassano, where I live now. So I went in May to Bassano for one week thermally course. And, you know, the way of teaching was not the same in 2000. Basically, I did take off land in the first course 20 times. And then I came here and I flew like first day I arrived here. He told like my coach told me. go reach soaring and i was like i was terrified on the takeoff i was never so high in my life with paraglider i was supposed to take off like from 500 meters and then go

soaring and like what are you talking about i never took off without winch i never i never heard of soaring So he's just like, you will be fine, just take off and you go left and right on the ridge and then you are staying in the air, you know. So, and I'm coming from flatland, so I took off and I was far too far from the ridge. So, of course, I went down and imagine if I could reach, sorry, it was too windy to reach the landing in front on the very beginner wing. So he lost me from the view. He said, go to land, go to land. And I, okay, I glided to the landing, but I'm not going

anywhere. I think I didn't even have a speed bar in that moment. So he, in panic, ran to the car because there was not the time that you've got two instructors, you know, it was just one on the takeoff or in the landing. He took off behind me. And by the time he took off, I was already landing in some garden. Because I just started to fly backwards toward Bassano and I found some small guard. I perfectly landed there. A guy was passing by, quite impressed that you can land here.

And that was my first flight in the mountain. But then, you know, you just... He was really good in explaining how to thermal. So, I did 20 hours in a week. Like, ish. You know? Thermaling and soaring. So... We would fly two hours in the morning, three hours in the afternoon. He would guide me on the radio and the thermals. Then we would have a lunch break. Then we would go to flight. He would guide me on the radio again. Then he got me a Vario and I started to fly on my own. Then within the same week, he started to tell me, okay, go there, go there, make transition.

And I did my first like 10K flights already in first week of flying. And then I came back to Poland and the first weekend on tow I flew 21 kilometers. Because I hang out with pilots and everybody was talking like how to find this trigger point, how to find thermals, how you understand on the cloud where is the thermal. And I remember that from the year before when I used to just drive a car and to spread the rope for winching. Mm-hmm. And, you know, okay, they said to go on the edge of the forest. I went, oh, beep, beep, beep. Okay, I found the thermal. And I

already knew how to thermal from the course. So I go there. And in Flatland, you have the wings, which push you. So, okay, next, next, next. And then I could go much more. But I got cold and I arrived close to Warsaw. And I didn't know exactly where the airspace of the airport is. So I spiraled down to land. Imagine, spiraled down to land on 21 kilometers. And we are speaking about the time when the Polish record was... That summer, a friend of mine did a Polish record of 107. So... So my second fly was 21, and then my third cross-country was 56. The same concept, just, oh, this cloud looks like falling apart, this cloud looks like it's fresh and coming. Okay, so I follow. Guys told me follow

lines of clouds. Okay, I follow. Go to this contrast and edge of forest, da-da-da. I follow. And like this, you know? They executed what they told me. And then they say, okay, you are so good. You are already so good. This is the paper. Like this is the piece of paper. You fill it out. Then you do photo every 20 kilometers. And you compete in like a Polish cross country cup. You just put everything in cover, like just make sure they don't cut the film. You put all the papers with the film inside. You send it to the judge. Judge is looking at it. They were checking on the map this

point. And then they were giving you points for kilometer. And that was a cup. So I started to compete. Okay, you're motivated to compete in that. We go next weekend on competition to North Poland. You come with us. And I'm like, are you joking? I don't fly even one year. What competition? Don't worry. You are good enough. Let's go. Let's go. You know, my neighbors. And they took me for my first comp. And I got so addicted that next comp was in September in Basanok here. I flew here already. Okay, let's go. My first flight was three kilometers. My second was 25, five hours with photos. I top landed somewhere on plateau, but still I tried, you know. So you ask how the heck I started to compete because there were

people who saw the passion and who were pulling me with. You know, if I wouldn't have these people around, if I would have these haters or like more of those who are telling your girl, you should not fly. Like I've got those as well. Like you're going to kill yourself. Women should be in the kitchen or whatever, you know, then I would probably not. But because there were other people who took me under the wing. and drove me everywhere that made everything possible for me and without my mom didn't even have idea what I'm doing you know because I was just going with the guys okay go with the guys wow You know, I mean, just basically, if I have to sum it up, you connected yourself with the right people and

Klaudia Bulgakow: surrounded yourself with the knowledgeable people who were able to judge your flying skills and tell you how to navigate risk versus reward. Because I have, like during my beginner progression, I have come across some people who have been like, you know, they give out advice. I'm going to turn off this extra sound because she wants to go to sleep now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, done. Yeah. So basically, like I have faced a similar kind of people in a very different settings. There are some who will motivate you and give you the constructive feedback, but there are some who don't know what they're talking about. So I think for our listeners and the audience, it is very important to surround

yourself with the right people. And that answer, you can only find that question. You can only answer yourself that who is the right person and how do you navigate risk versus reward with them? Well, I think to add to that, there is another liar if you're a woman. Because women tend not to

believe too much in themselves. And if somebody tells them not to do something, they would listen. And they follow usually the negative advice. But I was raised as a rebel. My mom was a hippie, feminist rebel. Unfortunately, not against her family, but social kind of ideas. And she told me I can do what I want. So I executed. I do what I want. I want to fly. I want to compete. If you tell me you can't because women are not made for that, because you're going to kill yourself. I was like, I was 17. I was looking to this 20 years older guy or 30 years older guy. And I was

like, what the heck? Who are you to tell me what I can do or not? You won't. Because if you don't want me to do, just don't look. Look other way. And this, unfortunately, beginning of my flying was dominated by this kind of need to like constant protect myself and prove that I am on the right place on the right spot you know and it kind of determined like half first half of my flying career to prove myself to prove that women have a place in the sport that I can do good that I can do even better than them and that was kind of like negative motivation which kind of spoiled this

romantic passion you know vibe makes sense makes sense now well thankfully i i hope fingers crossed i mean i'm i don't know what are the

Klaudia Bulgakow: challenges that like you know women face in today's world but i believe and i hope things have improved in the community and hopefully there are less of those challenges now unfortunately not everywhere Yes, yes. Some girls are still fighting the same. You are hanging. Some girls, I

don't want to get too much into it, but there are countries like why we see more, I think why we see... some countries where you have a lot of good pilots very strong female pilots doing it all like cross- country agro hike and fly competitions you know and you have countries where you don't see much they're girls flying but not really high level not really high performance wings and just answer your question like answer the question which i don't want to even ask why is it so it's just how do depends very much from your cultural background and what kind of men in the community are and what kind of instructors are and if they treat you normal they support you or they push you back and this is unfortunately

like reality we're facing today that women need understand more when they start to fly like they are not just do it you know we are not this just do it type of person we need to understand we need to clear explanation and unfortunately not all instructors are able to to do it you know they are just Telling that you are not able, you are not capable. That's why you can't do that. Or something like this, you know. So this is what I really dream of, that we have more good instructors out there who can teach everybody. Those who are more sensitive, who are more into doing

and learning by doing. And those who need more theory, more theoretical understanding, more precision, you know. Makes sense. Well, this is

Klaudia Bulgakow: our small attempt at balancing the power structure because the whole idea of trying to bring your story into this paragliding world cups was to tell how someone can go out and chase racing paragliders from the beginning of their career and actually make a life out of it. And not just a life, a very successful lifestyle. So fingers crossed, your story hopefully inspires some listeners to follow your footsteps. It definitely did to me. So, well, it's a start. And let's see where this one goes. But, you know, I want to move on from the period from 2000 to 2005, because that is like 2005, you eventually finally went pro and basically started living off it, if we go by the definition of it. So how

did you define the hard work? Is that so? Okay. I started competing in the World Cup and got first selection for the national team in 2005.

Exactly, you know, like pushing 2004, I realized I don't need much money to do full season. And I just like hitchhiked between the comps and so on. I did five comps that summer, same time studying and working in winter as a ski instructor. And 2005, I got a nomination for the national team. That was the year of the world championships in Brazil. But everything was, you know, like I was not even considered to go like by the national team. And they told me, I think like two weeks before the event that actually I could have go for with my own money. which is like too late for

organizing anything. That's another thing, how they treated women in our sport, in Poland at least. Then 2005, I got selected as well for the World Cup for the first year. And I did three last events. And I got my first sponsor in 2007. Like big sponsor. 2005, I got the equipment sponsorship. Like when I got selected, same time I managed to win some equipment sponsors. So it was a great help. And then the financial sponsor came 2007. So this is where I could say I started to like not leave of it, but have enough money to train and compete. Well, it was a start and

Klaudia Bulgakow: it's one of the most important phases of any athlete, basically getting some sort of support. It helps you psychologically, makes you motivated. But I just want to quickly touch upon the topic of hard work. As you mentioned in the beginning, you had some mentors who helped you navigate this, figuring out how to train. So once eventually you got self-sufficient and you kind of knew where to put in your effort, What does hard work, because since you're competitive, so what does hard work look like in terms of a paragliding pilot who is trying to chase world cups? Well, the thing that attracted me, one of the things which attracted me to paragliding was the fact that I don't need any coach to

tell me if I'm ready or not. Because that was the thing with classic sport that you always have a coach and the coach is telling you if you are ready to go for a competition, which competition to start and no. And that was the thing attractive, but at the same time, the hard thing, because you need to figure out all on your own. So the first season of competition, like 2004, I met two important persons. One was Nikolai Shorokhov. It was a Russian top pilot flying World Cup who used to be ski coach before. So we spoke kind of same language. You know, we are coming from

competitive classic disciplines. And he saw my struggles just like, you know, I was trying just... fly cross country in the comp and do some results. And he said, no, this is not how it works. You know, he explained me all the tactic and we were doing debriefings every day. Then that season we did almost all comps together. So he saw my progression and he could always give me feedback on improvements. And the other person, I forgot his name, but this is really embarrassing. I have very bad memory for names. Anyway, that was an observer from World Cup on one of the pre-World Cups I did that season. And he saw how I fly and he said, you should go for a World Cup. Again. No, I'm not ready. I need to, you know,

train more, compete more, get more experience. No, no, no, don't worry. There are not many good girls and not many good girls. So you are ready. You need to look how to get qualified. And he explained me by the rules how to get qualified for the World Cup. So this were my kind of like, one was the motivator. I say one was my mentor. And then alongside came Paolo Zarmacki and other guys who were giving me good tips, observing and advising how to become better. And nowadays, I believe if you have no good mentor, if you have nobody who can structure you, you have no chance

on the World Cup, kind of. Because this sport became so high level. We have right now... 90 people coming into goal within five minutes. So these are like hundreds of seconds time difference. If you don't know exactly what you're doing, if you don't know how to fly in big goggles, if you don't know how to reset your wing, so if you have some collapse or wreck, how to refly your wing again and not use the rescue every time, you have nothing to do in the World Cup. In my times, I went with C wing and I was still good, you know. Today, if you come with the C wing, it would be like,

Maybe you come in the goal two hours later, you know? So mentorship is super important. Coaches, mentors, books, you know, wherever you can get information. And the next thing is what I teach when I coach, mentors can be as well your friends. Because somebody is good... on Meteo and you are good on Thermalink. So you can teach this person how to become better in Thermalink and this person can teach you how to pick lines better. It doesn't have to be old pilot to teach you something. We just, you know, we have different skills and we, by working together and sitting together and analyzing the days and and and just picking up on the strength of each other even between people with same flying experience you can have

mentors you know That's such a good way to put it, because usually, you know, mentor or finding a mentor is like somebody super experienced or

Klaudia Bulgakow: you have that image of like, you know, an older and experienced pilot. But just surrounding yourself with passionate people, I think eventually does, I mean, it does not check off all the boxes, but it at least pushes you in the right direction. And of course, you can help and foster each other grow in an equal manner, I believe. Just look at the competition stand right now. We have several newcomers who are very

successful in the World Cup and they have not much flying experience, not many years in flying, but they are highly analytic people. Most of them are coming from an informatics background. So they are already, by default, their brain operates in this analytic way. And they just got access to information, like how to be successful in comps. And they execute, you know? There is no second guess. They just execute. I have a friend who flies two, three, no, this year will be four years. And to go flying with him, he has almost all it takes to be a good pilot. He needs just some trimming, you know. When for me, it took me 10 years, 15 years to arrive to that point. That's why, yeah, read books, get mentors, learn,

analyze. Yeah. Yeah, gather information from everywhere. And just check, you know, it's like not every people tells you it's going to work for you. What I did, I was reading and then I was going to fly and checking if it does work for me. Makes sense. I think the takeaway is stay hungry,

Klaudia Bulgakow: stay excited, and then things will eventually work out one day. Makes sense. Makes sense. You know, like take it as adventure. Take it as

adventure. Like many people call me like, because they hear like, if you go to fly competition, you're going to learn a lot. And then they are frustrated because they are at the back and they didn't learn anything. Well, I went for competition. I learned a lot because you observe others, maybe not in the beginning, but at least you try to fly the task and then you can land and go back to go and have a beer with those superstars and ask questions. Some of them will ask, answer the questions, you know, be curious and try to like treat it like with curiosity as a learning process and not have high expectations stray on when you start. Makes so much sense. And, you know, this resonates with

Klaudia Bulgakow: me so hard because that is the whole idea of making Paragliding Atlas accessible to everyone. You know, not everyone can try to put their resources in buying tickets to World Cups and, you know, figuring it out. Also, the whole idea of having guests like you on our shows is to have that talk or the beer talk or the later on talk. brought to you right in your home or your car or wherever you're listening and have knowledge. Yeah. Anyways, I want to touch a little bit upon motivation because I was reading or I was watching one of your documentary trailers and it said that you were basically staying in a caravan for six months and it was like... You had access to electricity like twice in a year. Like, how

does that work out? Like, that's hard life. So it's what goes in when you motivate yourself that, hey, you know what, this is also a reality. I'm not going to go out there and win every day and share the beers with those legends that you're saying. So if you can just talk to us about that period that you were dealing with. I never saw it as hard. This is funny that I never thought that people can perceive it as hard. That's

interesting. Well, you know, I used to travel with a person, like a small car, and I was so fed up of packing and unpacking and even to go to hotels. If you stay in a hotel, you need to take your luggage in, luggage out, luggage in, luggage out. And when you do 10 comps a year, 8 comps a year, it's a lot of packing and unpacking and I hate it. And if you live in the camper van, basically, you don't need to do that. So for me, it was like comfort choice, you know? Well, it was not a big one because it was, again, comfort choice. Because it's easier to travel with a small car,

it costs less on the highway. And you can go into supermarket shopping. With the camper van, many places you cannot enter. And, you know, it's like, I wouldn't say, like, it's so funny. For me, there is nothing more beautiful in your one-off period of life to live this kind of gypsy lifestyle because every morning you wake up new place, you have new view. Well, you have... a bedroom a kitchen in all in one but then your living room have changing walls you have one million star hotel you can park wherever you want almost not every country but in most of countries and just stay there and admire the landscape it's comfort and it's there is a beauty to it you know with the age i realize i don't recover so well in

the camper van and i need some a little bit more comfort and more silence but at the beginning it's just adventure you know and you don't i can imagine but you cannot motivate me for that it's like let's go for a road trip same yeah you know and for me no there is no sacrifice in that you know

Klaudia Bulgakow: Now, sounds great. And I think basically, if it rocks your world hard enough, then everything else falls in place regardless, because it's anyways a mental game how you navigate these challenges. All right. So moving on, I think so far we have talked all about the glorious side of the sport and everything that kind of, you know, makes you driven and gets things going. If you allow me, I want to touch on the hard topic, if that's okay with you. But I mean, you can pass if you want to. But the reason why I want to talk about it is because not a lot of pilots in our sport talk about

this. So when I was going through your timeline, year number 2009 and 2010 were quite important in your life. And I believe they shaped you a lot in who you are and eventually were instrumental in your journey towards becoming a world champion. I think all of us have to fight our own battles somewhere down the lane. So if you can just throw a little bit of a light on how did you navigate this tough time and how eventually it made you who you are. And if it was something that you look back today and smile, of course, only on the good part. I'm sorry for the losses, but

still, if you can just throw some light on that. If I understand right, you're asking about the worlds in Valle and then the... Actually, there

were several, you know, years like this, which make me question a lot of stuff. But I think the hardest was... I cannot say the hardest, but the one which completely changed my... perspective on competing and why I do it all. It was a world championship in Valle del Bravo in Mexico in 2009. I was going there. I was pretty self-confident, kind of a little bit arrogant, young pilot, already flying a comp wing, having my first World Cup wins and completely ignoring the science that I might not be there yet where I think I am. And actually doing like past analysis, the first like warning science to me was World Cup in Brazil. That in Castelo that year, the conditions were pretty choppy, pretty rough, and I

didn't enjoy it at all. And I should already ask myself by then if I maybe should do some homework before going for the Worlds in Valle del Bravo, which is famous to be Valley of Brave, very strong place to fly. You know, like you get your ass surfed to you on the plane there, you know, like if you are not ready. And then I'm going to Valle and the scary first day surfed me with the beautiful conditions to fly. And I was like, what are you meaning? It's beautiful here. It's like, what you're talking about? And yeah, yeah, that was the easiest day to fly. We know. And

people are going there for many years. And then we started with the entire world, where everyday accidents and incidents. Altogether, we got 26, out of which one that acts like Stefan Schmocker on the sixth task. One, I think, paraleptic on the last task. Imagine 26 serious accidents and incidents in the world. It's a lot. You have top pilots there. There were several things which came together why the number was so high, in my opinion. If I can just make a quick analysis there, if it's okay for you. Please do. Please do. 100%. Many people... are trying to scare you with the accidents or not to talk about this. Or they want to prove that competing is dangerous by pointing out so many accidents

between top pilots. And many will avoid talking about this altogether because they don't want to think about this. If you look at the Ski World Cup this year, how many top skiers are out? For the same reason we've got in 2009, over pushing of the organization team and the task committee. One of the reasons. We are not pro sports. We are not endurance athletes in the sport, most of us. Now it's better, but in 2009, we weren't. Every day, we've got more than 100 kilometer task in this strong condition. The wading around the canyon is super rough. And if you are far in the ranking and you have 150 pilots to take off from the launch, at the end of January, you have short windows where you can really take off. like

safely, so the gaps between takeoffs are quite high. They did one and a half hour of spread. And if you are far in the ranking, you would take off one and a half hour before the start. And you would wait in super rough conditions, then fly 110, 120 kilometer task in rough conditions. We were exhausted. Like people started to... overseas things like really good pilots started to do stupid mistakes like there was collision between argentine pilot and belgian pilot he was just going straight there were two guys in the air and they hit each other okay so wow so this is this this is this is showing how exhausted we were in that comp Sixth task, like I already have first time twist on the start gaggle, first

time cravat twice. And the same day, sixth day, I've got these two cravats, I rescue, I went out, I continue flying, I stuck. I come to goal and I'm finding out that one of the pilots died in the beginning of the day. And that was Stefan Schmoker, one of the really top of the top of the top pilots for me from Switzerland, which those SIVs, they have all money in the world to train. They fly a lot. flying proto wing for sure we all flew proto wing there but I wouldn't say it was something super dangerous that what they got because they got advanced advanced proto

it was pure pilot mistake like now in perspective back perspective with my experience that is pure pilot mistake and ambition and over over motivation but in that moment i completely freeze like when i heard that i freeze for me it was such a shocking experience and i started to question My ego, my ambition, my place in sport and with so few resources and much less abilities and much less training than they, I'm just playing with the luck. You know, for me, I realized I'm playing here with luck. It's not like... It's completely stupid. And is it worth this all? That was my biggest question. Do I really want to risk my life for results and podiums and glory? Which glory? Nobody even knows who is a world

champion. Like if you ask any pilot, like, I don't know how many pilots now fly in the world, even competition pilots, if you ask them who is current world champion, they wouldn't be able to answer the question because nobody gives a damn, you know? So this is many people are racing because they think that's going to bring them something. But in fact, it doesn't bring you anything apart of spending a lot of money. Yeah. and risking maybe your life. Hold on, she's calling me. Go on, go on, go on.

So I, at that point, I was not like intellectually, maybe emotionally ready for, for this kind of deep analysis. And it's thrown me into really deep, I would say, kind of depression. I started like from coming back from this comp, I started to be scared to fly. I was scared to take off like in many places, you know? And it's just like, I don't know what she's doing. And I questioned if I really want to do it. So I took a break. Like, actually, I didn't take a break. I was like kind of forcing it through for entire season because I already got some periods of more fear because of

a rescue flow or somebody flew into me. I was a little bit more nervous. Like kind of feeling uncomfortable in the air because then your senses are more strong. But this thing, this put me off the track for long and I decided to actually quit flying by the end of the season because it makes no sense to be every day on the takeoff and scared, you know? I mean, if it's not fun, then you can't do it. I was seriously staying on the takeoff, holding air risers, shaking and crying sometimes even, you know, and forcing me to push through it, like to push through the fear

border, you know, and top to bottoms. And I was not able to thermal or whatever. So I decided it makes absolutely no sense to me. I focus on life, focus on my work, on my studies, Finnish studies, whatever. And that season, the next year, my boyfriend broke his back, like in January, by then boyfriend. And he was five weeks in hospital in Mexico, as well invited Bravo. And next layer to all of that is that we try not to think about all the bad things that can happen in flying. And the American team team leader was a former paragliding pilot who crashed in Valle del Bravo and was on the wheelchair on the takeoff every day. Oh my God. So you have like, you fly the hardcore condition. You try not to

think about all the bad can happen. Then every day some top pilot is doing some rescue deployments, crashes and everything. And then you have this top pilot on the wheelchair next to you every day on the briefing. That's, excuse me for F words, that fuck ups your brain. It did to me. It did a lot of damage to me. He's a fantastic guy. I love this pilot. And I think it's great that he is feeling good to come. But I was not ready for that. You know, I was not ready seeing pilots on the wheelchair. So this completely... Then my boyfriend crashing, breaking back and five

weeks in hospital. When I saw him coming back, he was like from super strong, chop-up guy, shade of himself. That another liar to this, like, I don't want to do that. But then, you know, it's like, if something is really deeply inside you, it's really hard to just give up on it. And I decided like, yeah. let's do it like you know mellow way just like home way I'm gonna take a easy wing and just gonna cruise around you know I took easy wing I went in May here into Italy to Levico Terme first cross country and This is shit. This doesn't fly. The

Aninder: glide ratio sucks. It does not penetrate. It's so slow. Everything. It collapses without informing you. I don't feel anything what the air is

doing. If I don't fly, I want to fly my boomerang because I was flying jean by then. I want my boomerang. But again, my athlete self turned on. I want to do it safe. So I don't want to have this experience again, what I used to have. So what is the program? I want to do SIVs. I want to feel safe under wing. I want to be able to recover the wing. I want to be able to understand the limits. I want to understand better air. And I will fly only when it makes fun to me. So I will not sacrifice my fun and I will not sacrifice my safety for results. So this you can see in my results. If you see that I was

like top, top, you know that conditions were good. If you see my results... in shit that's mean I didn't like something you know I didn't consider it as a safe to fly so that is my motto since 2010 like I do only this much as gives me fun and I push a little bit like because you have to push to progress but never risking my safety and my life and so yeah Makes a lot of sense. And you're not the first one to say this. There's so many

Klaudia Bulgakow: guests on this podcast and out there on the internet who says, as long as it's fun, it makes all the sense to put an effort into it. The moment it stops being fun is the moment you realize you have to pull back and watch what you're doing and basically have a second thought and second look and reevaluate yourself. Well, to be honest, training is not always 100% fun. Do you think it gives fun to me to learn to full stall? It's no fun

on bikini. It's terrifying. You know, even if you ask acro pilots, they... They don't like full stalls. They like dynamic maneuvers. They don't like full stalls, but it's base. So you need to push through. There are some stuff you need to do in order to be safe, which are not fun, which is do your SIVs. Like, you know, throw the wing away from your head sometimes to understand how it works. It's not fun. If you want to be good in competing, of course, you need to go to fly not only easy peasy condition and smooth and nice and battery, you know, you need to... Go and fly this a little bit more rough and choppy and see if your SIV and your control of the wing is there and be in tune. You know, this is part of the

training. Do you think it's always fun to go to gym or run? No, it's not. But sometimes you need to push for it. Nowadays, we are tending to say, just do what makes fun. No, do what is needed to be safe and have fun. But you need to do your homework. Do you think for most of people, if it would be fun to go groundhandle, everybody would do it? Why so few people are going groundhandling? Why so many people on the takeoff struggle with taking off? You know, maybe for some, you can make it fun if you know how to make it fun. But most of them related, I think my, my, my analyze related

with the school and I'm, I'm, I'm already cross country pilot. I don't need the school thing. But Kriegel Maurer, when I met him first time, now everybody wants to put Kriegel into an example. Kriegel, when I met him, he was flying cross-country when it was good. He was competing every condition. And he was doing acro when it was not good for cross-country. And if it was not good for cross-country and acro, he was doing ground handling. I remember him in Fiesh, shitty day, windy. He is on the meadow with his old wing playing around. And everybody drinks beer, you know? So this is... And this... Find fun in progression and find... Invest your time in improving your skills so you are not burnt out on the

take-off. You can take off with... Safe take-off with many type of condition. And in case you judge wrong the condition or you put yourself into shitty place... know how to get out of their safety safely you know and to learn those skills maybe it's not so funny but it's gonna pay off because you will have more fun later on A hundred percent. Like, wow. Thank you so much for putting it out so truthfully and so honestly.

Klaudia Bulgakow: Because, you know, multiple people, when senior pilots or known faces in the sport tell you something, there are, I mean, everybody has their own way of processing it. But I think the takeaway is put in the hard work. And then it is fun rather than just having fun and then expecting it to still remain fun, which isn't really the formula because nothing really comes for free. I have to ask you something, Claudia. You have pretty much navigated this with passion, with hard work, and you've put in everything. How did you navigate the risk versus reward spectrum? Because you know that boomerang is the one which will make you win. But at the same time, boomerang is the one which is actually giving you

anxiety. So all of us have our own intimate, you know, feeling of how to navigate risk versus reward. Like when I'm trying to do stalls on my wing, if I've done three stalls in one run, and I don't really feel like doing the fourth one, but I still have the height, Like, it's a dilemma. Like, should I do it? Will I recover it well? Or will I end up twisting it? Like, I find it so hard. Like, should I not listen to my mind saying that, hey, you know what? I've had enough. I just want to land. Let's save the stone number four for second one. Or should I tell, shut up, mind. I need

to put in the hard work and I need to pull it one more time. Okay, there are two liars to your question. First is always listen to your intuition,

never shush it. If every time I was telling to myself, oh, just another one term, and I feel like I should go to land, and I say, no, come on, just one more term, some shit was happening. Many people ignore intuition. They don't know how to listen to it, and they are not in tune into this, you know, deep, deep speaking. You know deep inside if you should do this one more full store or not. Not because you are lazy. Don't say, oh, if you don't do it, you are lazy. You know? If you feel like, hmm... I should better go to land. It's probably your intuition telling you, you should

probably go to land. And you should probably go listen to it. The second layer to it, this is related with SIVs. I spent quite a time with Fabien Blanco, who is one of the best, in my opinion, SIV instructors out there. And he coached a French team and some Red Bull XR pilots. And he was coaching this British guy who I think he was second in 1XL. And this guy is like, oh, Fabian, I'm tired. You know, like... No, sorry. That was my boyfriend by then. I'm tired. I can't do anymore. And he's like, and now we start the training because he wanted to make you tired. So you start to

do it automatically without using your brain. Because when you're on cross country, when you do SIV over water, this is a training and you're in safe environment. If you throw rescue, if you do whatever, what you're going to end up in the water. So what? when you're on big cruise country and like hearing spike body or whatever and you fly into dolomites and you are ready after five hours of flight will the condition ask you are you tired are you too tired to get this to get this collapse can i give it to you no you're gonna get the fucking big collapse and you want you will be too tired to to recover you're gonna say oh no i'm too tired No, you have to be automatic to do stuff, like subconsciously,

you know? And this is what Fabian was doing with those guys preparing for the Red Bull XL. Like this British guy, he agreed with him when I say, bam, on the radio. You do full stop, okay? So he was like, bam, bam, bam. Okay, you are done. You can go to land in the beach.

And he doesn't give a shit how high you are. If you're going to land in the water, I say, bam, you are ready to start. And there is another topic that I wanted to say to previous question. There is another, I will not say who, XR pilot who was very successful in previous edition. He bent a season over water because he was so not natural in this stuff. He was landing in the water almost every full story. Oh, my God. And it's not fun. Come on. You put your ego into the pocket and you go and do your work. And he worked, worked, worked until he didn't master. He spent a season

trying. Charles Cazot, he's not natural in this stuff. He just invested a lot of time. He's one of the best pilots out there. Look how many World Cup wins, Super Final win, the World Championships, you know? And he invests time into being so good. So listen to your intuition. What is the takeaway? Put the hard work, but listen to intuition. If your intuition say something, you probably should listen. I think hands down, this is

Klaudia Bulgakow: one of the most clear answer I've had when it comes to navigating risk versus reward. I mean, as long as it brings out the truth and honesty, because I have struggled so much in navigating risk versus reward because conventional sports, you can be like, okay, I have to run straight line and I have to match this time. So I can forget about how my knees and what my muscles are feeling. I just run pretty hard. And it kind of works. You keep on doing that for day after day, you're not going to fall yourself and hurt yourself really bad by running. I mean, okay, there are some exceptions. You can do that. But usually the risk is not that big. And of course, the reward is proportional as well. But this

one, I think the intuition part is where... It's like a coach cannot answer that, a mentor cannot answer that, some inspiring figure cannot answer that. So it has to come from within you and at the same time, as long as it's fun, it makes sense. And another thing, there is another thing.

This is not a normal sport where you are done by 25. You know, you can successfully compete very long, but you have to survive. You know? Yeah.

And if you're going to push for some questionable reward, scare yourself to death or die, you will never achieve your reward, you know? You will not be there because or you're going to be scared and you're going to stop competing or flying altogether like I almost did and many, many other people did. Or you're going to just die and you will never arrive to reward. So my rule is that I want to be old pilot. Yes, I want to be good pilot, but I want to be old pilot. So if I consider this is starting to be unsafe for me, because what is safe for you or unsafe for you does not

have to be same for me. If it's starting to be unsafe for me, I go to land and tomorrow is another day. And there will be another competition, you know. Live to fly another day, wow. Successfully for, what, 18 years. With really minor incidents. If any. I want to come on the holistic

Klaudia Bulgakow: lifestyle that you have eventually managed to build yourself. And I saw how you were very thankful to Luke Oil for coming on board and supporting you for majority of your time. And now I see you have a beautiful accommodation that it's the cloud lodge that is being run and managed. So basically, how has life been when you transitioned from competing to adding on more, you know, modalities in your life, which eventually started to give you sustainability in monetary terms and all of that, if you can touch on that part. So the reason why I'm asking this question is if there's a pilot who wants to follow your footsteps, and of course, sponsors like Lucoil, does cover a lot of things in your life, and they

kind of bring in a lot of support. But eventually, there has to be other income sources. So how eventually did you did you navigate that aspect when it came to living off it and living off it in a full time way in a first world country? Like I believe Italy is not the cheapest place to live in the world anyway. So if you can throw some light on that. Luckily, my area is not that expensive. But, okay, this is, again, a multi-layer

question. You know, I think most of people have seasons in life. And there was a season for me when I was a gypsy living out of my bag. And at some point arrived the understanding and the need of having something like a home base. Like a home base, you know, where you can come back, where parts of your stuff lives in this. This is when you are traveling and when you can go back and sleep and wash and have like good training area, you know. And I was searching on such a place for quite a long. And, you know, when you search, the place finds you. And this house just found me and I

managed to re...

how you call it put my assets from one place to another and buy this and to be honest it's a very good value for like in Warsaw you can't buy anything for this And I bought a business and running a base camp for paragliders and supporting groups and supporting pilots and having a base where I can as well coach and other people can come and feel like home away from home. That was my dream forever. forever since I've seen first surf camps so I'm just like you know tagging off the next box in my life and I think for me it comes kind of naturally as well because I did it so many

years like traveling and living out of the bag that it was kind of progression you know and I've got many dreams since I was very young and she's one of my dreams you know Indeed, indeed. That was the next part of my question. How hard was it to basically transition from chasing glory

Klaudia Bulgakow: all the time and to convincing your mind that, hey, calm down, there is something a lot more beautiful than just being in the air and having such a blessing in your life. It just looks really fulfilling. You seem really happy right now. You know, many people think that it was such a

harsh voice and, oh my God, like you, because it's kind of surprise kit, you know, it was not that I really try hard for her. Sorry. I know many people, many women. I was really lucky because all my friends are struggling to be blessed. And I feel really, really blessed and lucky by not trying hard and having her. But, you know, I felt at some point I knew always I was going to have kids. And it was like it was missing a lot. You know, I was going for next and next competition. And it felt like starting to felt empty, you know. like what for okay another title

another podium another time in Colombia another time it's a beautiful thing to travel you know every year to Colombia to train and then to Brazil for some world cup or you know something like this but it started to feel empty you know like I started to really long for this problem if You know, when women, we women, we like to make our life harder, you know, and everything goes well, then we create some problems.

And this sanitary life, it's not... I was longing for it. I was longing for this a lot, a long time already as well, for this. And I hope that it's not the end, you know? It's just beginning of new addition and new beautiful season, you know? And I really... I didn't sold any of my equipment, although I should probably have a... Because I just want to go back to fly when she is a little bit bigger and don't need me so much. Because that will come. You know, this moment will come that she will be less demanding and more independent and we want to see her friends and

hang out with other people than me. And I really want paragliding is in my heart. I live at the center of European paragliding. You know, it's like one of the biggest spots all my friends are here every year Trophy Montegrappa is coming in next month so I will see all my competing friends very soon and I hope we will see when it's going to happen that I'm going to start to fly again but I hope not so long and we have a lot of experience look we have a lot of I think Very important aspect as well for us women is to have positive examples. Like guys are just trying. We want

to have mentor like examples. And look, Johanna Jaime, she's fresh mom. She's actually much better competition pilot since she became mom. And there is a lot of, there is a lot of moms successfully competing, you know? So why not? Indeed, indeed. And I think your inspiring story is

Klaudia Bulgakow: something to follow for anyone who is wanting to race paragliders and have a blessing like her in their lives. I think on that note, Claudia, I'm not going to hold you back anymore from Alexandra. And thank you so much for giving us such unfiltered and honest opinion. I really wish she gave us a little bit more time, but... No worries, you can come back every time you want. Indeed, indeed. I mean, your way of putting across things is so nice. And it answers so much curiosity that people have for competing when it comes to racing paragliders. And I mean, you're in such a beautiful location. Most likely, I will see you in spring. If not, I think your vibes are a blessing for Paragliding Atlas as well. And we

truly cannot wait to have you back on the show whenever we can next time. Thank you very much. It's such a pleasure to talk with you. You have very

open-minded questions and it's important. I wish you all the success and yeah, hope to see you here.