Thinking Differently: Think like a kid

The second in a five-part series exploring the philosophy and approach of Julien Garcia, the French team paragliding coach.

In the first part of the series, we caught up with Julien in the goalfield at the 2023 Paragliding World Championships. He was anxiously awaiting the arrival of his pilots as they scraped out a low save behind the treeline. They eventually popped into view and glided across the line, securing success in historic fashion: with French pilots winning 1st, 2nd and 3rd individual places, the women’s title, and team gold too. Julien explained how the French system – including the Font Romeu national training centre and Pôle France programme – has helped pilots build the fundamentals for success. And we dug into a couple of philosophies that underpin his coaching style. We explored how a more collaborative attitude where we actively support our peers both in the air and on the ground will do far more to power our individual successes than always striking out alone. As the saying goes, the gaggle usually wins. And Julien was at pains to state how important it is to recognise how our flying is informed by our personality, history and environment, that we’ll all fly differently as a result, and have different starting points. In this issue, we’ll...