The first time he jumped he was hooked. Now, Cliff Jumper Jay Briggs travels the world looking for 100-foot cliffs and a rush of adrenaline. We talk freestyle cliff jumping, conquering fear and cannonballs. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Halloween Songs.
Jay Briggs: 01:26ish
Pointless: 27:06
Top 5: 40:52ish
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Interview with Cliff Jumper Jay Briggs
Nick VinZant 0:11
Hey everybody welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, freestyle cliff jumping and Halloween songs.
Jay Briggs 0:22
After I jumped like the first couple times, I was like, holy shit. This is crazy. Like this is insane. I kind of want to go higher. I'm always scared. Everybody's always scared. So it was a long way down and you're excited. You're scared and if you're not scared, you're probably there's something wrong. Oh, you have to. You can't just do a cannonball and not tell anybody like you're screaming Cannonball and it's your job. But
Nick VinZant 0:48
I want to thank you so much for joining us if you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So I think that pretty much everybody at some point in their life has jumped off something fairly high into water. Our first guest though, takes that to an entirely different level. He's been around the world jumping off cliffs, sometimes more than 100 feet high. And doing some just amazing tricks in the process. This is freestyle Cliff jumper j Briggs How did you get into it? And what I mean by that is like when did you really get hooked? Not like the first time you went but like man this is my thing.
Jay Briggs 1:35
I know you said not the first time but kind of the first time was actually when I was like whoa this is super sick because like I was I've always been an athlete like my whole life like after high school and sports and it like I was just went to a community college so I would got really into like competitive gaming like in would go to tournaments and stuff like that and just like to compete like that competitive edge to make you feel like athletes still. But when I was like 22 I bought a GoPro and I was like I gotta do something cool. It's like I'll figure it out. And I saw some random girl on my Instagram that I went to high school with she posted that she was like near these cliffs. Oh, that's really cool. Next weekend I drove two and a half hours up there with a couple friends and we are like the edge of a 20 foot cliff it's like whoa this is huge but in hindsight right now that's nothing like I would do it nice clothes, whatever. But after I jumped like the first couple times I was like holy shit. This is crazy. But this is insane. I kind of want to go higher and so literally I was hooked like and from then on when I was 22 so seven years ago I every like I go a little bit higher. Like as soon as I get home like cool that's a little bit higher. Where can I go? What's cool, what's better let's whatever and I immediately start doing that and then I I have an effect.
Nick VinZant 2:46
What was the Why did you get hooked though? What was it about it?
Jay Briggs 2:49
It was something super new because like once you started to get kind of like higher and it's like it's almost like like even when it's 20 feet like essentially it's like it's almost like the rest of your life super adrenaline Holy shit. And you think about it you're like okay, maybe I shouldn't have done that 20 feet not so much but when you get up to higher stuff like 60 7080 100 100 plus feet you know you really hurt yourself. So it was like I got really hooked because it was so exhilarating it's like almost like you're not supposed to do it doesn't mean you can't why not but it like it was just such a like an adrenaline rush and you're just like I need to do that again. And then like but once you do 20 feet like 20 times okay that's there's no more adrenaline here so you kind of have to go for higher you got to go for bigger you got to do different tricks and so it just became an obsession to chase that that feeling of just something that not too many people get to do so
Nick VinZant 3:41
like when does it become dangerous? At what height Are you like? Okay, now now we got to stop messing around for me
Jay Briggs 3:49
specifically. It's like 60 feet where I'm like I should probably be a little bit more careful. But like it depends on your skill level likes like an art like an average viewer of yours specifically like who doesn't do this very often like 15 feets kind of a big deal because like you I mean it's not a huge deal but like you can still hurt yourself like a lot of people when they do it they like land with their arms all out and they slap their arms moved on you know like they are like when they jump and they plug their nose and they start leaning back and then on the back for 15 feet that's gonna hurt so like for me who's somebody who's like super controlled and a lot of my friends are too you know, like 50 feet 60 feet or like yeah, if I flop it's gonna suck but like now I should probably take a little bit more serious and make sure I don't mess anything up. Like when
Nick VinZant 4:33
I think of flopping I'm thinking like a belly flop and I would imagine that that would kill you
Jay Briggs 4:37
now. I've so when I was in Slovenia about a month ago, so there's there's this hotel on the side of a river that let us put a trampoline on our balcony and jump off the the trampoline off their balcony into the river and that was like 40 feet below, right? I flopped pretty bad straight to my back doing a trick I've never tried before and was spitting up loves About a day, so you're not going to die. But it's like I've watched a girl break back from 40 feet. And because she like she landed in like seating position and just compressed her spine, right? If you don't do it right, if your body's not, if you haven't trained for it or whatever, it's gonna suck. I've, I've seen people flop from over 100 feet, and they come out totally unscathed. I've seen people flop from 40 feet and break the back it, it all depends on everything, right? It depends how you landed depends on what kind of water you're in, like, if you're in quarry water out in Vermont, where it's flat, it's gonna hurt a lot more if you land into into, like the froth of a waterfall is like the waterfalls,
Nick VinZant 5:38
I guess, you know, the big, the kind of the question that that I would have is, you're gonna push it, you can push it? How do you know? How do you keep yourself from pushing it too far.
Jay Briggs 5:49
It's all internal. Like, there's a lot of cliff diving in cliff jumping is visualization, like when you start to get up to these high cliffs and high jumps and stuff like that. Or even if it's not even like as high, but it's like something that's like, either kind of sketchy or unique, or whatever it may be like, specifically, there's a place in NorCal, I'm not going to disclose the name, but there used to be a crane that would go over the water. It's like an old gold mining claim that had a crane. And people jump off at about 80 feet. And at that time, I've jumped over 80 feet multiple times, but I've been back to that place like four times. And every time I got up there, like I just wasn't feeling correct. I couldn't like I couldn't visualize what I was going to do safely. Like, every time like I went through my head, like what trick I was gonna do, like something would go wrong, and my hands on my pool of time to back down. So a lot of the times it's just visualization. It's how you feel that day, there's been times where I've backed down from jumps that are like 40 feet, so I'm just like, you're not feeling it right now. If something feels off, I'm gonna step back. Because a lot of the times if you push back then you're like, Yeah, I don't really feel that good. But I'm just gonna do it anyway, like that. So it's a lot of just mental in your, in your head, how you feel on that day is kind of where you kind of start and stop. Well, at least for me.
Nick VinZant 7:02
So it's not one of those things where like, Oh, yeah, I'm a little scared. But I got to push through this. It's like, oh, if I don't feel it,
Jay Briggs 7:08
come back now. Cuz I'm always scared. Everybody's always scared. I mean, there's times where I'm at like a 40 foot cliff, not really that scared. But like, even when you're at like 100 feet, it's always scary, right? So it's like, a long way down, and you're excited, you're scared. And if you're not scared, you're probably there's something wrong. Because you need to be afraid of what you're doing when it comes to cliff jumping like this, like, and especially when we're up 100 plus feet, which we do all the time, it's, you need to be scared, it's good to keep yourself in check. Knowing that like, even though you're scared, like, you know, your body's gonna take care of it type of thing. being scared is normal. But if you're like, I'm not visualizing, right, I'm not feeling what's going on right now. I'm gonna just step back.
Nick VinZant 7:49
So is there a special way that you're landing? Or am I learning the same way, if I go off a diving board and my buddy's backyard,
Jay Briggs 7:57
when it comes to stuff like what we do, it's Yeah, it's fee first. You can either land a little bit forward, and like, it depends on how high the jump is, obviously. But say you're like 80 plus feet, you land a little bit forward, that can hit you in the jaw and knock you out. If you don't do it correctly, it's happened, I've seen it happen. Or if you land a little bit back, you can slap the back of your head, or you can slap and you can really hurt your spine if you land kind of like with your butt out. So it's like it's always you need you try to be straight up and down every job.
Nick VinZant 8:26
Really? Yeah. So what what kind of in the community is more impressive to do like a trick off a 40 foot jump? Or to just go higher? What's kind of the main thing that people are trying to do?
Jay Briggs 8:37
It's, you know, that's an interesting question, because it's both right. You want to do tricks from the highest you can but also what think what people don't understand doing flips off a high cliff is way easier than just straight jumping from a hot because the thing about jumping just straight is horrifying. And I'm telling you every flip jumper in the world will tell you jumping straight is so much scarier than doing the flip because like when I'm doing a flip my mind's occupied. I'm thinking about stuff where my feet whereas my body, where's the water, looking at stuff. And I'm thinking the whole time, right? So by the time I see the water, my cool, I got like, milliseconds and cool, I'm done. Cool. Everything's great, right? But if I straight jump, I'm just staring at the water the entire time, and it feels like it's twice as high because I jumped off like a 60 foot or a straight jump a few months ago when we were in Oregon. And just because the takeoff is super slippery, like I couldn't get my footing right to do the trick I wanted like it just didn't feel comfortable. So I straight jumped in. And it felt it was only 60 feet and I've jumped it like multiple times before but it felt like it was like 200 feet tall and like I got butterflies because just straight jumping is terrifying compared to doing flips.
Nick VinZant 9:50
I never would have thought that.
Jay Briggs 9:51
Yeah, most people think it's the opposite. Like isn't doing trip. No, it's way easier. It's way funner being doing straight jumps is stressful. I don't know I hate they do it sometimes to scare myself like we do it sometimes just to like, let's let's, let's freak ourselves out Well, let's just do it straight down.
Nick VinZant 10:08
I always remember you know, like when you because you know, you jump off something and you jump off something and it's pretty high, and then you jump off something else and you get like that where you really get going like oh, yes hi.
Jay Briggs 10:21
Yeah right because it happens a lot like I've definitely experienced a few times it's it's what's called flow state my, my roommate Nick actually made a flow state documentary about cooking up in and it's an hour and a half feature length film on YouTube, right? And it's I describe it in that as well. But it's like when you're in the flow state, your mind is just in this in the zone essentially right? And you shut everything off and there's times where you go for these big jumps. And it's completely silent until you hit the water. And it's like you don't hear anything. You don't hear people cheering you don't hear the rushing of the waterfall or anything. And the only thing you hear right when you hit the water Okay, we're good we're clear back in the back to normal we're good and then you come up and you're excited whenever like during the jump like it's kind of when fear shuts off as soon as you step off the cliff because you're you're you're already past it you've done the hard part. Now it's just getting to the bottom safely it gets you everything shipped off it's silent. It's kind of crazy
Nick VinZant 11:18
how much like how much of a depth of water do you need
Jay Briggs 11:23
for something big like that we aimed like for a minimum of 15 feet we we've jumped off stuff more shallow and it's sketchy we jumped off this 80 foot cliff once into about like eight or nine feet of water and horrible idea we did it anyways stupid it was like when we were really young into the end of the scene and it was it was stupid and when you hit and you're just laying down on the bottom in the sand because you're you've got as far as you could it's not good but you so you aim for about 15 feet that gives you a good enough stopping point because even if you do Touch bottom likely you won't touch it
Nick VinZant 11:56
hard. Yeah,
Jay Briggs 11:58
yeah and a lot of the times like with us we wear shoes or not anymore really barefoot mostly but you wear a lot of wetsuits and stuff when it when you come to high heights like that because it's a it's a safety thing. Because say you were to hurt yourself, you float back up the top if you're unconscious if you're in a wetsuit, you'll float to the top because they're super buoyant. So we wear those on big ones in case you hurt yourself and you need essentially assistance right? So wetsuits really slowly down in terms of in terms of like how deep the water
Nick VinZant 12:29
I was wondering about that because I saw some of your Instagram videos and everybody was wearing a wetsuit and I just assumed the water was cold and I kind of was I kind of thought like these guys are so tough but they're worried about some cold water
Jay Briggs 12:41
never for cold water unless we're doing like winter jumping and we do winter jumping when it's like snowing right and it's then you're like wetsuit because it's cold type of thing but usually when we get to high heights we wear a wetsuit strictly for safety factors
Nick VinZant 12:54
is it when you look at it like is it hard to find good places to be able to jump are they just everywhere
Jay Briggs 13:01
depends on how creative you are also like when we went to Slovenia right they don't have a ton of jumping spots but if you know people and you can jump off their their hotel balconies or if you find it insanely cool bridge to jump off the yachts sweet right? But if you don't know what you're looking forwards Yeah, it's really hard. And if you don't know what you're looking for, you don't know like what to look for. Like in the beginning when it comes to like how shear the cliff is like, does the water like do you read something online that says like, no, it's a really deep pool. Whatever. If if you know what you're looking for, it's pretty easy, but it's it's not if you don't know what you're doing.
Nick VinZant 13:37
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted question?
Jay Briggs 13:39
Yeah, let's get into the weird one. Let's do it.
Nick VinZant 13:41
Better better jump. Cannonball er can opener.
Jay Briggs 13:46
Can I tell you a funny story about a can opener? Yeah, we're so we're in this place in North Cal and we're at this spot. And this guy was drunk and just clipped up and which is a horrible mix. Right? And he's there and he goes, I'm gonna go to the 60 footer and do a can opener. I'm like, absolutely don't do that. One you've been drinking too. As soon as you reach for your knee, all your weights going to go back and you're going to flop you're gonna really hurt yourself like 60 feets, like no joke. And he goes, Okay, okay, I won't do it. He goes up there. He does it anyway, he lands flat on the back ruptures his frickin spleen. And that's it. And the funny thing is that this spot is right behind the hospital. Like about two miles behind the hospital, so we hiked to the dang hospital. Like, I frickin hate. can openers after that. So Cannonball is the straight answer for me.
Nick VinZant 14:33
Do you have to I feel like you have to call it out though. Oh, you have to?
Jay Briggs 14:38
You can't just do a cannonball and not tell anybody like you're screaming Cannonball and it's your job like
Nick VinZant 14:44
that's the way to do it. Um, easiest trick that looks hard. Hardest trick that looks easy.
Jay Briggs 14:53
Man. that's a that's a difficult question. I feel like specifically for me There's a lot of tricks that are are really easy to like my friends that do the like cliff jumping are also like skiers professional skiers and they'll do stuff like off access and what I mean by that is like you can either do a front flip or a backflip or twist whatever, but they'll kind of go like shoulder over knee type stuff. And it just it turns your body in a way that like I can't understand so sometimes they look really easy and I can't even touch them. I can't do it. So that's the hardest trick that looks easy but the easiest trick that looks or I want to say it's a gainer right it's not something crazy but that's what I do all the time and it looks really easy but like no it looks hard I guess because like you're running forwards you're going backwards everybody always like Aren't you afraid of hitting your head on the cliff? never the case because
Nick VinZant 15:48
I mean if you do it yeah you're way past it by that
Jay Briggs 15:51
right but like people always ask them are you ever hit your head on the cliff or anything? It looks hard, I guess to some people but it's pretty easy and that's the one I've done my entire coaching career that's like I do it off every single Cliff but it's just my favorite.
Nick VinZant 16:07
Our most Cliff jumpers actually good divers and I think the person means by like Could you go competed? USA Swimming trials or something? Absolutely
Jay Briggs 16:16
not. Almost none of us are capable of that. We even really classify ourselves as freestyle Cliff jumpers versus like classically trained divers because you have like these Red Bull events that are everybody's toes pointed. Everybody's judged on every little maneuver, right? But freestyle is a totally different thing in terms of like, you're doing stuff off access. You're doing you're doing stuff with more steez and more layout where they're how many flips how many twists? How straight can you be so we would fail hardcore because we're not following their guidelines at all. Right? They want to see how straight and poised you could be or as freestyle like us, they want to see how cool how sick how different Can you be,
Nick VinZant 16:59
but is the like, do you have that same level of body control?
Jay Briggs 17:04
I'd say me specifically I don't think so. But there's a few people this in this community that can absolutely let would be able to I feel take them on in terms of having body control. Like there's some people like grab a wall read heart read chase rainford, right and be that have ultimate body control that can do any flip any twist and compete with the best of them, but it's gonna look way different. Even though the trick is the same. Like say you go for a double half, right, which is one front flip. And then another front flip with a half twist, right? Having somebody who does a freestyle background versus somebody who is a classically trained background, it would make it an entirely different look. It's It's so it's really interesting,
Nick VinZant 17:46
best type of rock to jump off of
Jay Briggs 17:50
something with a waterfall that's the best one not a rock specifically, like I don't know, I'm not a geologist, but anything where there's a waterfall next to you and you're jumping like into the froth of the water that's the best
Nick VinZant 18:01
best cliff jumping spot in the US best in the world.
Jay Briggs 18:05
I'm gonna say this because it's already blown up otherwise I typically keep these to myself. There's a whole thing with the internet that if you put if you geotag a spot like on Instagram it like especially when you have a lot of followers it gets blown out blown out of proportion the wrong people go there, they literally ruin it to get shut down. So it's like a lot of jamming you kind of keep it to yourself, but this one's already heavily regulated. Have a su by it's the Indian Reservation in the middle of the Grand Canyon. We went there I went back there was 2016 only when we left with 150 people it was this insane event that we went with and the water was beautiful we stayed down the Grand Canyon for five four or five days and jumped everything there with like the world's greatest projectors at the time and I would consider that one of the greatest programming places in the world and in the United States it's incredible it's I have tickets to go back next year they sell out at bid within the first half hour every year that they're on sale and they're it's an incredible place.
Nick VinZant 19:06
Is it just because of like what what is it about it is it I mean obviously it's a beautiful area.
Jay Briggs 19:11
There's there's so many factors for me that the this that like get me there, like for one the sheer beauty you have one you're in the middle of the Grand Canyon, right you have these incredible rock orange rock formations, and then the water is this like Gatorade blue color because of the minerals that are in it. So it provides for an incredible landscape. Other than that, there's cliff jumping spots anywhere from like 20 feet to 130 feet. Technically, you're not supposed to jump. Really any of that they kind of just let people do it, but they don't. They don't want anywhere near the 100 foot or in the 130 footer. We kind of do that. And then the only thing it's like, it's so fun for just vibes in general like outside of cliff jumping, right? Like there's camp spots where they're like, but like they have picnic tables in the river where you can just sit there and Eat food like while you're like waist deep in the water and it's just beautiful so it's like a lot of things like and to be fair um not a lot of people get to experience it like not the standard people that you that are going to make the 12 mile hike in and then stay there for four days and then hike 12 miles out like nobody really does that that's probably also I should have mentioned it's really difficult to get
Nick VinZant 20:21
Is it is it hard on your body? Like could you you can do do 60 footer right can you just do this all day long are you like I got one or two in me
Jay Briggs 20:31
for like 6070 footers like you could do those a few times 510 times and like be like, whatever in your body and be sore the next day like your body's had a lot it's a lot of impact right? But when it comes to stuff like 100 110 110 plus type stuff like I'm usually like a one and done person I'll just do it once I enjoyed it. I had a great time it was incredible and I probably won't do it again.
Nick VinZant 20:53
Will you be like Will you be sore the next day off of 100 foot jump
Jay Briggs 20:59
yes and no I have sometimes it just depends on how long it's been because there was a stretch of time like in like 2018 where we were jumping off like 90 to 100 footers like every other week for like five months just killing it and then so it like my body's used to that point. But if I do it for a while if I don't do it for like three months, four months, six months, and I go to jump off like a 90 foot or 100 footer like yeah
Nick VinZant 21:24
can you make a living off of this?
Jay Briggs 21:27
Yeah, you can it's really really difficult. It's you're really relying on sponsorship money is what it is you're not getting paid by some sort of cliff diving association or Red Bull to go do this stuff. It's basically what sponsors can you get and how can they help you fund your endeavors really, there's only I only know a couple people that are able to do it full time and not actually have a job.
Nick VinZant 21:55
How many times has your swimsuit come off when you hit the water
Jay Briggs 21:59
it's never came off but so the problem is is that they rip from when you hit the impact and your shorts are filled with air and they're hitting the water there's the air in the water like or feuding essentially and so I have shorts all the time that just rip up the sea aside all the time. And it's like there's been times right where I'm one time the pool can't release anymore. Luckily I have a great swimsuit sponsorship that just says they've been sending me swimsuits for the past five years. Animoto they're out of the Netherlands they're an incredible company and they're great guys and they just send me stuff a couple times a year just to fill me up on
Nick VinZant 22:36
stage. best piece of Cliff jumper lingo
Jay Briggs 22:43
oh man that's a good one. I think it's an old surfer term and we've loved to use it and it's called hit in and it's when you when you when you eat shit essentially so like dude you got towed a pit right? It's like I really enjoy like cooking. I'm trying to remember if there's any one that cliffjumper term actually I pointed right this I don't know if anybody how many people in the crypto community really know this but there's a trick that I named is called the triple hope sex really and it's funny because my girlfriend's name is hope I named after her because it's hilarious because I used to always make fiber and just every time so he's like, Oh, I'm like yeah hope so. just random so I named it randomly and it's where you do a front flip a front half to a backflip so it's three flips with one half twist right it's really difficult.
Nick VinZant 23:35
Oh I thought you were like stopping in mid air I was like how do you do the front flap and then I slept with a
Jay Briggs 23:41
half and then a backflip and then I named that the triple hope stuff so that's a piece of cliff jumping lingo that I named and a lot of people call it that and they put me like you see people do it on Instagram captions did a trip did my first trip hope to my first trip hope Saks whatever, but I find that I just want to have I'm proud of that moment and I haven't contributed an insane amount of steps in the journey community besides like helping pioneer like new spots and stuff but that's something I got that's nobody can take that away from me.
Nick VinZant 24:10
Does she appreciate that? Oh,
Jay Briggs 24:13
she's she's she's such a good sport about everything. She's She's incredible.
Nick VinZant 24:19
The other part of that is worst piece of cliff diving lingo lingo. You're like God people can't stop saying.
Jay Briggs 24:27
Worse piece of I think what I hate the most, and it's I think some of us coast jumpers do that. So there's cliff diving, right? And then you have these kids that trampled that come from trampolining into cliff diving because it's kind of like a new step up and they use like, instead of saying like, dub half or triple half, they use the terms of triples and flip this off a cliff and I can't stand it. So Mike wrong sport, man. You're in the wrong sport. You're talking trampolines. We're going to clip that we're not doing it. No trif isn't doing job pass Tripathi. We're not using your terms and I that's something like, I know it's super minor. It's not gonna like the guys it just bothers the crap.
Nick VinZant 25:10
I will say this is a person who knows nothing about it and just hearing that like, Oh, that's annoying, right isn't as you can tell. You're trying too hard, right? The lingo hasn't come naturally, you're forcing the lingo,
Jay Briggs 25:25
right. So it's a totally different community. And
Nick VinZant 25:28
I don't like what's the holy grail?
Jay Briggs 25:31
I really feel like there's not one Holy Grail. I feel like in terms of like cliff diving spots, it's I have a super high place I told you about that's, to me the most incredible place you could get to, like for cliff jumping. But in terms of like cliff jumping itself, I feel like there's no one specific thing. I feel like it's everybody trying to do something new, and create something new that's never been done, whether it's a new flip a new trick, whatever. I think that's really the drive for a lot of people just trying to get as versatile as possible.
Nick VinZant 26:01
That's pretty much all the questions we got, man. Yeah, is there anything else you think we missed or anything like that? Well, I'm
Jay Briggs 26:07
gonna leave everybody with a message. If it gets edited out, like I don't care. Take the time to travel with your friends. Because going out of the country for us, like with your, with your best friends, is some of the most like unforgettable memories. So if you're 20 to 2530, I don't care if it 45 or whatever. Like, going out of the country with your friends, and just having an insane time and doing it's just doing random stuff and not being like, yeah, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna stay in a hotel, go stayed in Airbnb with 15 of your friends and go have a frickin blast and just go out, stay out all night, burn yourself out and have hella fun, because that's the best.