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Adrenaline rushes aren't dangerous if they're done properly. Personally I'm going to make sure my little boy is exposed to plenty of 'scary' things as he grows up so he can learn about risk and how to assess/handle it properly.

I saw a great documentary about this with Danny MacAskill called Daredevils: Life On The Edge. It looked at adrenaline junkies and investigated why they do what they do. At the end of the program there's a really nice choreographed sequence with MacAskill and various others performing tricks as they descend down the step into an underground station in London, and through the station itself.

The sequence was directed by a hollywood stunt specialist who has worked with all the top guys in big blockbuster movies and he said that the stuntmen and women, far from what most people think, are the least likely people in the world to do something risky. There are two parts to this. Firstly they've learned how to be very good at assessing risk. They understand extremely well what makes something safe or risky. They've had a lot of experience and have learned from it.

Secondly they are very highly skilled. What would be very risky for us to do isn't for them because they have the training to perform safely. We only think what they're doing is dangerous because we ourselves would be very likely to be hurt doing it.

If you insulate a kid from risky experiences you deny them the chance to learn in a controlled environment. It's like teaching a kid to cook. If you look after them really well and provide everything they need and cook them fantastic nutritious meals every day until they leave home they'll love you immensely for it. Then they'll move out, try to look after themselves and end up burning the house down with a pan fire or cut the end of their finger off with a knife or shave the skin off their hand with a grater.

Teach a kid how to use a sharp knife safely and how to sharpen it and keep it keen and they'll be safe for the rest of their life. Kids should be able to use sharp knives, under strict supervision of course, to learn the safe way of doing it. They should be doing 'dangerous' things to learn to do them safely. Part of the learning process is probably going to hurt. They may well get a few cuts before they get their knife skills up to scratch, but if they're in a controlled environment these should be small compared to the injuries that happen when someone with no idea about knives forces a blunt one through something tough.

As for adrenaline sports, the more they fall over the better they learn to balance. If this kid goes on a bit of a bigger slide and gets thrown off in the corners it's going to hurt, but it's not going to kill him. He'll find his limits and respect them more.

I'd rather my kid makes his mistakes while I'm still around to clear up the mess

5 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

I couldn't find a replacement link to embed but this is the same video here if anyone wants to see it...
http://dailypicksandflicks.com/2013/06/18/danny-macaskills-imaginate-video/

>> ^SFOGuy:

Sometimes I admit to wondering: do these people have parents? I mean, people who have the normal level of fear response to seeing someone they care about finding new and interesting ways to potentially hurt themselves? I wonder that about the Russian high tower/building videos too...
Not to say it isn't impressive and artful; just wonder.


There was a short series of programs here in the UK about Danny Macaskill, looking at how he deals with the fear/adrenaline of these type of stunts. They took him to meet other daredevil types and looked at his response to the risks. They also interviewed his parents. His dad is very risk averse, he doesn't like anything his son does, but his mother encouraged him to take risks from a very early age. The result is a mature person with a huge understanding of risk. He really knows his limits and what is and isn't possible.

If you bring up a child without exposing them to risk they never learn how to deal with or understand risk. When presented with a situation which is risky they don't know which decisions to make and that's when it all goes really badly wrong.

One of the other people they interviewed in the series was a specialist action sequence director. He works all the time with stunt men and women, people who do things that look really dangerous to normal people. He said they're the least likely of anyone to do anything dangerous. These things look dangerous to us because we don't know how we would deal with the situation. But to a trained stunt person, it's not that dangerous at all. He said they were the most likely people to back away from a danger. They don't look to do dangerous things, but rather they enjoy mastering the risks, so it's not dangerous.

They talked about a sequence where Danny rode down some steps in an underground station (I say rode down, what I mean is hurled himself and the bike down in unimaginably hectic ways!). They asked him what he was thinking when they were planing the shoot and he talked about all the potential risks he could see. Would his bike fit through the gap between the handrails if he did a twist in the jump? Would he hit his head on a step in the ceiling? Would he have enough space to slow down and so on. You'd think seeing the end shots that he went along looking for dangerous things to do where as he actually did the exact opposite.

As for the Russian crane climbers, I suspect there's a little more vodka involved than perhaps there should be...

I did have to bite my tongue....

You handled this very well.

And I am feeling a bit smug about being the go-to female feminist. And glad to have such perceptive male feminist company.

In reply to this comment by ChaosEngine:
As long as you'd be ok with @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/bareboards2" title="member since July 3rd, 2009" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#ffa200">bareboards2 renaming this to "hot guy* does mountain bike tricks" :

* I really have no idea if Danny MacAskill is attractive, but you get the idea...

As long as you'd be ok with @bareboards2 renaming this to "hot guy* does mountain bike tricks"

* I really have no idea if Danny MacAskill is attractive, but you get the idea...

Tags for this video have been changed from 'bike, ride, trials, skill, movie, Industrial Revolutions, Danny Macaskill' to 'bike, ride, trials, skill, movie, Industrial Revolutions, Danny Macaskill, ironworks' - edited by calvados

Thanks Eric - Great choice!

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
Loved the music, beautiful scenery, and the sick bike skills.

>> ^westy:

I don't get it , this is how all asain people ride bikes , you westerners are so easily impressed.


Aha, you were fooled by their advanced technology. Those were robots on the bikes.

He has another video here. Pretty awesome skills.