Terrace Jumping

Terrace Jumping

When filming there are so many interactions that happen behind the scenes that connect people and make a difference. Recently we were in a remote Nepalese village filming, during a break I went for an adventure with the local children. They could not speak English, I just followed them on a tour of all of their favourite places. They taught me the art of ‘terrace jumping’. The mountains have terraces cut into them so that they have a flat area for farming and have walls 2 metres high, they are like giant steps. For us westerners to go down the terraces we tend to jump vertically which shocks our legs and back. The children smiled at me, grabbed my hands, we took a running leap and jumped off, the idea is to keep the momentum forward rather than down, this removes all the shock. You fall 2 metres, take a quick step and then jump off the next terrace, in a matter of 30 seconds we were at the river hundreds of metres below. The children were all smiling at me when we arrived at the river, I don’t think an adult had ever followed them before.

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