Hana Terrell, 28, became a licensed skydiver after her first jump nearly four years ago
Credit: Courtesy of Hana Terrell
NEED TO KNOW
- Hana Terrell always thought she was too scared to try skydiving, but her first jump four years ago changed her life forever and for the better
- After a tandem leap while on vacation, the SoulCycle instructor returned home and immediately started the process of becoming a licensed skydiver
- It didn’t start out as an inexpensive hobby, but on the other side of training fees and costly equipment, Terrell, 28, says skydiving is a fairly affordable way to spend her time
Hana Terrell's Instagram page is filled with videos that see her engaging in a range of seemingly death-defying stunts, whether she's jumping from hot air balloon baskets or soaring through the skies below the wings of a parachute.
The 28-year-old's cool, calm and collected confidence, clearly demonstrated in her content, is made all the more impressive by the fact that she only started skydiving about four years ago. Terrell tells PEOPLE that she picked up the hobby on a whim. In fact, she was once opposed to the concept altogether.
"I remember when I was younger, my sister went skydiving for her 18th birthday, and I was so jealous because I was like, 'I'll never be able to do that,' because I thought I'd be too scared," she says. "I was the most anxious person of all time. I would never think that I would ever skydive ever."
Credit: Courtesy of Hana Terrell
What changed? Terrell admits she doesn't even really know. She's not sure what came over her during that trip to Hawaii in 2022, when she decided to step out of her comfort zone and try a tandem jump. From that point on, Terrell says she became "obsessed."
As soon as she got back home to Los Angeles, she started researching ways to make skydiving a bigger part of her life. The SoulCycle instructor says she didn't waste any time working towards obtaining her skydiving license. The process, she says, was surprisingly simple.
Terrell's training required her to take one class and do seven "coached jumps" alongside an instructor. After 25 total dives, which she completed over the course of a few months, she was awarded her license. As quick as that turnaround may seem, she tells PEOPLE it gave her plenty of time to shake any lingering fears or doubts about the activity.
"You definitely build confidence because you understand, first of all, the gear really, really works. It's really much more safe than people think it is," says Terrell. "Then you just trust yourself that you know what you're doing and that you can handle a high-pressure situation."
Considering how much goes into a single jump between the plane or balloon ride up and the equipment that eases a diver down, one might expect that it's an expensive hobby to have. Indeed, learning the ropes did require a decent financial commitment from Terrell. However, after she obtained her license and bought all of the expensive, necessary gear, skydiving proved to be a relatively cheap pastime — and now she's completed more than 450 dives in almost four years.
"Jumps are only about $30, and I mean, Pilates classes these days are going for $50," she explains. "It's more cost-effective for me to jump out of an airplane than to go to Pilates."
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Naturally, once she unlocked the ability to fly, she felt compelled to see the world from above, meaning Terrell ended up spending on flights to places like Egypt, where she skydived over the Pyramids of Giza.
"The cost really never goes away, but you pick and choose what you spend your money on, and I think it's the best thing that I could be spending my money on," says Terrell.
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