David Blaine: Do Not Attempt Season 1 Episode 4
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00:00You
00:09Growing up, I never felt like I fit in. I
00:13Wasn't the fastest or the strongest
00:17But I found a skill that set me apart
00:22Endurance
00:25It all began with extreme cold
00:30This became my lifelong obsession
00:42To discover things that seem impossible
00:47Magical
00:50Death-defying
01:00I'm traveling to the arctic circle in the middle of winter
01:10This is lapland where finland meets norway sweden and russia
01:16It's a punishing environment during this time of the year temperatures can drop to negative 50 degrees fahrenheit
01:24It's sparsely populated
01:29And in this part of the world there are more reindeer than people
01:33One
01:35Two
01:36Three
01:43It's an unusual place to go searching for magic in the snow-covered wilderness
01:48It's what you would imagine the ultimate winter wonderland to be
01:55But i'm on a search for people who endure this freezing environment to perform superhuman feats
02:09All right
02:10Don't die
02:13Don't die
02:24Oh, yeah
02:26Oh
02:28Yeah
02:29This is good
02:31Oh my god
02:32Oh, it's so fun
02:33What?
02:34What?
02:34Whoa
02:38I look up at like a thousand feet of just flat rock with snowy tops and it's just so mighty and I feel stronger every time
02:50Ken has been called the last viking on earth
02:53I draw my power from the vikings
02:58They would scream their way into battle
02:59They would run toward death without fear
03:07He's from norway where the death dive was created
03:11A norwegian death dive it looks like you're gonna land flat on your stomach
03:15But in the last millisecond you tuck in and protect yourself
03:19In 2023 ken broke the world record for the highest death dive when he jumped 132 feet into a fiori
03:27The hardest thing for that jump was definitely the mental barriers because it's it's high enough to
03:37Definitely kill you
03:40You have to be okay with the outcome
03:42I did my first like backflip on the ground
03:59When I was 15 around then and then did you have dive training?
04:03No that was something we did like a result of many years of like doing tricking and parkour and gymnastics and then it just like evolved
04:14Ken transforms the landscape into his own playground
04:18This is the ancient art of getting to know the snow before you jump in it you know
04:28Gotta befriend the snow so it doesn't hurt us tomorrow
04:32It's been something we made jokes about but I kind of feel it's true too
04:35I feel like it was like to get to know the snow and get to know the nature and paying respects
04:40You ready for this yeah, let's go
05:10We found an area with high cliffs and enough snowfall for ken to teach me a bit of his jumping techniques
05:22No rocks should be good
05:23Yeah
05:24To make sure your face is protected you want to use your elbows to shoot in and when you feel like you know
05:30I'm flying try to meet the ground yeah if you're on the ground and smack it
05:40When I get up to the top it actually looks and feels much higher
05:45And for ken this isn't even a warm-up jump
05:48I suddenly understand how much mental discipline his jumps demand three
05:53two one go
06:10One more thing i want you to see
06:40One more thing i want you to see
06:41This is crazy
06:43One more thing i don't want you to see
06:44Whoa!
07:03Watching you, that's something I really respect.
07:11That, like, commitment to one idea.
07:13Yeah.
07:14Magic is that, because everything else disappears.
07:17Yeah.
07:18Like, you have to know the risk, and you have to feel the fear.
07:21Yeah.
07:22But before, it's like, you just have to remove every, like, limitations in your mind to be
07:28able to overcome it.
07:31Yeah.
07:32Ken's right.
07:33It's important to understand the risks and be prepared.
07:39For my first televised stunt, I wasn't.
07:42I failed on live TV when I tried to remain encased in a block of ice for three days and
07:48three nights.
07:49It started with the initial idea of, I just love how ice looks.
07:55And then I started thinking, what if, what if I could be inside of it?
08:02I committed to doing it in the most public place possible.
08:10I wanted to break myself out of the ice at the end.
08:13But at 63 hours, my safety team ended the stunt early because I was hallucinating and on the
08:20brink of collapse.
08:21He's been held together by spitting adrenaline inside.
08:26The adrenaline is now gone.
08:27We've got to make sure he doesn't go into shock.
08:32I was destroyed.
08:34The ice had done more damage to me than any stunt that I've ever done.
08:39Being in the block of ice changed my outlook on everything.
08:43I pushed my mind and body to the breaking point.
08:53That failure is what led me to this search.
08:57For people who are mentally tough in the most extreme environments.
09:04Now I'm going to meet Inca Cagniasso, a world-class Finnish skydiver.
09:11Watching Inca dance in the sky, it's easy to forget the risks involved, especially in this
09:16climate.
09:17Wow.
09:19Jeez.
09:24That is unbelievable.
09:27When I was a kid, I went through the dark cold winters, like walking to school when it's
09:31like minus 30 Celsius, and you really need to find a mindset.
09:38You just need to toughen up.
09:43It takes real endurance to train for hours on end in the wind tunnel, let alone to fly
09:48in sub-zero temperatures as Inca does.
09:53One of my favorite activities is jumping out of airplanes.
09:56I've done it more than 500 times.
09:59The feeling is exhilarating, but I've never done it in these freezing conditions, which
10:06makes it much more dangerous.
10:09would keep falling off in those Ankara.
10:12The entire air resistance begins in space.
10:15It's been a long time for the air to ride on air.
10:17Back to the sea.
10:18I would make the air.
10:19Good job.
10:20The air is a long, no matter of time.
10:21You're going to be in peace.
10:22Wow.
10:23Nice to meet you.
10:24How many hours do you have?
10:25I have maybe like five and a half thousand hours now.
10:27Wow.
10:28Yeah it's a long.
10:29Ready to fly.
10:30natural environment that I've ever been in.
10:33But first, she wants to test our ability to jump together.
10:37Inka's longtime collaborator, Laudy, is joining us.
10:41When we're watching beautiful videos of skydiving,
10:46we don't see the part that's so important,
10:52which is the camera flyer.
10:54Laudy's camera is strapped to his helmet,
10:56and it's heavier than a bowling ball.
10:59Stacking those nine kilos to your head
11:01and then jumping out of the plane
11:03and going 300 kilometers towards the ground is a bit nuts.
11:17It's a huge airfield.
11:18But I see those patches of ice.
11:20The runway and all the bit that, like, that's very slippery.
11:24Three years ago, I had a bad landing and I broke my ankle.
11:29You know, I broke the bone in multiple places, ripped three ligaments.
11:33I never really recovered the ankle.
11:36And because of this accident, I stopped skydiving.
11:40I can see that it's at the back of his head, like,
11:43is this going to happen again?
11:45Am I potentially going to hurt my ankle again?
11:47The longer I didn't skydive, the more difficult it has become to get back into the sport.
11:52But jumping with Inca here presents a rare and beautiful opportunity to build back both my confidence
11:58and push my ability to tolerate the cold.
12:02But any time you skydive in freezing temperatures,
12:05you need to consider other risks.
12:07Your equipment is more likely to malfunction and your response time is much slower
12:14because the cold numbs your extremities.
12:20Let's do it.
12:21Let's do it.
12:22We want to get up in the air as soon as we can because the clouds are starting to come in.
12:33The cloud cover distorts depth perception, which makes landing much more dangerous.
12:40At 12,000 feet, the temperatures will drop to negative 40 degrees.
12:51I've decided to jump in a t-shirt, which will give me more mobility.
13:10It was so beautiful about the clouds.
13:20I was having the time of my life.
13:23David was smiling.
13:29I have roughly 45 seconds in a freefall to capture Inca doing her magic.
13:35But as I open my parachute, I start having problems.
13:45My goggles are getting fogged.
13:48The clouds and snow are making it harder to see how close I am to the ground.
13:55Then, when I start to flare my canopy, my steering lines are tangled.
14:00I realize that I'm coming in too fast.
14:21I saw him laying on the ground, and he was not moving for, like, way too long.
14:26I started running, and thanks to God, I saw him moving again.
14:35I've lost a lot of friends in the sport, and whenever something like this happens,
14:40it's very triggering.
14:49Are you okay?
14:51There's so many unknowns in this sport.
14:53Your suit might not open.
14:54Your, your, your goggles might fog up.
14:58Anything could happen.
15:02I suffer spinal fractures.
15:06But I'm also super grateful to walk away from it.
15:13There's a word,
15:14in Finnish language that's called sisu which would probably translate to something like
15:21persistence or stubbornness like you watch me I'm gonna get it done
15:31the doctors asked me if I'm gonna fly again I said yes of course
15:37I just needed to take care of my mind first and then build back my body
15:52I was so concerned that he was never going to fly again because it was broken back
15:57but in just a matter of months he returned to the wind tunnel
16:02Laudy is an incredible example of perseverance and determination
16:15sisu is a mindset having to survive in harsh weather yeah it toughens you up Christian
16:23is a great magician that I've collaborated with for decades he's invited me to Helsinki to see some
16:29incredible acts that you can only find here
16:37there's only light a few hours per day during the winter
16:43so it allows your creativity to flourish and come up with new ideas
16:47I'm taking David to see a performance taking place on circular plates of ice spinning on top of the frozen Baltic sea
17:09it's called an ice carousel
17:17so someone were to ask me what would be unique about Finnish magic
17:21these guys
17:22this is Salah
17:44this is Salah
17:52I feel very alive when I'm up there
18:05I feel very alive when I'm up there
18:10and I feel like the audience is with me
18:22I want the audience to actually forget the freezing cold
18:37Salah isn't just an aerialist
18:41she's also one of the best female ice divers
18:44when Salah unexpectedly drops through the ice
18:54you can feel the energy of the crowd shift
18:57it's as if the audience is now holding their breath along with her
19:03it's what made my favorite magician Harry Houdini so captivating
19:14so
19:26when I attempted the world record for breath-holding
19:29I started blacking out my safety team had to intervene and rescue me
19:34just like they had to when I was encased in a block of ice
19:39watching salah combine breath holding and cold endurance
19:43I want to see what else she can do.
19:47So she's taking me to a training camp to introduce me to her team.
19:58So what we have here today is we have the depth ropes so they can dive down.
20:06Free diving is one of the riskiest underwater sports where you dive without any breathing apparatus.
20:12But under the ice, it's exponentially more dangerous.
20:16If you're in 60 degree water, you can hold your breath no problem.
20:20Four minutes, five minutes each time.
20:22But when you're in the Arctic and it's below zero, it's very easy to black out.
20:28A wetsuit gives you insulation and significantly prolongs the amount of time that you can spend underwater.
20:39Where else do they even do this kind of ice dive?
20:42There can't be that many places in the world.
20:44No, there aren't really many.
20:49Miro and Salah see free diving as much more than a sport.
20:53We have basically an underwater floor clipped upside down.
20:58Oh, right.
20:59I didn't even think of that.
21:00Because you have a surface here.
21:02We'll definitely show you some fun stuff.
21:03We can show you.
21:05All right?
21:06Yep.
21:07Ten seconds.
21:08Okay.
21:08Okay.
21:12See you next week.
21:21Bye.
21:22Yeah.
21:23Bye.
21:24There you go.
21:32I don't know.
21:34That looks amazing.
21:48Miro and Sala's performance is dreamlike, but it's most people's nightmare to be trapped
22:00under ice with no way out.
22:03Here, the ice is one meter thick, so there's no way out if you don't find the hole.
22:11You get lost once, you get lost forever.
22:16Being trapped under ice is one of the greatest nightmares.
22:20How do you feel about it?
22:22Well, for me I'm excited.
22:25I want to try something that I've never done, holding my breath while under the ice.
22:40So we're headed 600 miles north to a training ground in the Arctic Circle.
22:48It would be nice to go under for you to see what it's like down there and how it feels.
22:56I want to go under the ice in the most extreme way possible.
23:02But first you're gonna go with the wetsuit.
23:05What fun is a wetsuit?
23:07It's up to you, man.
23:09But they've convinced me to wear a mask because exposing your eyes to these temperatures is very painful.
23:19We have the three meter cable which goes around your waist and we have three meter radius around the rope.
23:30So what's the line for?
23:31You should be wearing the line.
23:33Something happens to you, then you lose your grip?
23:36Anything can happen.
23:37Even if the distance is small, anything can happen actually.
23:41There are really no room for mistakes when you are ice diving.
23:48This afternoon is about finding David's limits.
23:51What we want to see is how he reacts.
23:54Is he panicking?
24:03Yes, it's extremely cold and the environment is extremely hostile.
24:14But it's so beautiful.
24:19Wow.
24:21Wow.
24:23Amazing!
24:27In order to do multiple dives without going into hypothermia,
24:31you need intense heat to bring your core temperature up.
24:36That is why the sauna is so critical to this process.
24:40The sauna was actually created in Finland more than a thousand years ago
24:44and it's a key safety component for this extreme sport.
24:52As soon as I leave the sauna, I have limited time.
24:55The team created a safety track 27 feet long with two exit points.
25:02I'll train to dive from one opening to the next without a wetsuit.
25:07As you are going along by pulling the rope, you want to take as long strokes as possible.
25:14Okay.
25:15Reach the rope as far as you can, pull as low as you can.
25:17Okay.
25:18You take the same breathing techniques that you do before.
25:22I'll do three first.
25:23Yeah.
25:24Okay.
25:29They're teaching me how to conserve oxygen while pulling my body.
25:33Because with every single movement, I'm quickly depleting my reserves.
25:37The body uses an enormous amount of energy.
25:46So the further the coldness sort of gets in, the sooner you get really tired and it reduces the breath hold time.
25:56Once I understood that I could do this length, then I said, okay, well wait, can we double it?
26:02Okay, can we triple it?
26:03One good thing to measure that is the feelings inside of your body and brain.
26:18If you lose your focus for just a few seconds, you may get disorientated and you may not know where to go.
26:25So that's the reason why it's important to stay focused under there.
26:29A few years back there was a world record set on 106 meters in ice diving.
26:41I wanted to break that record.
26:43I knew that that dive is going to be very, very close to my limits.
26:58And I knew that it could be even over my limits.
27:02There was some marks, like 25 meters, 50 meters, 75, 87 is the last mark I remember.
27:13I saw him slow down and there was a bubble coming out of his mouth, which means that he was plugging out.
27:25I started realizing that, okay, maybe I will have to catch him and bring him up.
27:32The next thing I remember, I woke up and they were shouting me to breathe.
27:46There's a big difference to holding your breath the way I've done it my entire life versus holding it while under the ice.
27:54Everything can shut down quickly and you can black out within seconds.
27:59It was intense because it was a certain distance he tried.
28:07You will let him try till the very end that he can.
28:11So at the last minute, of course, we bring him up.
28:15You always trust your life through your friends like it's in their hands eventually.
28:20As I train, the exits continuously freeze over and the team has to keep recutting the holes.
28:33You cut through this.
28:34Two hours ago.
28:36And it's already frozen over that quick?
28:38Yeah.
28:41What Miro says gives me an idea.
28:44When I was in the block of ice, my safety team had to cut me out.
28:48Now my goal is to escape on my own.
28:52I'll free dive 90 feet across to the only exit point which will be frozen solid.
28:58And this time I'll do it without wearing a mask.
29:03I'll be trapped under the ice and will be forced to break my way out.
29:08When you're under the ice, trying to break through this is much more difficult.
29:16Yeah.
29:18What's sort of an extra factor in this is that there's no holes in between.
29:30It's deadly dangerous.
29:34Especially when he's not wearing any protective gear or a mask.
29:39When I was in the block of ice, I was 27.
29:43I'm now 50 years old.
29:45My body is completely different.
29:48Every single thing that I do, I feel the effects of it in a way that I've never felt before.
29:54The distance is three times what I did in training.
30:10I need to conserve every bit of oxygen so I have enough reserves to be able to break out before I black out.
30:23Let's go!
30:24Do you have any problems?
30:25Do we have any problems if everything wasn't free yet?
30:27ans at raise Screen 맛 hallucination atляются the killing effects off of my ankle.
30:29Do we have any problems to do stand?
30:31No.
30:33Do we have any problems to go?
32:14Whatever failures I experienced from past stunts, maybe they weren't failures.
32:20Maybe they were supposed to be because it all led me here.
32:26You guys are amazing.
32:29Meeting these extraordinary people, who through their strength and persistence create magic.
32:36Who seek out the most intense moments to find a heightened sense of awareness, where everything becomes clear.
32:48When something's that challenging, or that powerful, there are no more distractions, and through that, you can discover the beauty around you.