Svetlana Kapanina – The Woman

I read Svetlana Kapanina's story in the international media. I read it just like I read about Nadia Comaneci – with admiration towards the supernatural. People like these give us the chance to cross the rational barrier and see beyond the human limits.

Svetlana Kapanina is a forty-year old woman who is married and has two children, a girl and a boy. She is also the only female pilot with six world titles in aerial aerobatics. She represents Russia and is an excellent ambassador. After discovering parachuting she began to love the adrenaline she found in the air. That's how it started. Only afterwards she discovered plane acrobatics and she became "the one" in a man's world.

I like how she talks about her family, the way she manages to remain – despite her genius – a Woman. I found out that she often takes her two children with her when she practices so I tried to picture a scene like this. I had more than one version but they all shattered when I first looked Svetlana Kapanina in the eyes. For a second both of our sights intersected and then I knew. I knew that I actually didn't know anything about Her.

I was looking at a blonde, gorgeous woman, casually dressed and with a ponytail. You could feel the muscle tension behind her flimsy t-shirt. I admired her muscular legs flexing while she quickly set on the aerodrome grass in the lotus position. I then saw the plane with which she was going to win the competition the very next day.

On the dashboard, near the white dials, there was a piece of white paper with the exercise pieces drawn by hand. It was made by her. After looking at it carefully she headed towards the training rectangle – which is just a few meters wide portion of ground where the pilots rehearse their exercises. What followed next is indescribable. What I was going to watch the next day didn't matter anymore.

Mind, body, the music of spheres, everything in her own dance, infinitely repeated like a vertigo. Always with the same surgical precision, just like an orchestra conductor on the great stages of the world. She did everything, from imperceptible arm gliding to violent circles, perfectly drawn at the line of horizon. Her mind was setting up markers on the tip of her fingers, markers which were prolonging indefinitely.

A representation in the grass, one which the great stages of the world have never seen before. I was in a field near the sea, the wind has a gentle breeze and the night was slowly approaching. I was fascinated by this woman. We were all fascinated, magnetized.

Right near us there were other pilots preparing and planes were getting off the ground in turns to rehearse the next-day's demonstration. Eight internationally-renowned pilots will participate, among them champions from the United States, Spain, Great Britain, Hungary, Germany, France and Switzerland. I saw each and everyone's dance, I saw poetry.

I didn't realize when the night came and I left with my soul filled. I walked through the hangar's shadow and I glanced Svetlana just two steps away. She was sniffing - like all of us -  through her backpack looking for something. She stopped after a couple of minutes and started to put everything back into her backpack. Then I saw more proof that she was a woman. Long fingernails, like those of a model, painted in lively colors. Those delicate woman hands conquered the world. I instantly thought about her daughter, who also loves flying. Can you imagine the chance being born from a mother like that, the joy in being able to call her MOTHER?