Tom Cruise announced Tuesday the opening of the first Tom Cruise School of Cliff Jumping, a tuition-free academy where children aged six to twelve are taught to approach the edge of a precipice, pause, and then leap into the void while screaming the word fly at the top of their lungs.
The actor, who has spent decades hanging from airplanes and scaling the world's tallest buildings, said the school was born from a lifelong dream. When I was a boy, I stood at the edge of a cliff and I wanted to jump, Cruise told reporters at a ribbon-cutting ceremony held on a 300-meter drop in the Sierra Nevada. I did not want to die. I wanted to fly. Now every child in America will have that same chance, he added, before demonstrating the technique with a running start and a graceful swan dive into a safety net suspended two meters below the ledge.
The curriculum includes morning lectures on aerodynamics, afternoon sessions on the proper way to tuck and roll upon landing, and a final exam in which students must leap from a helicopter hovering at an altitude of 500 meters while reciting the mission impossible theme. Parents who objected to the program were invited to enroll in a parallel course for adults, where they learn to watch their offspring soar without fainting.
Local authorities in Syracuse, New York, where Cruise grew up, have already approved the construction of a 40-meter training tower in the town square, and the actor has promised to personally supervise every graduation. I have jumped from the Burj Khalifa and hung off a biplane at 200 kilometers per hour, Cruise said. A child falling from a cliff is no different, except the landing is softer. The first class of 30 students is scheduled to take its inaugural leap next Tuesday, weather permitting.