A tribute to the late “flying abbot” of Le Castellet, of whom he was the last pupil. A record to beat. And a birthday. Saturday August 20, at 4 p.m. sharp, Jean-Michel Beaujon, known as “the flying Cassiden” will celebrate his 75th birthday by taking off from the Rocher de la Galère – “the submarine” – near Port d’Alon, in the bay from La Moutte to Saint-Cyr. Sixteen meters below, by signing his feat, he will be the oldest high-flying angel jump diver in the world and will have done better than his mentor who holds the age record (August 22, 1988, aged 75 , Abbé Simon dived 15 meters one last time in Villers-le-Lac., editor’s note).
“At the age of 74, Father Robert Simon, parish priest of Sainte-Anne-du-Castellet and who died in 2000, had plunged 16 meters into the creek of Port-Miou in Cassis”locates Jean-Michel Beaujon, who totals 2,515 dives to his credit since 1968. Including an angel jump at 32.5 meters, his personal best, established in Port-Miou.
An encounter that is almost mystical
In the wake of the abbot, the former stuntman, sailing instructor, sports educator, trekker hiker and mountaineer, has always dedicated his sporting exploits to disabled children. “Like the ascent in Nepal of an inviolate summit of 6,800 meters, as a team, ten years ago”, he illustrates.
Residing in Saint-Cyr, retired for eight years, a follower of toumo – a Tibetan tantric practice that allows you to push back the limits of resistance to the cold that he teaches at Sainte-Baume – he has also been involved for forty years with the municipal gym Espace Dorso, in Cassis, where he is still a teacher of tai chi, chi gong and yoga, in four Ephad. Phew! “I have perfected a technique for the third age. I still have 92-year-old students”he slips.
His meeting with Father Robert Simon is almost mystical. “Repatriated from Algeria in 1962, I arrived in Moulins in the Allier, with my parents, where I fell into petty crime, says Jean-Michel Beaujon. One day in 1966, chased by the police, I found refuge in a yoga room whose door I accidentally pushed open. The teacher looked at me and said ‘Sit there!’ I stayed there for half an hour and left without saying goodbye, like a thief. That’s how I escaped my pursuers…”
The story does not end there: “A month later, to excuse my behavior, I went back. I came home and the teacher said to me: ‘I was waiting for you’. With him, I learned the techniques of yoga, my behavior changed and I became a specialized educator. He was a pupil of Abbé Simon whom he advised me to meet…”
It was in Vichy, one day in August 1968, that Jean-Michel Beaujon, on the advice of his “philosophical father” meets the abbot, his future “spiritual father”, with whom he will make his first high-flying dive, in the Allier, from a scaffolding 12 meters high.
Since that moment, every year, the future flying Cassiden spends his summer holidays in Saint-Anne-du-Castellet to refine the art of angel jumping, with his teacher.
Technique and physical preparation
“I discovered the region. I slept at the cure. He taught me everything. We dived from the Rocher de la Galère two or three times a week. I also met the freediver Jacques Mayol there, ” the dolphin man”, who gave us meditation and breathing techniques, he recalls. I finally had the opportunity to settle in the South in 1976, it was February 27th. I entered the town hall of Cassis as a sports educator, I stayed there for 45 years.
Behind the spectacle of the dive which lasts a handful of seconds, there is technique and a long preparation. “This involves meditation, physical preparation with relaxation, joint work, postures to adopt… One of the secrets of high-flying diving is to hover as long as possible. The risk is to turn around”, summarizes Jean-Michel Beaujon, who trains two hours every day for his exploit on Saturday. A diver, who, like Abbé Simon before him, still initiates and teaches diving within the association Les intrépides de Cassis which he founded and which has had up to 132 students.
I am a boost of the Good God! I risk nothing
“I am a boost of the Good Lord! I risk nothing, he repeated. My dives are acts of love.” Responding to the call of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, swapping his cassock for a bathing suit, the “flying” Abbot Robert Simon, ordained a priest in 1938, dived from 1947 to 1973 for a good cause.
Self-taught, without preparation at the beginning! One hundred and ten times, very precisely, signing exploits at 35 m height, all over the world, to help his parishioners and for the works of the Church. “He is the world record holder, established in Casablanca in 1947, with a dive (unapproved) of 42 meters, recounts Jean-Michel Beaujon, his last pupil. He thought he was going to dive 35 meters. He found himself facing a 42-meter crane. In front of the large crowd present to witness his feat, he decided to dive. He came into the water at 132 km/h and got both eyes blackened.”
“He taught the angel jump to Tarzan”
His dives enabled him to restore and build religious buildings in Villers-le-Lac (Doubs) and Sainte-Anne-du-Castellet, where he exercised his priesthood. But also to sustain a holiday center, which in Saint-Cyr welcomed more than a thousand children in twelve years. Famous but humble. “In 1955, in New York where the bishop of Chicago forbade him to dive, he met Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimmer, five times gold medalist at the Olympic Games and film actor, interpreter on twelve occasions of the character of Tarzan during the 1930s and 1940s, to whom he would have taught the leap of the angel!says Jean-Michel Beaujon again.
Died on August 14, 2000 at Le Castellet, Father Robert Simon rests in the new cemetery of Sainte-Anne, a hamlet, where he retired in 1992, after 29 years of ministry. A stone’s throw from the church which he helped to renovate.
At 75, he will jump from a 16-meter rock to pay tribute to the “flying abbot” in Saint-Cyr