He just turned 30, so he played the violin naked while skydiving. It was for a cause

For a while, Glen Donnelly has been a man on a mission.

A mission to jump out of a plane 15,000 feet in the air stark naked while playing the violin on his 30th birthday, but a mission nonetheless.

And on Sunday, he did just that — with the goal of raising $15,000 to donate to groups dealing with men’s mental health issues, and specifically body image issues, according to the Daily Telegraph.

“When I turn 30 on 27th Aug 2017, I'm going to jump out of an airplane nude and skydive playing the violin at 15,000 feet,” he wrote on a GoFundMe page for his cause. “I want to raise $1 for every foot I fall to make a noise for the unsung epidemic that is men's body image.”

“Men silently suffer all around the world, and while many women are comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities and getting help, men are not reaching out,” he continued. “Let's change this.”

Armed with just a $40 violin, the Australian musician, who studied viola at the London Royal Academy of Music, was wearing nothing but a harness when he took the nude plunge.

As Donnelly descended through the skies buck naked, he began to play ‘Happy Birthday’ to himself, according to BBC. When the parachute opened, he began to play a piece from English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, ‘The Lark Ascending.’

He called the song “this beautiful piece about a bird soaring in the air.”

“It was just perfect," he told the BBC. “I played the opening cadenza for about a minute, where you're just slowly rising on the violin and it was just wonderful. When that parachute opened, I could just be free to play the violin.”

“It was a feeling of total freedom.”

For Donnelly, the topic of men’s body image issues is personal.

It started at 18, when a fellow musician joked about his “tubby” belly.

“I started silently sucking it in 24/7, creating a mental and physical prison in my body,” Donnelly explained to BBC.

Donnelly developed body dysmorphic disorder, which causes a person to hate their physical appearance. Eventually, he had to leave Britain and the London Symphony Orchestra, which he was a part of, in 2013.

So far, he has raised just under $3,500 as a part of his skydiving mission.

He plans to split the money between three groups: The Butterfly Foundation, an Australian charity for eating disorders and body image issues; Nude Movement, a charity that seeks to investigate men’s body image issues; and The ManKind Project, which teaches men “to get real about their mental health through emotional intelligence.”

Overcoming that initial moment of fear before skydiving isn’t that different than conquering the anxieties you have about yourself, Donnelly said.

"I felt as much fear and anxiety before the sky jump as I feel when I take off my clothes in front of other people —these jolts of fear and anxiety that I'm still working through," he said to BBC. "I'm really proud of myself for completing the fall and for walking through that door of fear.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 8:27 AM with the headline "He just turned 30, so he played the violin naked while skydiving. It was for a cause."