Practice in your Minds Eye

As a teenager, I practiced bike trials until dark, often failing to make progress on a specific trick. Exhausted, I’d visualize the trick before bed, and then all through the next day at school...after school I’d try it and nail it first try. Practicing in the minds eye is soooo powerful.


(old photo from a line I visualized many times before attempting)

If you’re passionate about something, you’ll naturally dream about it.

Dreams are visions and they happen spontaneously; visualization is more intentional than dreams.

Downhill ski racers can visualize their runs down to the second!

If I can clearly visualize myself riding a challenging line successfully, then I know I can physically pull it off.

This isn’t a passive process, everyone has dreams, intentionally doing something about them is the next step, and that starts in your mind; visualize, then test, then repeat. It works! Again, soooo powerful!

Visualization isn’t positive thinking, it's a reality checking tool. I often visualize challenging lines and end up crashing in my mind, if I can’t manage to ride it clean in my minds eye, then there’s no way I’ll try it! I can’t trick myself in this way, visualization keeps me honest and real!

In a recent yoga class I posted in my online yoga studio for mountain bikers, I asked my students to physically stay still but to move through a sun salutation sequence in their minds eye. This is practice for riding & life. Can you do that? How much detail can you bring in? What do you learn by doing this?

In the focus practice I posted in the studio, I wrote down the process for visualizing a specific riding performance goal, such as a bunny hop or technical climb; and a general experiential goal, such as the emotion or feel you’d like to bring to your ride. Visualization is such a foundational skill, and should be one of the first any athlete learns and practices.