If you're not inclined to philisophical thinking, you may want to skip this
one...
I found a "not thinking" appoach that has worked for me in driving, but it
doesn't work unless you remember to do it :) The basic idea, much as Rich
describes, is to look at what you cannot see.
This is easy to do in a wooded rally course, where you frequently cannot see
around every turn in the road and that is a very good place to learn and
practice this technique. However, that is not readily accessible to most, so
an alternative is necessary. An approximation to this method is to look
where you are not. To begin, this is most easily accomplished on a road
course, like a long sweeper, such as turn 2 at Thunderhill. As you complete
your braking and double de-clutch, you look 90 degrees left, out the side
window, and see the exit of the turn, which, is about five seconds away at
90mph and before you reach the straight to turn 3, you look 90 degress right,
through the hill, to turn 4, which you cannot see.
OK, that still won't due, because we're all here autocrossing, so we need a
method that works for autocrossing. Well, looking where you are not, still
applies, it just takes a bit more practice to learn exactly where it is, that
you *are* supposed to look. For me, I started autocrossing in Washington, DC
region, land of very small lots and even smaller cone allotments, so every
course was a gated course. For those who are unfamiliar, a gated course, is
like a giant slalom, in skiing. There is a series of "gates", each of which
is identified as a set of two cones, and they must be passed through in the
correct direction and in the correct order, from the starting gate, through
the intermediate gates, and finally, the finish gate. The course is not
lined with chalk, there are no pointer cones to keep you on track and it was
not at all uncommon for a few folks each event to complete their three runs,
only to be awarded with three DNFs when all was said and done. Back to the
point, what the gated course facilitated was the ability to pick a gate,
three or four positions from your current location, which you could focus on.
This allowed three things to happen. First, you knew where you had to end up,
four gates from now, you couldn't see the next three gates becasue you were
no longer looking at them, and you couldn't think about driving because you
were busy looking for the next gate, which can be darn hard in a gated
course.
And now, for how to use that in SFR--ignore the cones. There are only a
handful of cones, on course, that you need to be concerned with, the rest are
just distractions. When you walk the course, just pick out a few "trouble"
spots, because you won't remember the entire course anyway, and even if you
do, what you thought you wanted to do while walking, turned into something
completely different at speed. While driving, look for those trouble spots
as your "gates" and let your body and subconcious drive between the gates,
while you think about where the next gate is located.
That's it. Simple, huh. Simple, but not easy. You can practice this
everyday, but, SAFETY FIRST, don't force the issue, if you think you're gonna
crash because you're not looking where you're going, then, by all means,
look! Once you're comfortable looking further down the road, the next time
you get to an on ramp, take a quick peek at the exit as soon as you start to
turn onto the ramp, and if you can't see the exit, then imagine what the exit
will look like when you get there, and imagine what you'll look like going
through it, but just for a second, then look back to where you are driving.
As you build confidence and skill, you will be able to visualize more of the
path your car will take through the turn before you get there and you will
find that you don't actually have to look at the road very much at all.
Now, everybody hop in your car, drive to LA for the next practice event, say hi
to Kevin, and give it a shot.
T^L
PS: I never learned to drive
On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 02:50:40PM -0800, Rich Urschel <OSP13@attglobal.net>
wrote:
> "Kelly, Katie" wrote:
>
> > Okay, so what do you think about to not think? :)
> >
> > I personally don't think about this stuff so much.
>
> I once had this really neat book called "The Zen method
> of Tennis" or some such that dealt eloquently
> with this stuff but I loaned it to you, and you were
> supposed to pass it on to James.
>
> The technique for not thinking is to totally focus
> on what you are doing. For tennis the author recommended
> looking at the seams on the ball. You can't actually see
> them, but within minutes of trying it I found I was no longer
> thinking things like, "Shit, I can't get to that," and discovered
> my body played tennis a lot better than I did (and never
> makes stupid mistakes.)
>
> And yes, James, kibitzing yourself is really, really bad.
>
> I've been practicing this not thinking stuff shooting
> baskets (and losing 25 lbs.). When I look at the hoop
> and don't think I make about 90% of the shots. When
> I think about it, or anything else, I'm lucky to make 50%.
>
> Focus!
>
> Rich Urschel
|