By Jamie Hill in 2019.
Have you ever had a day when you wake up on the right side of the bed, your morning coffee or tea is just the right temperature and you enjoy the warmth as it fills your belly. You get to the mountain your boots slide on perfectly. The weather is amazing, crisp air on your face is refreshing. Once on snow your board is just an extension of your body. The rest of the day everything just seems to go right and you are able to land your tricks with ease. Then there are the days when you spill your coffee down your front, you have to change and now your running late, and you can’t seem to focus. Everything is going wrong, you’re barely landing your most basic tricks and you don’t know why. I have experienced both days, I never really questioned why the good days were so good and I just tried to survive the bad. Through achieving my Yoga Teacher Training Certificate I learned about mindful awareness and it’s benefits in day-to-day life. As a Snowboarder I have gained understanding of how mindfulness practices can help at each stage of snow sports from the 1st time guest, the instructor trainee to the high performance athlete.
A key piece to non-judgmental mindful awareness is not trying to change or avoid how we feel but accepting it then shifting our focus to our performance. It won’t help a rider to dwell on the missed grab when they are riding up the ramp for the next jump. In the book “The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance” George Mumford writes mindfullness is a superpower. “Pure performance starts with the mind. The center space between stimulus and response is like the eye of a hurricane… Stay in the calm center. Respond from the center of the hurricane, rather than reacting from the chaos of the storm”. There are different mindful practices that can help us to stay in the calm center. Some of these are breathing techniques, body sensing, mantras and guided meditation. These practices give us the ability to focus in the present moment instead of the things we cannot control.
In snowboarding there are many obstacles or distractions whether internal or external that cause strong emotional reactions in the first time guest, an experienced trainee or a competitive athlete. For example, trying a new sport, first time in a cold snowy environment, steep rocky terrain, potential of pain or injury, stress of taking an exam, the pressure of people watching, the possibility of failure and the pressure of success. These stimuli can evoke emotions ranging from anxiety and fear to excitement and happiness or even a blend. This can be distracting from the task at hand and pull us into the chaos of the storm keeping us from reaching our full potential.
One of the most foundational mindful practices is the awareness of breath. Breathing is a fundamental part of living it is something everyone can do. Focusing on breathing is a good way to get people back into the present moment. There are different methods of breathing that can be used for different purposes, it can be used to relax or can even get people more energized and hyped. Yoga uses breath to enhance the mind body connection by practicing breath with movement to help build a sense of flow. It is possible to use this method to help snowboarders find flow with their movements and a connection with their body. The beginner snowboarder has plenty of reasons to be a little nervous for example, someone who is just learning how to do a garland for the first time. They are scared to release their edge and allow their board to go down the fall line. For all they know they will shoot straight down the mountain and hit everything on the way down. Very often they react physically by stiffing and holding their breath this can result in limited vertical movement. If we have them inhale at the initiation and “fill their legs with air” or “feel lighter” this can help them unweight the effective edge, by moving the center of mass up, as they stand a bit taller. Then exhale at the completion letting “the air out of their legs” or “feeling heavier” progressively exhaling breath from the front leg then the back, ankles, knees then hips. This will help them move their center of mass towards the effective edge to create pressure and aid in speed control, while giving the rider a simple focus of exhaling. Using breath tied to movement can keep them calm, keep them breathing and in the present moment allowing them to learn the timing and movement needed for the new skill.
A mindful practice that can help a long-term training plan is meditation. Being able to train the mind to accept and let go of thoughts and feelings that arise can allow a trainee or athlete to focus on the task at hand. It is hard to control our initial thoughts and feelings but we can learn how to focus our attention on what we can do and will benefit our performance. People can get anxious period. Causes may be taking an exam, or leading up to a competition. People who are expected to do well or have previously been very successful may feel even more pressure of failure that can amplify the anxiety. We have been taught that it is bad to feel this way and it will hinder our success or that we are weak if we feel this way. It is natural and understandable to have these reactions to high-pressure situations. Trying to avoid or change this sensation can very often make it worse and frustrating. Robert Frost said, “The only way out is through.” Being able to accept feelings and emotion as they come and move on so that we are not overwhelmed and distracted is a challenging skill to develop. This skill can benefit the instructor training for an exam as well as a high performance athlete who needs to stay in the moment when under pressure in a high level competition.
Meditation can help an individual gain insight in them selves. The more we understand our selves and what may trigger our stress, fears and anxiety we may be able to mitigate the situation before we become overwhelmed. Mumford encourages extending this self-reflection beyond the mental to learn how to develop ongoing conversations with the body. It is crucial for athletes (instructors/trainees) to learn to listen to their bodies as a way of preventing injury, enhancing training and conditioning, and reducing performance fatigue. As I have developed my own meditation practice, if I begin to get anxious my breathing pattern instinctively changes to calm me down before I consciously realize it. Developing self-awareness will help us to overcome our own challenges in turn we can also learn to empathize and understand others better, enhancing our ability to help others deal with their challenges.
Different people have different needs when learning and performing snow sports. A good instructor, trainer or coach has many tools to help them guide these people to success. The more tools we have the better. There are many more mindful practices than I have introduced here. By understanding Mindfulness techniques an instructor can use them in the moment to help their guest get down the steep snowy hill or develop a long-term practice to manage their own difficulties to help in the high-pressure moments. Namaste.