Unofficially, December was my official time-off-the-bike. I entered the month with Lenten passion, always assuming some new balance will be discovered in my legs, hips, or obsessions. Marking a decade as a mountain biker, 2018’s time-off-the-bike seemed significant, though I knew not why until we yielded to our teenage daughter’s annual appeal for a surf trip to Mexico. You see, I forgot what it feels like to be a beginner.
We first surfed Riviera Nayarit in 2013, and though we return semi-regularly, I am decidedly a beginner surfer. When you surf once a year at best, you learn just enough to bring you back to the board again. I know enough – academically – to be dangerous: how to arch my back when I paddle, how to position my feet on the board, and how to avoid being pile-driven in the impact zone, for example. What stands between my knowing those skills in an academic sense, and my body knowing those things in an intuitive sense, is about six months on a surfboard. It takes time to become a surfer. It’s not easy. I’m literally drowning in my own lack of skill. Mid-set, I thought to myself, “Is this how I felt when I was learning to mountain bike?!?!”
Of all the skills we acquire as mountain bikers, the ability to step into the beginner’s mind is the most underrated at every level of the sport. In November, 2015, Professor Victor Ottati from Loyola University of Chicago reported in The Journal of Experimental Psychologythat “self-perceptions of expertise increase closed-minded cognition.” Translation: the better we think we are at something, the more close-minded we are. It is our beginner’s mind, not our expertise, that makes us more willing learners, more empathetic buddies, or wiser advanced riders. “With a Beginner’s Mind, you will be more open to possibilities and more creative. You will also form closer bonds with others in your life as they experience your interest in them and your appreciation for their thoughts and ideas,” reports Professor Ottati.
At the beginning of a new year, it is worth considering our own self-perceptions as riders. Should someone ask me for advice about a “beginner” trail, through what eyes do I look at the map? Should someone ask me for advice on how to ride a challenging trail, how do I advise scaffolding his or her learning experiences to reach that goal? When I ride a challenging trail blind, what do I take for granted about my body’s intuition?
The Pacific Ocean, on it’s gentlest of days, will leave a beginning surfer’s shoulders and neck exhausted. I come to the ocean to be humbled. To forget everything I have ever known about mountain biking…and to get a very serious saline sinus flush. I love helping new mountain bikers develop skills and confidence, but only remember while surfing what it actually feels like to be a beginning mountain biker. I respect the ocean. And I need to remember to respect the trail.
If you are not already a surfer, and if improving your riding by facing the humbling power of the Pacific Ocean interests you, we highly recommend contacting Risa and Diego at Surf It Out in Sayulita, Mexico. They are a husband wife team like Sports Garage. Tell them Brad and Elorie sent you. They’ll know what you’re there for: time off the bike.
Note: The author is NOT a beginner street taco consumer. We encountered these seriously technical taco features at Tacos Itacate in Sayulita.
Elorie Slater, Co-Owner