Balance is found right on the edge of risk.

Today, I was in class, and I was working on balancing my body up on my hands in this ridiculous posture, bhudjipidasana. Dylan, the teacher, is helping me progress from the first step to the second step. The lovely thing about this posture is that while it takes strength to stay up there on your hands, the posture is more about balance as you move from one position to another.

Step one. Get your knees behind your shoulders and hook your feet and get them off the floor. 

Step two: Lift and hook your feet. (Damn this woman can LIFT!)

Step Three: Thread your feet through and roll forward so your head, chin or nose is just hovering. 

Today, as I was not quite floating up there on my hands with my feet hooked in front of me attempting to rotate forward slowly and in control, I fell down on my butt. Dylan came over and offered some sage advice.

"If you are falling down backwards, you probably aren't far enough forward to get your head on the floor." True, true. 

Then he said this gem, and I chewed on it for the rest of class. "Balance often exists at the edge of risk." or something like that, forgive me, I am paraphrasing. "In our New Age society, we often make the mistake of thinking we will find balance through some puritanistic behavior. Actually, balance rarely occurs without some degree of risk. You probably know this well, Kate."

Suddenly I'm thinking of the peace of mind I find when I'm on the edge of risk. So many people think that it is an endorphin rush, the sense of fear that keeps us coming back to the "edge". But that's not what I look for. That's not why I love riding my bike on technical terrain or climbing or skiing something steep... I love it because there is a moment where you chose to commit to the risky prospect, and after you are in, past the commitment point, and there is no turning back, your job is to simply be present in the most profound way. 

To feel your body and the earth beneath you and respond, with mindful balance, staying in that beautiful, tenuous place between complete disaster and total freedom. 

You can experience it standing on one foot, you can experience is walking on a slack line, you can experience it riding across a bridge, and dance and in yoga... 

I remember riding my bike down the biggest rock garden I've ever been in, and knowing that the consequences of falling, even though I was completely and totally covered in big hard core DH armor would be severe. Kurt was riding with me at Keystone that day, and he was already through. I didn't have the option of following his line, and in a rock garden like that you are reacting in the moment so much that if you TRY to follow someone else's' line, you are not in your own body, or in your own practice as it were.

One of those moments of bliss. This is me floating in silence over the insanity in Crested Butte, Colorado last year.

I remember realizing that the rocks were huge, and that I knew I needed to keep my speed up because the wheels won't roll over the huge rocks unless they are at a certain speed. I remember lifting my gaze and breathing out, and feeling the bike underneath me like an animal, like a snake moving fluidly and willingly over every single obstacle in its path. I could feel my hind feet and my front feet, like I do in yoga, I was hovering over the bike and it was coming into my body and dropping away, moving like a possessed rocking horse underneath me. The idea of consequence fell away. The idea of protecting myself fell away. There was only the sticky tires finding their way across the rocks and my body asking the bike to go this way and responding when it went another way. 

It was a slow motion conversation, and I was reminded about skiing steeps, or slack-lining across the freezing cold pond. When the terrain gets aggressive, you don't need to add aggression. There is enough Pita going on. You need to live in awareness and touch in that moment, moving with the earth not fighting it, not adding anything extra or unnecessary. 

I remember rolling out the bottom of that rock garden and looking up at Kurt's grinning face. "How you doing?" he asked. 

"Did not die." I answered, looking in awe at the ground I had just covered, and at my bike, and at my own body, and finally at my mind, able for some reason to stay calm and present and balanced on the journey. A huge wave of giddiness hit me. I was really grateful that it hadn't hit me while I was riding. I liked the peace during the journey more than the exuberance after. 

In these moments there is this magnificent feeling of freedom. Its just about your body, for me, its not about aggression or about achievement or about winning... it is about the moment where I choose to risk, but in an intelligent, informed way, because I believe I am ready. And the moment where I step across and over my fear, and hold it gently in my hand, and feel it sometimes pressing all around me, but my breath, calm and steady and sure, holds it away and off of my body. And the moment where time is suspended because there is nothing but the breath and the movement, no time before the decision was made and no time existing after in possible consequence. 

I believe that this risk exists in all forms. For some people, feeling, expressing and receiving love is that same moment of intense risk. Theses people can ski or ride the gnarliest terrain, but feeling their heart beating true for someone else is full of more consequence and fear than riding a rock garden with no armor. Finding balance, finding sensation in that moment of fear, breathing out and looking in the eyes of your love and laying down your fear and exposing your vulnerable heart can be as thrilling, and as challenging.

There is a moment of risk. And just on the other side of that measured risk is a moment of balance. And in that balance, freedom stretches endlessly in both directions.

Below, one of the deepest expressions of risk and balance and beauty I've seen. Enjoy!

Peeing myself at Keystone; and a couple of DH Mtn Biking Tips from the Pros

After the "drop". Its a really steep hill. For real.

So here's all the rest of the news I've been neglecting telling you! A few days after winning the Local Snowmass Downhill (surprise, shock and awe), Kurt and I decided to go to Keystone to ride for the day.

We had heard that the riding was sick, and that they were developing their bike school, so we headed out to say hi to Fred Rumford, the ski school director, and see what Keystone had to offer.

This blog post could really just be this long:

Ahhhhh! Oh my God! wheeeee! Tree! Yipes! Yay!

In other words, the terrain is gnarly. Their greens are almost like our blacks. Just imagine what their blacks are like! And yeah, we rode em. We rode Wild Thing, and a double black called Sanitarium, and all I could think was "Lead with your hands follow with your feet!" there wasn't time to think much else.

SOME TIPS! 

The concepts that not only saved my hide that day, but made it fun to ride the gnarliest terrain live ever seen, let along contemplated riding down were:

Twos not Fours
Hands lead feet follow
Don't anticipate moving back, let the bike move you back
Loft that front tire over and over and over
Stand on your bottom bracket, let the bike rotate under you

Thank god someone knows where they are going...

These concepts all come from the research I've been doing (nerd nerd nerd), you can find info like this in "Mastering Mountain Biking Skills" Published by Human Kinetics, on the video "Fluid Ride: Ride Like a Pro" and in a lesson at Winter Park with Bob Barnes, or here in Aspen at our new bike park.

Twos not Fours is basically using your human suspension on top of the bike suspension, so that your center of mass stays driving straight down over your pedals (heavy feet, light hands). This means that if your bike rolls over a bump, your arms flex first and then straighten back out (although they should very rarely be "straight", and then only for a moment), and then your legs bend to absorb the bump. If you can do this, you are riding dynamically, rather than being taken for a ride.


Hands Lead, Feet Follow is another way to think of riding twos not fours, when you watch someone coming down a series of drops, it often looks like they are riding a galloping horse, hands then feet, hands then feet. When they go together, you are stiff, and if your front tire is dropping off of something, this is a recipie for disaster.

Don't Anticipate means that when something drops away from you or it gets steep, we often move back in anticipation before the bike has reoriented. When you move back, and then the bike drops down, you often get yanked over the handlebars. Instead, stand on your feet, let the drop of the front tire be the thing that lets the bike rotate under you while you stand firmly over your bottom bracket. As the tire drops, you can add loft as your weight moves back with the terrain. Now you are in dynamic balance with the bike, rather than anticipating and getting punished!


Loft Loft Loft: I'm still learning to float rocky sections of the trail, but learning a manual, wheelie or lofting the front tire is probably the most useful skill I've found so far. Practice on the flat grass, find a rock to loft off of, a ditch to manual over. This is tiring on your hands until you learn to compress the front suspension and use the bounce you get to help get the front tire up, and move your weight way back at the same time, driving your heels down. That's probably why its scary to do, but its rare to pull your bike too far back when you are learning. And if you do, well, you are on the grass!

I needed these skills like never before while encountering drop after drop after drop onto tight switchbacks, over huge rocks, roots, skinny bridges, more slippery wood (although it is mostly covered in chicken wire for an extra grip, thank god), jumps, bumps, steep gravel filled slopes, huge rock gardens and a big spiral bridge that drops away about 20' on one side and about 12' on the other side. I rode the top, dropped off the first of two step downs that leads onto this monster, hit the brakes just in time and sat there.

Stopped. In the middle of a double black diamond trail, bike perched precariously with back tire still on top of the first drop and front tire almost ready to go off the second, and just stared at the bridge. Kurt was through it, this was the first time that I wasn't going to come shooting out of the woods a half minute off his wheel, I knew he was wondering if I was lying in a crumpled heap under the bridge.

But I wasn't. I was sitting there staring at it and wondering if I could get myself to let the bike take me down it or not. Down Hill Mountain Biking is a lot like a roller coaster that you get to drive yourself. How fast do you want to go? You pick. But speed, if you can handle it, is most often your friend. Things are easier to drop, float and curl around if you are willing to get off your brakes and let the bike roll.

I couldn't do it. For the first of four times that day, I stared into the maw and happily accepted that "hike a bike is part of mountain bike". It was the right choice. This is a feature you either ride with confidence or you don't ride. I didn't even walk down it. I clambered down the steep loose dirt with my bike bucking and sliding next to me and then let my breath out. I was halfway down the 2300 vertical foot descent, and hadn't let go and relaxed my brain, eyeballs, or adrenal system since 10 that morning. Whew!

Kurt hiked back up the trail and saw me walking down. It was the first time all day that I hadn't come squirting out of the trees off some gnarly rock or drop and rolled up next to him. All day, he'd been riding at moderate speed and then waiting for me patiently. And I have to say, that's just fine. I rode over stuff at Keystone that I didn't even know you could look at let alone walk up or down, let ALONE ride a bike over, forget finding something in that huge mess of a rock garden to hop over! But I'd done it. I'd known that Kurt was about 30 seconds ahead of me, and that he'd ridden it, and not much faster than I was, because he was being nice, so I figured I could do it, too.

Which may be a silly thought, I mean, this is a boy who has been really really into racing and riding his mountain bike for uh... a long time. But I knew, too, that he expected me to make good choices about what I could roll and what I couldn't, he has re taught me this accountability piece, where I feel expected to rise as high as I can to the occasion without doing something stupid. He expects me to be on my game, but he expects me to know when I've hit my limitations. And for that, I'm grateful. I'm more on my own two feet because of it. I've never made so many decisions so fast in my life as I did at Keystone that day.

This bridge was okay, but the "little one" is a minimum 3' drop

The trails were relentless, the drops just kept coming and coming and then there were jumps and step ups, hairpin turns, burmed turns, and suddenly, rock gardens and more. There is no time to say, "Oh, a drop, I'll loft a little then re center, now what? Oh, some slippery roots, okay, I'm going to center and roll straight over those. Now i've recoverd, what's next? Oh look, a big rock, I need more speed to jump over that."

Ya, that's not how this thing went. It went like this: drop drop drop TREE! drop ROOT! rock drop waterbar BIG jump into BERM drop rock rock switchback switchback BRIDGE! Man, you better be in the right place all the time and moving along at just the right speed or you are in for a world of hurt.

Thank god I stayed rubber side down (so far down, in fact, that on one long section that was about 30 degrees and went straight down the fall line on a double track for about 150 yards that I got a tire mark on the ass of my shorts. I kid you not. Knobbie enema.) and pulled up to Kurt, sitting casually on his bike waiting for me, as though I hadn't just dodged 150 ninjas hiding in the trees who had the magic ability to pull the ground out from under you while you were trying to get away.

"Ready to roll?" he'd say.

"Yup." I'd say back, trying to be cool. But the truth is I was STOKED! I couldn't help myself. As soon as I settled down and we were pedaling along the road, I was babbling, whooping, I was covered in goose bumps.

"Ready to roll?"

"Ya, right after I pee myself, because I was too scared and busy concentrating to actually do it on the trail even though I thought I was going to. Then, my parade should come by with confetti and monkeys with cymbals because HOLY WOW JESUS H YEAH, I just RODE MY BIKE down that crap!"

He grinned at me. "Yup. Mountain biking is good." he'd say. And pedal on. Five laps later, I was cooked. Cooked from Adrenaline, cooked from hanging on for dear life, cooked from descending almost 12,000 vertical on a bike in a half a day.

It was an incredible day, the terrain is unreal, and Erik at Keystone Sports set us up and went for a lap with Kurt later, I decided to sit that one out by doing their 7 1/2 mile green single track top to bottom while the big boys went and played.

I earned my frosty beverage today!

When we all hooked back up, I couldn't believe the difference in Kurt's riding already, its amazing what following someone who really knows what they are doing can do for your riding!!

He was pumping the trail more, riding with more speed, and flowing over everything. And then, he dropped the bridge that I was too chicken to drop. It was awesome to watch!

Keystone launched their bike school that weekend, and have great plans for next year. With an already awesome trail system in place, I'm excited to see what they do with their school. A new skills park, beginner area and more green trails low down were talked about, and I'm looking forward to heading over there next year to see how its going!

All in all, it was an awesome experience! (Oh and the food at the Tavern at the bottom of the hill was awesome. Their village has a really "authentic" feel in that it includes small, privately owned shops, so it feels a little less "Disney" and a little more real. Very nice!)


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