Mindful BMX

I’ve probably talked about this before, but skateparks can be a great place to raise your anxiety levels. Many moons ago, I managed to bash my head, and it has given me a lot of issues in the intervening years. Migraines, nausea, mental health, I’ve been there and bought the t-shirt, so I took a chance over the weekend to put some of the demons to bed.

I was off on a small road trip last week and knew I needed to find a way to quell my anxiety over jumping. I was never the best at jumping a BMX bike, but over the last decade, yeah, I’ve been riding for years, and I’ve used more excuses than I should have to get out of jumping.

We were going to stop at Graystone, and they have a big resi ramp, so I built up a second bike to take with me. One where I couldn’t use my no brakes or jibby build as an excuse not to ride.

Flying through the air

Now, I love jibbing and just doing silly little tricks; it puts a massive smile on my face. I also wanted to get back to clearing ramps and not being scared of large transitions, they never bothered me, but after I knocked my head, I gained a fear that led to anxiety.

It was also time to test my mindfulness skills and push myself out of my comfort zone. As I headed up the roll-in, I could feel my stress levels rising, my heart beating faster, sweat forming, and my breathing becoming ragged.

Dropping in

I sat on the couch at the top and closed my eyes. I took a few moments to myself and gained control of my breathing. I told myself that this was risky, but if it were super dangerous, we wouldn’t be allowed to ride this, and I had just watched many people ride this area successfully.

I dropped in and rolled to the lip of take off. The roll-in was conquered. Next time the roll-in offered no fears, I jumped out the lip of the resi ramp. I slowly built from there, and after a little while, I conquered my fears and jumped over the box.