Eyes on the road

I’m a huge racing fan and through the career I’ve chosen, I’ve been lucky enough to get some time on racetracks and learn the very basics of driving a race car.  The very first lesson I was taught happened well before I was behind the wheel.  I was told by my instructor that safety was above all else.  That kind of goes without saying but when you flying down the race track as high speeds your not really thinking that much, your more reacting to the situation.  

When my instructor started teaching me about safety he talked A LOT about where I should be looking.  He said if you look where you want to go, you’ll go there.  Sounds simple enough but then he added on.  If your looking just in front of your car your not going to be able to see the cars that are a few lengths in front of me nor am I able to see the upcoming corner.  That corner comes up so quickly and if you want to get around it safely and with speed you need to see it coming, place the car where it needs to be, brake and downshift then hit the apex. If you do all of these things correctly you’ll hit the apex and carry the speed out of the corner.  

If I move my eyes too far down the track how can that be a bad thing?  I’m looking far down the track too see how far the next car is in front of me, I’m looking to position my car where it needs to be in two turns down the track.  Doesn’t seem like a bad idea right?  Nope not the best either.  If I’m constantly looking that far ahead I’m missing the small details in the track that are right in front of me.  Missing these small details will scrub speed off of my car and ultimately slow me down and or I’ll miss the corner and off the track goes my car.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about racing and how it relates to my Kung Fu.  I believe they’re almost identical in how I approach my vision to my training and the track.  I have a set of goals and promises that I made at the start of this year.  These are the same as looking down the track with the right amount of vision.  They’re in front of me but they aren’t too far away as I’ve broken down the requirements into daily goals.  If I looked at the 50,000 push up target as one big number that would be like looking at turn nine when I’m turning into turn two.  Now if I focus only on push ups and sit ups and nothing else then I’ll make that turn but I’m missing what’s ahead of me because I’m so focused on that micro target.  I’d be happy that I made the number at the end of the year but I was so slow that I didn’t finish the race.

There is balance to my training this year.  I have my promises and they are in front of me.  Not too close that I can’t see anything else but far enough a way that I can make the corner, carry the speed and set myself up for the next.  

Mr. Repay