A lot of single track mountain bike trails in Nova Scotia are really old school. There are not a lot of constructed features like jumps, berms or wood work.
Typically, they’re little trails through the woods, just wide enough and barely smooth enough to ride over.
The descriptive term is called ‘janky’
Janky means there are loads of ugly, rocks roots and fallen over trees in the way.
Janky means there’s a lot of resistance to forward progress.
One way to deal with the jank is to slowly pick a clean line through the resistance.
Another? Go really fast and absorb as much punishment as possible while just blasting through it.
My favorite way involves using a rock or set of roots at a fairly favorable angle. Ride fast, use them as jumps and launch as far as possible over the underlying jank. Ideally, I’ll come down on some more favorable sloped jank that can smooth out the landing.
Much of what we see as resistance to our forward progress in life is fear. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection.
Or worse.
Fear of success.
Fear in these ways is anxiety.
Anxiety is excitement with no where to go.
Anxiety and excitement frequently physiologically manifest themselves in the same place in the body.
So?
When you’re working on making a big change in your life, how can you turn your fears into excitement?
How do you turn the janky resistance into a launch ramp to soar?
I say “ I’m so pumped to do this!” And i picture every rotten scenario and every good scenario.. and just breathe through it. I try to apply my strengths when I feel out of control. Weaponize the anxiety.. allow myself some down time to re energize… and if I REALLY feel “frozen” or “stuck”…. I go for a run.
"Anxiety is excitement with no where to go." BOOM! Yeah, that makes far too much sense to have not seen it before. Thank you!