Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Lean Into the Turn

Piece of advise:  If you find yourself on an object that is moving forward with a significant velocity and that object goes into to a curve to make a turn, you should lean into the turn as opposed to fighting it.  I first learned this concept when riding a banana boat.

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After about the third crash, one of my fellow riders kindly explained to me that it was my fault we kept wiping out because I was attempting to stay upright when the boat curved toward the water during a turn.  My actions interfered with the centripetal force the boat was creating, thus sending everyone flying.  Once I embraced the concept of leaning into the turn we all enjoyed the boat ride a whole lot more, and experienced a lot less dunking.  

I don't often find myself on banana boats or motorcycles so opportunities to physically practice this concept have been sparse, but I find it's applicable to other aspects of life.  For instance, for every element of my life for which I feel I have complete control, there's about 25 other twists, turns, and corkscrews that are far beyond my control. When faced which such unexpected uncertainties of life my choices are these: fight the turns or lean into them.  

Don't go with the flow, that's completely passive. "Only dead fish swim with the stream," or so I've been told.  Leaning into a turn is an active experience.  You first choose to fight the natural desire to pull out of the turn, and then you train yourself to align yourself with the centripetal force and move yourself into position to maximize the effect which is to reduce friction, excelerate your journey, and and feel the rush of adrenaline as you go.  And you may find that once the turn is complete you may actually be in a better position than you were going into the turn.  

So why do I bring this up now?  Well, like I said my life is taking a lot of turns I hadn't expected, and I'm finding that I'm being thrown from my ride over and over and over and over and over again. I think it's time I took a page from the banana boat experience, lean into the turn, and see if I might fair a little better.