The Floating Drishti

I bargained my way into a beginner's yoga series a few years ago.  I would attend 1 month of beginning yoga, and my girlfriend Kathy would go mountain biking with me five times.  This is what is called a win-win scenario in relationship management in that we each learn an activity that the other loves while getting to spend time with each other.  This was perfect for me, since it was February (in Seattle) and not exactly the best month for biking - so I stepped up first.

One of the first things we learned was to choose a drishti, which is a Sanskrit term meaning "focal point".  In my layman's understanding, this basically meant that I'd better find one spot to keep my eyes focused on or else I'd completely lose my balance and fall into a twisted pile of human spaghetti.  It was helpful - and in moments of complete agony as muscles and tendons stretched into positions invented by some maniacal Twister overlord (read 'crow pose', or 'Bakasana'), the drishti provided me with a trail of breadcrumbs back to the world as I had left it.  At the time I associated it with hope, albeit dim. 

As I became more adept at the poses over time, I realized that maintaining the drishti was actually critical to ensuring proper form and balance.  As my eyes focused on the spot, my practice also became more focused.  For certain balancing poses, that focus actually became like another limb that I could rely on to support me. 

Later, while mountain biking, I realized that I use the same concept of a drishti to successfully navigate technical trail features.  Novice mountain bikers crash a lot.  This is often because they are looking at the trail immediately in front of their front tire.  The novice focuses on what he/she wants to avoid - rather than on where to ride.  They exist in a purely reactive mode.   By the time a problem appears, they've left themselves very little time to choose and then execute a successful solution.  How do I know this?  I'll post a picture of my shins sometime - each scar represents a lesson.

Looking down Double Black Diamond, Chuckanut Mountain, Bellingham WA

As I progressed along my personal learning curve, I learned to look a little further down the trail.  This allowed me to stop reacting to trail problems and start anticipating them.  By the time my tires actually reach the problem, it's usually been solved proactively leaving only the execution of the maneuver.  At the time of execution, my focus has moved on to the next problem.  It wasn't until I was exposed to yoga that I actually had a word for this focal point - the drishti.  The difference between a drishti in yoga and a drishti in mountain biking is that mountain biking takes place while moving through space, while yoga generally takes place in a fixed position.  So the mountain bike drishti continually floats in front of you.  It's a relative reference point versus one that is absolute.

This concept works for me on long slogs up logging roads, technical trail climbing, as well as for risky descents down slippery, rocky, root-covered terrain.  The drishti point represents the perfect balance between planning and execution, the point where supply meets demand, the point where upstream and downstream processes are in harmony with their bottlenecks.  This is why I love mountain biking so much.  You place yourself in a position where the world melts away to a single point, constantly changing, floating approximately three feet in front of your tire.  To experience the perfect balance between breath, strength, risk, focus, and execution is nothing short of blissful.

I don't win everyday at work, but those days I do come out on top are very similar to what I described above.  The work drishti is more abstract than in yoga or mountain biking.  I won't physically fall over into my sweaty neighbor or maul my shin on a sharp boulder if I lose my focus at work.  The stakes are actually much higher.  Identifying and maintaining an effective drishti is a primary cause of success in anything we do.