Learning to Loosen My Grip: What Mountain Biking Taught Me About Control and Ease
On a mountain bike ride this week, I realized I ride the way I sometimes live: a little too tightly wound.
Arms locked, brakes engaged, shoulders braced.
Trying to stay in control as I dropped down a rocky slope.
Laughing at myself, skipping a doable roller for the 1000th time.
Riding Tight, Living Tight
My friend Stacy was giving me some tips on drops and encouraged me to loosen up.
“As you leave the ground,” she said, “push your arms out and pull them back, like a cash register.”
I could see it. I could understand it.
But when I went to do it, something inside held back.
It was hard to let myself have enough speed, the momentum required to really lift off. When I finally pushed my arms forward, it was like a tight T. Rex attempting grace. What felt like a big stretch in my body looked almost imperceptible on video.
I was trying to get it right, so my body held me tight.
That moment landed hard.
I realized I’ve been living that way too, believing that if I hold everything together, tight and controlled and just right, I’ll keep myself safe. In reality, that tightness has me working against the natural, joyous flow that wants to move through me—in biking, in work, in relationships.
Riding warm and happy, despite conditions on Day 1 of the Aquarius Trail.
Staying With the Tightness
Later, in a conversation with my meditation teacher, she invited me to recreate and stay with the tightness by clenching my fist.
She said, “We don’t want to push ourselves out of tightness prematurely by telling ourselves we should relax. Instead, focus your attention on what it actually feels like to hold your fist closed.”
So I did.
I felt the pressure.
The effort.
The pulse of wanting to protect.
And then, slowly, I could sense its natural inclination to release, and the exhale that came with it.
The outcome we’re longing for—ease, openness, relaxation—doesn’t come from effort or force. It comes from fully feeling what’s already here: the fear, the tension, the longing.
We prepare for more ease in our lives by staying present with what’s alive in this very moment, and allowing it to release in its own time.
The Difference Between Performing Relaxation and Feeling It
I’ve often tried to act relaxed when I don’t feel relaxed. I’ve performed beyond what my body is ready for. I’ve bypassed my own signals of fear, pushing toward an ideal future version of ease.
Internally, I’m commanding myself:
“Unclench! You’re fine! This is fun!”
But the idea of relaxation and the experience of relaxation are worlds apart.
There’s a timing to our unclenching that can’t be hurried by thought or effort. The release comes when we stay with the real sensations underneath the story—the pressure in the arms and hands, the small knot of fear, prickling tears, the fast heartbeat asking for space—until something softens on its own.
Friends make this whole process better.
Trusting Momentum
Stacy and I kept riding. Later, I approached a boulder that looked, to my imaginative mind, like a vertical wall that would launch me into an unknown horizon (slightly dramatic, but not entirely wrong).
This time, I trusted my momentum.
I kept my vision up and over the obstacle and trusted my body to respond to what was needed on the drop on the other side.
I nailed it.
And I felt the joy of flow and trust.
A Lighter Touch
Since then, I’ve been practicing getting to know the tight coil at my core—the one that wants to protect me from harm, to keep me safe by holding on tight.
Instead of trying to make it disappear, I’m learning to stay close to it. To let a lighter touch arrive in its own time, on my bike, in my work, and in my relationships.
Cheers to being with the tightness, and celebrating the moments of ease when they come.
Questions to Carry With You
Where might a lighter touch invite more flow, the way a stream finds its path when it stops pushing against the banks?
When you notice yourself tightening—in your body, your words, your plans—can you pause long enough to feel the clench and trust that it will open on its own time?
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