We go where we are looking

Riding a motorcycle is thrilling. With nothing to block my view or my senses I am fully immersed in my surroundings and feel an immediacy with everything I do. The feedback is instantaneous. If I make a mistake, I know it right away. Things happen quickly, and on more than one occasion I have found myself on the ground wondering how I got there. Luckily, most of those times have been while at a standstill, damaging only my ego and sparing my body.

One of the hardest lessons about riding for me was how seriously the message 'you go where you look' is. I sailed through my Motorcycle Safety Foundation class, passing my license endorsement test with ease and felt confident with my abilities as I went off on my first solo rides. Everything was great, right up until I had to make a right turn from a complete stop. I have been driving cars since I was fifteen and have never had a problem making a turn. Suddenly, I found myself lying on the road with a large motorcycle on top of me. How in the world did that happen? One minute I was having fun, the next I was thankful my daughter was following me in our car so she could help lift the beast off of me and watch me get going again.

The third time it happened I began to be fearful of the bike and my confidence, once so certain, was now shattered. I began to avoid riding, and finally made the decision to sell the bike. A part of me was relieved, but another part was disappointed in myself for giving up. I struggled with the two competing voices, hating the idea of allowing my fear to dictate my actions. Finally facing my avoidance, I returned to the dealer and tried a scooter, something recommended by a friend who loved hers. On the test drive I once again found myself on the ground after yet another right turn gone awry.  But rather than walking away, I got back in the saddle and rode it the rest of the way home, and fell in love with the feeling of riding solo once again. We bought the Majesty, a 400cc bike capable of freeway speeds and longer rides.

So what is it about right turns? The way it works is you have to turn your head to look where you want to go, accelerate, and trust that the bike will go where you want it to go. Sounds simple, but in practice, at least for me in the beginning, harder to do. Why? Because it's so tempting to look elsewhere...straight ahead, slightly right but not far enough...not trusting the full turn necessary to make it happen. One glance in the wrong direction and the bike will go that way. I had to learn to fully commit to looking where I wanted to go before I stopped falling over.

How does this play out in life? We go where we are looking. Our intentions may be otherwise, but in reality, what we pay attention to determines where we live our lives. While I am focusing on fear, I am not taking risks. When fear dominated my experience of motorcycling, the avoidance of that fear determined my actions. By focusing instead on what I care about, and continually bringing my attention back to what I care about, I move towards what I want instead of away from it.

Are right turns still scary? Occasionally, yes. But what I have noticed over time is that rather than paying attention to the details of how to make a right turn (push the handlebar on the right side away from you and the bike will lean right) I focus on simply looking where I want to go and the rest happens naturally.