| Visualisation - very powerful technique. Used by most top sportsman and even recomended by WeeJohnyBee :-)
For us types with a background in human performance improvement it's closely related to AI - No, not Artificial Insemination (there's the sex again), but Appreciative Inquiry.
Basically this technique accentuates the positive and eliminates the negative (there's an old duffers radio two type song in there somewhere) so instead of beating yourself up over things you did wrong during a lap, you simply replay, in your mind, the corner or corners that you did pretty damn good. You don't just go through it analytically either, you ask yourself what it felt like...what was the 'yeeeehaaaa' factor.
It might sound like purest Californian Psychobabble, but it's been proven to work over and over again in scientific double blind tests. One that springs to mind was a bunch of novice ten pin bowlers who were all given some basic coaching, then split into three groups where their average group ability was equal.
- One set were just told to get on with it and bowl as much as they liked, just learning from their own experience
- One set were given more advanced coaching about their run up, swing, release techniques etc
- One set were left to just get on with it, like the first group, but when they got a strike or a respectable score they were just asked to close their eyes and visualise that again. What their run up felt like, how the swing and release felt etc.
You've probably already worked out that the third group improved their scores the most.
Related back to bikes, the first group would just be doing the equivalent of loads of laps, reinforcing good habits and bad ones equally. The second group would have done CSS (or had lots of trackday instruction) and they certainly improved more quickly. BUT, even with the best instruction in the world, nobody can tell you how the bike felt when you got it dead right (you might need a coach to let you know you got it just right), and visualising just how that felt once again is a tremendously powerful way of improving your performance.
Still doubt it? Lots of racing takes place in your head  |