Cycling

Hi, and welcome to Headspace for cycling. So as you begin your cycle today just take a moment before you focus too much on the body or your cycling technique. Just notice the space around you. So sitting up right on the bike just noticing the environment, the landscape, the weather, the sounds, the movement, the smell, just taking a few moments to be aware of the space around you. So the most important thing is safety. So no the focusing too hard on one thing but just allowing a broad awareness of the space around you. So this just helps to gently ground the mind to bring the mind into the body, makes a little easier to focus as we continue on our cycle rides. So just starting to bring the attention a little more into the body now. To begin with just noticing the posture of the body on the bike almost in the same way as you're doing your meditation, you scan down through the body, the same way here, still maintaining a sense of awareness of what's going on around you. Just noticing how much space there is between the ears and the shoulders. Noticing whether the back is hunched or a little straighter noticing how you're gripping the handlebars how much tension is there, of course some is required. But often we might be holding on a little too tight starting to notice whether there's any lateral movement and in noticing how the body's set on the bike. Starting to become more aware of that movement of the legs, we might be more aware of the push or more aware of the pool. Ideally, over time, we become equally focused on every push and every pull in both of the legs. But to begin with, focusing more just on the general feeling, that rotation, left leg, right leg. left leg, right leg, just settling in to a steady rhythm, your cycling speed, whatever that might be. Remember we're not shutting out the things around us. It's a very, very gentle focus. We're still aware the space around us any movement around us. And as you focus on each leg, now starting to focus a little more on the pushing section of rotation and the pulling section, there's almost four distinct points now, left leg pushing, pulling, right leg, pushing, pulling and just moving. You don't need to note those words in your mind but just becoming aware that those distinct sections of rotation. And after a while it's almost as though it becomes just one movement. Doesn't require a huge amount of attention but whenever the mind wanders off whenever you find yourself thinking about unhelpful and distracting things. Just letting those thoughts go, gently bringing the attention back again, back to that feeling, that steady rhythm, the left leg, right leg and back into the space around you, aware, the sound, shapes, colors and the landscape around you....