mtbstarr asks "Have you found it helps with your cycling skills? My friends marvel at my balance, and my ability to keep my head in a fall and almost always roll out, avoiding any injury at all."

Yes, I've found the balance helps, riding from my center, helps my breathing and is great for my range of motion. I mostly road ride so falls are not often an issue.

But I've had a few incedents that I *know* I would have fallen if not for that, and one embarassingly spectaular idiotic endo on the road bike where I was fine ;-)

As you know from your rank (congrats back atcha!) MA is a hard taskmisstress, she requires temendous commitment and a lifetime of study. I love it, and will always train, it has helped me on the bike but I don't recomend it for all. Cross training is essential, our bodies get curled up like shrimps on a bike, combine that with sitting at a computer, we all benefit from something that frees up your range of motion like yoga, pilates, Tai Chi etc. My teacher, 6th degree black belt Pat Hendricks does yoga and....bike rides ....on a full custom steel Eisentraut no less ;-)

As for falls that's a learnable skill and especially mtb riders should practice. This was kinda endlessly debated on my *other* board and I hesitate to get into that again ;-) We all can learn how to take a basic roll or survivable fall but to get truly great at that is a lifetime of work as you know.

I asked someone I know who coaches racers and she says that pro racers do practice and drill falls of the bike. I'd wondered about that seeing the pileups on the TdF etc.