object fixation

[OakLeaf]

Here's a little piece about target fixation I read a few years ago. I liked it so well that I made a copy, and glad I did, because the site where I originally read it is gone. It's a lot easier to let your attention drift on a bicycle - or I should say, the need for constant focus is more apparent on a motorcycle - but the same principles apply.

If you're target fixating on something on the road, you're looking down too much. Pick your eyes up 10 degrees and look 10-12 seconds into your future path.

I limped over to the side of the road and sat down to wait
for the State Patrol. My bike was a twisted lump and my knee
was swelling to the size of my head. I picked up a chunk of
asphalt and started pounding it on the ground. I was so angry
with myself that it was an effort not to pound it into my head.
Mainly, I resisted because it seemed like an awful waste to give
myself a concussion ten minutes after using up a top of the line
Shoei.

I thought I knew what I'd done wrong. I wasn't in the turn too
hot, I wasn't wide. I just target fixated on the mini-van in the
oncoming lane, panicked, stood my bike up when I should've
gassed it, and rode right into him. A couple of weeks later,
someone asked me what I'd learned from the crash. Nothing I
didn't already know, I said. It wasn't until my knee healed up
and I got my new bike that the learning process began.

When I rode my new Yamaha out of the dealership, I had to
work just to see more than five bike lengths in front of me. It
seems that in that single freeze-frame moment of target
fixation, my vision had tunneled down to the size of a mini-van at
thirty feet, and stayed there. As I rode more and more miles
pushing myself to widen my eyes, I realized that the problem
that caused me to crash had started long before that day. My
eyes had been getting lazy. My vision was too narrow. The
second that mini-van swung into view, it was already occupying
way too much of the frame.

I should've been aware of my entire field of vision, with
something like 25% of my attention devoted to the part of the
road I wanted to go toward, 5% my husband riding ahead of
me, 5% fixed hazards like potholes or oil slicks, 10% minivan,
and the remainder a potential source of both moving hazards
and escape routes. Instead, I was mainly just seeing the road
up to where it turned out of view. In a right-hander, that meant
that anything in the oncoming lane would actually take up more
of my attention than anything else. My eyes saw the minivan
and not much else, my brain decided I was going to hit it, and
my body did just what it should when a collision is unavoidable. I
slowed down. And caused the crash.

Words like "Zen" and "centering" come easily to most riders
when we talk about maintaining our focus. That's natural,
because when your life depends on constant, instantaneous
kinetic response to sensory information, that's about as
integrated as most people's minds and bodies ever get. So when
the topic of centering came up on an email list I subscribe to, it
surprised me to learn that some motorcyclists' heads explode
when they hear that word. But spontaneous human combustion
aside, it made me realize that for people who don't regularly
practice meditation without wheels, it's easier to check ourselves
for something more concrete-like whether our minds are aware
of everything our eyes are taking in. I call it "seeing with my
whole eyes." And I check myself for it as often as I check my
mirrors.

When a company talks about "vision," they mean the ability to
see all the possibilities they can take advantage of, and the
preparedness to adapt smoothly to whatever happens next. For
me, vision is what exuberant, safe motorcycling is all about.