Car Meditation

[Drift For Food]

Now before you burst out laughing, try to be serious for a little bit and try to bear with me for a moment.

A little background:
Meditation has been around for a long time. It's a good technique for calming your mind and relaxing the body. You can let go of it all or channel intense focus on a single thing. I've played with meditation in my own meager little ways, and have found it to be quite impressive in many aspects.

How does this pertain to cars? Well, the same principles can be applied while driving. The biggest factors are calming of the body and the ability to intensly focus on any aspect of the car.

As for me personally, I've driven this Subaru Forester for nearly a year. Subaru has gone far out of its way to isolate the driver from the outside world. Senses of what the car is doing is almost non-existent: engine feel, drivetrain feel, road feel, traction feel, steering feel, pretty much everything. To the common person, this is a nice thing, making for a very comfortable ride. Unfortunately, it's a problem for someone pushing their car and wants to know what's going on.

I'll put this is some perspective. For the most part, I can get a new car or drive a car for a short period of time and get quite comfortable. My old Ranger I had before this car I only drove for say 3 months. By the time I sent it off to the junk yard, I could litterally drive(and drift) the snot out of it with a good amount of comfort and control. Going back to the Forester which I had for quite a bit longer, I still don't feel the same connection. The feedback isn't there, or should I say isn't pronounced enough, to allow the learning of the car's behavior. It's odd to explain, but basically, the car is hard to learn because of the isolation.

How to overcome this problem? Meditation.


Meditation:
Ok, it's not something new to me personally, but you guys might have some fun trying this. Basically, as you drive your car, try to meditate. Now the exact way to do this is person dependent. I think everyone has their own way.

I find a couple things work for me:
1) Breathing -
Try to breath in and out in a controlled manner. Control the speed and depth of the breath. Every in breath and exhale breath should be controlled, slow, and deliberate.

What you're trying to do is to free yourself from other, random thoughts by focusing on one task. It's to slow down and simplify what your mind is doing. At the same time, it focuses it on one, single task.

2) Focus Points -
Now, I've done this in the past with my body, basically as a relaxation technique before I sleep. However, it does way more than that. It focuses and aligns your thought and body together into one. What I do is to focus on one single aspect I can feel. For example, laying down, I have my arms at my sides, elbows bent 90 degrees with my hands pointing up and my fingers pressed together, like praying but palms appart, fingers seperated. There is some constant force applied between the tips of the fingers, thumb pressed against thumb, index finger against index finger, and so on. What it causes eventually is some small pain, some numbness at those points from the constant pressure. It creates a focus point to concentrate on. In time, you can feel the throbbing in tune with the pumping of the blood. You can focus on the heart and every pump that goes to your fingers. You can sense the delay between each beat and the small wave of pain in the fingers. You can feel the heart beat and a wave of fuild spreading throughout your body like a ripple in water from a fallen pebble.

This gets quite interesting with how much you can feel. You can advance it by going to two points, focusing on two parts at the same time rather than one. I tried both my hands and my feet. Being far appart, it makes it harder. With some practice and time, you can get your mind to the point where you can "see" both parts at once. Essentially, you have a whole instantaneous and realtime image of your entire body in your head. It's pretty cool really and the effects can be felt for several days after. You can still sense your whole body at the same time the next day even when just walking around. Everything's in tune. Everything's working together.

Again, how can this relate to the car? Change the points.

Instead, focus your meditation to parts of the car. Work on aspects like steering feel or suspension feel. Try to focus on a single tire. Get yourself to a calmed state and begin focusing on one of these aspects. Let's start with the steering and the feel. Focus on the steering wheel. As you drive, turn it ever so slightly back and forth. "Listen" for changes in the car. What senses can you precieve. Can you feel the tires as they flex? Can you feel the texture of the road? Perhaps the leaning of the car comes into focus. Turn the wheel back and forth slightly and feel the car rock gently back and forth. Change speed and magnitude of the steering. How does it feel different? Can you feel different suspension components come into play? Any additional resistance from the swaybar? Can you feel the tires leaning a little more or perhaps slipping just a hair? Try to focus on the front and rear at the same time. Rock side to side. How does the front and rear differ? Can you feel the weight shift around? Side to side, perhaps rotate a little front or back.

Try working the accelerator and brake. Speed up a little, slow down. Feel the car shift weight backward and forward. Feel the tires and how they grip. You can keep steering a little or stop. If you keep steering and accelerating and braking, you can begin to feel how the shifting weight affects how the tires feel. The higher load increases flex. Perhaps, you can feel a tire looser. Go back to the weight and the rocking of the car. Try to play with it. Roll it around. Side around to the front. Can you feel how it moves around you?

All of this is to try to achieve some specific goals. First, it calms you and focuses your mind. Second, it sensitizes you to the car. Finally, it brings your mind and your car closer to being one.


Anyways, feel free to comment. Try it out, see what you think. Practice with it. It gets easier the more you do it. I've tried this here and there in the past when driving but never stuck to it. I'm personally hoping to get a routine of this as I head home from work nightly to help me get better in touch with my car, something I've needed to do for a long time as it doesn't come so easily as other cars have. I just thought I'd share my ideas a little and hopefully help out a few people.

[GRiDRaceTech]

You are an odd person... don't change.

Oneness with the car is all that matters. If meditation bring one closer with the car, then I'm all for it.

Another way to increase feel is to wear thick gloves for a while (every time you drive for a month, let's say), then go back to your bare skin. Your tactile sense will have improved by way of necessity.

[Drift For Food]

Lol, odd. Aren't we all?

I'm glad to see someone wasn't affraid of posting



I was actually introduced to meditation in school. Before hand, I never really though about it short of martial arts flicks. For health class, we had a guy come in and practice breathing techniques. By the end of class, you were feeling pretty mellow, calm, and well focused. It was pretty cool. Some people fell asleep, lol.

Later I just played with the concept at home, simple breathing to calm myself to see if it would help me sleep when I had a lot of things on my mind. Oddly, it didn't make me sleepy, but rather it freed my mind of useless "chatter" of thoughts that swirl around in your head during hectic times.

Two things eventually stood out. First, was the simplification of thought and the resulting focus. Second, was the increase "feel" or awareness of whatever you were focusing on. In this case, I toyed with my body. The level of focus and feel was something you could almost never experience any other way except for something like a life and death situation where your body gets extemely alert.

I've only toyed with it while driving on a smaller scale, not so much time involved and the need to be aware of other things(traffic) lessen the experience. Some prone to falling asleep shouldn't try this. It could end badly. Yawning's ok, but if you start to feel sleepy, I'd stop immediately. Even when you are at your most...focused...you should still be alert, open eyed, and aware of everything around you, far more so than normal really. I think it works differently on different people.

I may not be making a ton of sense, but I can't be expected to not being trained in the "art" nor having a lot of experience in meditation. I can only state the experiences I've had. I've read a small amount into this elsewhere, and it can get far weirder than what I've said. Think out of body type stuff, control of objects, levitation, yada yada yada. Believe what you want. I don't for the most part. I just like the resulting effects it has and think it can be quite useful when applied to learning a car new car on up to motorsports and gaining that little edge.



Oneness with the vehicle is something I miss. I had an old Lesabre for about 4 years, an old Olds 98(same car) for 2 years prior. I could toss that chassis body type around without thought. I knew everything that was going to happen before I did it. You think and it does it to a T.

I later went to an old Ranger for a few months, late fall through winter, before I got my current Subie. Even with the relatively short time behind the wheel, I understood that thing well enough to feel quite comfortable. Winter was a blast with the pos 2wd.

<Sob story> lol
It's quite odd with this car. I've had it for a year, and it still feels strange to me. When I first got it I jumped right in and felt ok with it. The awd was akward at first, but I quickly learned to tame the Subie well enough to have fun with it. The odd part was that as time went on, I got worse and more uncomfortable with the car. I drifted pretty much daily on a few corners on my back roads heading to town and back. I learned and improved my actions but still grew appart from the car. It's odd to explain. You know how to handle it better but it becomes stranger at the same time. The only aspect that stands out is the near complete lack of outside feel with the car. Other than suspension upgrades(stiffer springs, bushings), the only technique that I've found to regain feel and understanding was through simple meditation.

Two things do seem to help:
First is of course practice time. That's a given. However, it doesn't seem like enough for me with what little I get in.

Second is the meditation. The focus one gains helps increase reaction speed the ability to better feel the car's actions. I need to spend some more time with this to see true results. I've only played with this on a few occations in the past and have only just started now. I'm eager to see extended results.

[Drift For Food]

If that "lol" seems out of place, it's because I put "sob story" in front of it with the < and > marks...oddly making what's inside of the arrows disappear.

I'd edit it but I get this lovely "IP was banned" message that I've been getting a little too much (only PM related in the past). So here's my edit.

Ok, bed time.

[Drift For Food]

Small update:

Well, I've been toying with this meditation thing for a week or so. I've come to a couple results. First, it has proven to be a quick method to sensitize yourself to your car. Even with only a little time put into this, I have become much more aware of the car's behavior and feel. Results are quick and plentiful.

However, I'm not really trained in the arts of meditation, so I'm not very good at maintaining a strong focus or even knowing what I should focus on. I've just been dinking around with concentrating on various aspects and trains of thought. It's proving to be a positive experience.

I've played with focus points like steering and road feel. I've imagined the car as the extention of my body. Think car and you as one and all outside feel starts from the car's interaction with the outside world. That one's odd to explain, but it seems to be a good way of thinking to bypass the feeling between you and the car, i.e you're mind to the tire interation with the road surface rather than your mind to your hands to the wheel, body to the seat and the resulting forces that are applied from the outside to the car and back to you through the seat and wheel. You think beyond the you/car interaction to the you/outside world interaction.

The most recent, today, thing I focused on was the suspension feel: body roll, compression, trying to notice any play in the system. I worked from very light movements to full on tossing of the car near the point of sliding. I could work on noticing the progressive nature of the way the car tracks as weight moves around and how much steering input is given. It's odd, cause up to a certain point, the car feels aloof and non-responsive to steering inputs, but at a specific spot, the suspension seems to lock down and the car feels like it wants to dart in the direction you're turning, less smooth/linear than one would initially think as one progressively steers in a direction. Through prolonged concentration, it's interesting to realize these aspects of the car's driving behavior.

I must say, every day I gain a better understanding of my car. Without the additional focus, it would probably take quite some time to come to the same realizations and understandings. I've driven this thing for almost a year, and I could say a lot of what I've learned about the car has come in this last week or so. It's a pretty powerful tool.

[-=Zero Drift=-]

That sounds very interesting, I done meditation befor but never tought of associating it with driving I think I will give it a shot.

[Drift For Food]

Yeah, it's kind of neat. I do find the actions of driving to be somewhat distracting though.

Play with the concept. I'd like to hear what others think about it and how their experiences are.

[mechaniac]

you guys are definitely heading in the right direction for improving your driving.

Though meditation is just the beggining, there is so much more to it.

It's popularly known as the "ZONE", and proffesional athletes that are successful are able to switch in and out of it.

For driving, pro racers are taught to practice consciously, then race unconsciously, or in the ZONE. They are also taught and know how to switch in and out of the zone. Some obviously are better at it than others. Confused?

Basically, you practice a technique. Such as heel-n-toe. You drive and practice heel-n-toe consciously every single day. You think about what you're doing and follow the steps accordingly making sure you get every step correct, and you are smooth. Then once you have that down, you practice heel-n-toe over and over and over again. It has to be imbedded in your mind. Finally, the day will come when you heel-n-toe naturally and you start to do it without thinking. Then, in a race situation, you just use it without thinking about it. (You don't have time to think about things like that when you're competing)

Sounds easy right? The hard part is to be able to go into the ZONE. Because you have been practicing consciously for so long, that's what you're used to. So you're going to have a tendency to consciously think about what you're doing when you shouldn't be. That's why pro athletes are taught how to get into the ZONE. (Costs a lot of money)

Basically, you're like a machine now. You practice techniques until your body is comfortable performing it. Then you refine it so your body is good at it. Then you unleash it in competition.

Some of you are probably thinking, "Well, why do you have to be in a subconcious state (the ZONE) when competing?" "Wouldn't you perform better consciously thinking?" The answer? NO.

Why?

Because your conscious mind does not react as quick as your subconscious mind. Think about when you argue with someone. Once the argument gets heated, you start busting out with things you don't even know you said until later. (You were in the zone) Now compare that with when you go to a restaurant and you "think" about what you want to order. Is that fast? Try doing that going 100mph, or trying to dodge a punch coming at you. Doesn't work too well.

That's also why the human mind has the subconcious. The subconcious uses what the concious has taught it (it's called programming) and dishes the techniques out at the appropriate situations. In a fight, race, game, or whatever, you have to be able to make split second decisions. You may not be good at making them now, but fortunately, you can be programmed to.

I can't teach you guys how to get into the zone, but meditating is a start. You can test how capable you are at getting into the zone using this little method I learned. (Some people will be better initially than others)

Close your eyes, and lay down. Relax, and slow your breathing. Take deep slow breaths and wait for visions and thoughts to swirl in your mind. Then try to control the visions in your mind's eye. For example, once your mind starts to wander think to yourself, "Pink elephant on a sandy beach, on a rainy day, the sun slightly peeking through the clouds, wearing a rainbow colored dress, with the waves sloshing ashore". If you can invision that whole scene. Then you are good.

All this is just the beginning. There are many other techniques. One such technique is called "learning in the zone". Some pros are so good, once they are in the ZONE, they not only perform superbly, but are able to record and recall almost everything. If they made a little mistake, they will subconsciously record it, not even think about it, or let it affect their current performance and recall it after competition. Then they'll go back to that same situation mentally and run the entire sequence thinking about how they can alter it (programming) so they don't make that same mistake next time. They'll be able to recall the speed, sound, smell, and almost all the little details involved, (hand and feet position, what caused it, who was next to them, the little bug that splattered on the windshield, etc.) creating a clear mental picture exactly of what had happened.

This is a high level of discipline, mentally and physically and I've heard that Michael Schumaker is very good at it.

[Drift For Food]

Nice post!

It's similar in martial arts. You practice day in, day out, conciously going through the moves working on technique, form, and control to get the behavior just right. However, when you spar or work in a manner that's faster than you can think, you will do it as you have trained without one thought as to what you are currently doing or doing next. It's just act and react.

It is tough to stay in such a mindset. Your mind tends to want to wander or become concious again...then you get kicked in the stomach...or spin out