Introduction to the MTB Practice Lab

Science-based strategies to help you get better at practicing mountain biking skills

Welcome! And thanks for checking out the MTB Practice Lab. I'm Griff Wigley, author, host, and coach, and I want to state right up front:

MTB Practice Lab is not your typical how-to-ride MTB publication. But first, a story (unless you prefer the TL;DR version on my About page).

Background

How did I get to the place where I got interested in the idea that learning how to learn, getting better at practicing, was itself a skill?

In the fall of 2017, I stumbled on The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills by Daniel Coyle. He published it in 2012 as a manual/handbook companion to his 2009 bestseller, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

I realized at the time that this idea of getting better at learning attracted me decades ago when I first read Tim Gallwey's Inner Game books on tennis, golf, and skiing.

But better yet, in The Little Book of Talent were dozens of tips not only for the inner game but also for the outer game of whatever sport you were learning, some of it based on recent discoveries about the brain. This was an eye-opener for me.

In early 2017 I started working part-time for Ryan Leech at his RLC MTB Skills Coaching website. And I remember being intrigued that Ryan had often referred to himself as a "pro-practicer." In one of his blog posts, he wrote:

I don't know where my motivation to learn and practice comes from, and sure, I do have a decent athletic disposition, but really, it just comes down to time spent practicing and the quality of practice during that time. - Ryan Leech

He put that last phrase in italics,"... the quality of practice during that time." I didn't think much about what Ryan meant by 'quality of practice.' But in retrospect, I just had a vague notion that it meant doing the prescribed exercises and drills, putting in the reps, and doing it with as much mental focus as possible. Not bad, right?

In the spring of 2018, I started diligently taking Ryan Leech's Jump With Confidence online course. I practiced at our local skills park several times weekly, totaling hundreds of attempts over dozens of hours.

By autumn, I got to where I considered myself a solid beginner, ready to enter the intermediate level. On the one hand, I was happy with that because I was having fun. But it took way too long to get to that modest level. And I began to wonder how long it would take me to become a solid intermediate-level jumper.

And then, one day in October of that year, after bragging to one of my local riding buddies, Pat Mitzel, that I hadn't crashed once during jumps practice all season, I crashed. Hard. Luckily, I was entirely armored up, including a full-face helmet, and I walked away with a sprained wrist. Video here.

But I was puzzled. I had successfully jumped the middle of the three beginner-level tabletops 4 or 5 times that day and was pleased with my attempts. So I was stunned because I had no clue what had happened. I sat there reviewing the video on my phone. My form on approach and takeoff looked reasonably decent, close to my form on the previous attempt.

But it was clear from the video that something went wrong right away, as I immediately stuck my left foot out on takeoff. In other words, I didn't get bucked, and I didn't start to drift at the peak of the attempt. Instead, I somehow started getting sideways immediately.

A gust of wind blew my gloves and jacket off the picnic table where I was sitting. And then it dawned on me: the wind. I might have gotten hit with a gust of wind just as I went up the lip of the jump.

The weather bureau had issued a high wind warning for later that afternoon. When I arrived at the skills park, the wind was blowing pretty hard (15-20 mph), mainly from the south. I was happy because that meant I had a tailwind for the jump line.

As I sat there pondering all this, I noticed the wind had shifted more to the west, meaning I could have gotten hit by a gust on my left side.

But if that were the case, I would have gotten blown to the right, meaning I would have stuck out my right leg to save it. Could a gust from the left tilt my bike/body to the left?

I liked the theory about the crash caused by the wind, as it somewhat absolved me from the poor execution of the jump. But I didn't have a better answer yet.

So I posted the video in a couple of mountain biking skills-related online discussion groups, and after considerable conversation over a few weeks, I eventually concluded what went wrong. I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that it wasn't the wind.

I learned I needed to include a key element in the launch technique. How could I have had it wrong for so long? Was it my negligence or my ego? What was the flaw in the way I was practicing all that time? Did I assume that hundreds of reps would make me immune from crashing?

Winter arrived, and the Minnesota cold and heavy snow ended any further practice sessions on the tabletops. But then, my rereading Daniel Coyle's The Little Book of Talent got me thinking about what I could do to practice more effectively. So I began acquiring books, listening to podcasts, and watching videos on learning how to learn.

I gradually discovered that my approach to practicing was essentially shallow. One author even used the word 'naive.' Ouch right? I started learning about purposeful practice, deliberate practice, deep practice, and practice myths. There's new science on how to develop habits that support new ways of practicing more effectively.

That's when I seriously considered launching a podcast or a newsletter and got support for the idea from a few of my online colleagues.

In the summer of 2019, I traveled to Denver, Colorado, to attend an all-day seminar by Trevor Ragan, founder of The Learner Lab, about "unpacking the science of how to get better at getting better." I came away more inspired than ever, and now, two years after the pandemic started, here I am with the MTB Practice Lab newsletter on Substack, ready to learn and teach. Not coincidentally, Tip #47 in The Little Book of Talent is, To Learn It More Deeply, Teach It.

What's the newsletter about?

Here's what's unique about this newsletter.

First, there has been a surprising number of books and other content published recently that delve into the latest research on learning how to learn both cognitive skills (like learning math or a new language) and motor skills (playing a sport or a musical instrument).

And so, in the regular issues of this newsletter, I'll be telling you what I'm learning from these resources in a way that will make sense to you as a fellow recreational mountain biker.

Another way to put it: I'm not an expert on learning how to learn. But I'm pretty good at curating, selecting what is most helpful and interesting from what the specialists in this field have to say and how it relates to learning how to practice better. So that's number one.

Number two. My mountain biking skills are broad. I'm best at technical skills partly because of my years riding mototrials -- slow-speed obstacle competition on a motorcycle. But I'm getting better at riding faster and jumping -- skills I never worked at on my dirt bikes.

I've gotten two instructor certifications (BICP and PMBIA) to teach beginner and intermediate-level mountain biking. And I'm also a part-time online coach for RLC MTB Skills Coaching, which provides online mountain bike skills courses and coaching for thousands of riders worldwide.

But like most teachers, the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. So in this newsletter, I'll be chronicling my struggles and progress in learning how to learn, practice and develop habits, all related to mountain biking skills.

I'll include my efforts to better practice riding skills -- longer manuals and wheelies, higher bunny hops, bigger jumps, faster corners, and on and on. So you'll have a front-row seat as I try to improve and deploy my learning-how-to-learn skills at learning how to improve my riding skills.

And I also take an occasional detour on how I'm trying to apply this learning-how-to-learn stuff to other areas of my life. Current considerations: dancing and playing kendama.

Now listen carefully in case you missed it. I won't be using the newsletter to teach any riding skills. I. Won't. Be. Teaching. Mountain. Biking. Riding. Skills. I'll tell you how I'm going about my practice and what results I'm experiencing, good, bad, or ugly. (If it's lessons on riding-related techniques you're looking for, you'll need to go elsewhere. My biased recommendation (where I'm one of the coaches) is RLC MTB Skills Coaching.

Lastly -- number 3, in case you're counting -- I hope the newsletter will help inspire you to start down your path of learning how to learn and get better at practicing and that you'll share some of your struggles and progress with me which I can then share with the other subscribers to the newsletter. There's a lot to be said about the benefits of learning from and inspiring each other.

Thanks much for checking in. I hope you stick around.