Halfpipe competitors Kaishu and Ayumu Hirano, brothers and teammates on the Japan snowboard team. that are underneath that we’re trying to work on too. Such as becoming more self-aware. We train self-awareness, we train how to regulate your nervous system through things like different breath work patterns. You can do these things anytime, anywhere. And the more reps you get with it, the more likely it is you’re gonna be able to dial in those skills when you get onto snow.” One other practice that Bertram uses while coaching flow is the simple act of getting would-be flow-staters to visualize a time and place when they felt most in tune with their bodies, their performance and their mind. Picture a perfect run on a perfect day of snowboarding. Ber-tram pushes them to dive deeply into that memory. “See it, smell it, taste it, feel the sense you had in your body and the butterflies in your stomach or whatever it was,” Bertram says. “I’ll tell them, ‘Close your eyes and try to embody that memory.’ And what hap-pens is as they get deeper into it, the brain-wave patterns shift toward that range we know is associated with flow.” Basically, it’s an attempt to conjure flow by remembering the feeling of flow. And it works. Mikey Ciccarelli can attest. Ciccarelli was Luke to Bertram’s Yoda. He took to Bertram’s teachings quickly and found a lot of value in everything he was learning about flow. Now he sounds like a true be-liever when asked about the benefits. He backs what Bertram’s doing. It worked for him on the contest circuit and now he’s taking what he’s learned/learning to the backcountry. “Over the last few years, I left the national team and transitioned into filming in the backcountry, and I really think that finding the flow state and learning how to use these flow triggers is even more important in the backcountry,” Ciccarelli says. “When you’re hitting a jump out there, you’re probably only going to have three or four goes at it, so it’s crucial to be riding at your best.” Ciccarelli says another one of the techniques he uses, which he learned from Bertram, is as easy as looking up and all around and really taking in his surroundings—opening his awareness. For Ciccarelli this little life hack always seems to prime his system for finding that flow state. “Just looking around and thinking, ‘Wow, look how amazing this place is,’ it really helps calm me down, it slows my breathing,” Ciccarelli says. “I won’t always go right into flow from there, but it definitely helps me get there faster.” FLOW STATE 063
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 20.4: Page 63
