Elite performance practices that you can apply to skydiving, BASE, and tunnel flying
Skydiving, BASE jumping, and tunnel flying haven’t necessarily been culturally recognized as “sports” in the same way other mainstream sports have. This makes it a bit easy to forget how truly demanding they are. Our sports are very high-level performance environments. We ask the mind and body to focus and perform while simultaneously managing all sorts of things like nerves, fear, and intense sensory input. All of this in just a few short moments of performance. This puts a heavy load of demands on our ability for attention, decision-making, and emotional regulation.
The good news is this isn’t unique. Elite athletes across many sports are familiar with the same pressures, although maybe not at the edge of a cliff or a world record skydive. Sports psychology has decades of studying and research into what helps people perform well when under intense pressure. The same mental skills used by Olympian athletes, professional athletes, and other high performers are not only applicable to our sports, but they’re something we can learn from.
I’m sharing three mental performance skills that are consistently found in sports psychology research, recognized by high-level performers across many fields and also things that I’ve found to be helpful along the way.
TIP #1: Focus on What You Can Control
When we’re under pressure, the nervous system tries to pay attention to a larger picture all at once. It lands in a heightened state, which is a physiological survival mode, scanning for threats, possibilities, outcomes. This is great for survival, not so great for honing focus for performance. Because of this, our reaction time slows, decision-making can become a bit foggy and less efficient, and errors can slip in.
One of the most reliable tools taught in sports psychology is what’s referred to as “attentional control” or focusing on the things that you can control.
Rather than trying to manage the end result, athletes who practice this focus their attention towards a small set of variables that are totally within their control, such as:
- Breathing: rhythm, depth, style
- Body: position, posture, awareness
- Visual: Where you focus, soft gaze, hard gaze
When we hone our attention, control the controllables, and regulate the breath, we can lower our perceived anxiety, and tap into a stronger sense of control under stress.
TIP #2: Build a Routine
Some form of pre-performance routine is almost universal in professional sports. Routines can help performance, but they can also regulate the nervous system. If your routine on a casual, no pressure skydive is the same routine used for a high pressure jump, you’ve built in a consistency that the nervous system is familiar with, essentially tying a sense of calm into the moment of pre performance.
Routines don’t need to be elaborate. Good ones are simple and easily repeatable. You don’t need anything complex. Something that feels natural to you.
For your own routine, consider a common structure for routines in sports:
- One breath to down shift the nervous system (examples of sports breathwork)
- One physical movement, such as rolling the shoulders, shaking out the hands, clapping the hands
- One mantra or mental cue (Example cues: calm, smooth, powerful)
With consistency, your routine can become a switch. You’ll train your brain that this routine means it’s time for execution and focus, not fear and overthinking. Play around with a routine that works for you, be open to refining it over the years.
TIP # 3 Learn How To Recover From Mistakes
Mistakes are inevitable. Learning how to be good at something means you’re able to do something wrong until you learn how to do it well. High performers understand how to quickly move on when they haven’t nailed something.
They acknowledge the mistake, take whatever information is useful, and then refocus back on their practice. The goal is not to suppress emotion or ignore what happened, but to make sure that moment doesn’t overtake the rest of the performance.
Train Like You Mean It
If we want to be good at this, if you truly have goals in the sport, whether that’s to compete, to achieve national or world records, to coach or just be able to join any skydive, it’s going to take some effort.
Why not tap into a format full of rich tools proven in sports psychology and used repeatedly by some of the world’s highest performing athletes. Sure, skydiving might not be universally recognized (yet!), but it doesn’t mean we can’t train as if it’s an olympic sport already. And the side benefit to this level of training is how much of this will apply to the rest of your life. Good luck out there!
