The glide of the water, the tap-tap-tap rhythm of your running shoes on the track, the view of the ribbon of road descending and twisting below you, the chlorine as you walk to the edge of the pool, the burn of your lungs as you push for the line.
The final one in the series of DES is sensations. It’s how your body perceives the outside world, through the external senses but also how we feel our internals. Maybe the expansion and contraction of our chest as we breath, the power in our legs as we press the pedals in a steep climb or the emptiness of the tank as we edge close to a bonk.
These sensations are always present, but not until we turn our attention to them do they register in our more conscious mind.
Similar to the stories we shape around our emotions or the data we observe, how do your sensations serve you in training and racing. Maybe its the feel of pressing the water, maybe a sense of lightness in running or pulling ourselves taller.
Maybe it’s a mindfulness, allowing our thoughts to drift to openness of sensation or to draw ourselves to a rhythmic pattern of breath or cadence.
Moving between the 3 elements within D-E-S can allow you to reframe. For example if self-belief is waning perhaps move to a sensation, allowing the passage of time to become less prominent.
Action(s)
- Next time you go for an activity – remove the distractions of data, try to let go of stories in emotions.
- Go one step further into sensation, then potentially beyond.
- See if you can reach a place before all the data, before the stories were layered with emotions onto the experience.
- Can you simply absorb and experience the sensations and the perceptions of the senses.
- Are you able to explore that which feels the sensation?
Have fun exploring!