By:  JaNette, Brian, Steve, and Laurent of CSC Rhythm

Brain locks happen to pretty much everybody at every level.  An important part of training is to learn to minimize and deal with brain locks when they happen.

One great tip we received (amongst many) during an Airspeed camp was from Eric Gin. He helped us realize that the reason we brain lock sometimes is simply because we were thinking of something else instead of the next point. While you are having those thoughts, you miss what's currently happening and what needs to happen next. Now you've lost the dive!

This can be from very different thoughts:
I was too low, damn they hosed me on that one, wow this jump is going great, huh I see the plane diving at the horizon, ouch my knee just hit the wall in the tunnel and it hurts, etc....

The key to fewer brain locks is to identify what makes your brain lock in the first place. Next time you experience this on a dive, during the debrief think back to the dive and what you were thinking about immediately before the brain lock happened. This will help you determine what types of thoughts get you in trouble.

Once you've identified what it is, next time you start to feel yourself thinking those thoughts you can stop them before they result in a brain lock. Once you start training yourself to control those thoughts and anticipate the next point as soon as the current formation is complete or almost complete no matter what else happens, brain locks become less and less frequent. It takes some practice, but after a while, it becomes much easier.

How to deal with brain locks:

Well, here you are with an empty look desperately trying to remember where to go next.
First: stay calm. Take a deep breath if you feel yourself start to lose it.
Second:  Look at the formation and try to recognize what it is. Then, you should be able to identify where you need to go.
Third:  As you are moving to your position, think about the next point.
That's it and now you are back in the dive!

Brain locks happen to everyone and they really are no big deal.  Never give a hard time to someone who brain locks, it just adds unnecessary pressure, which makes things worse. On our team, we actually laugh about it and sometimes make fun eye contact communication during the next page of the dive flow when we are training.

If someone on your team brain locks more often than the others, it might be because he/she doesn't know about the ideas explained above. Simply talk about it and help him/her find a way to improve. This is part of the learning process. Everyone on the team will have many obstacles to overcome with each obstacle usually being different for each person (brain locks, certain points, etc).  Help each other and focus on your areas that may need improvement.

Visualization

If you read any article about the competitive edge in any sport, you will find that visualization is an extremely important training tool.  Since our time in the air is limited, it is a really powerful way to get familiar with the formations (and it's free training). The more familiar you are with the formations, the easier it is to recognize where to go when you brain lock.

When visualizing, it's important not only to see what you are doing, but also what everybody else is doing. So see your moves in the context of the formations to build, not just the grips you have to take. It's basically what we see on the creepers, or if you didn't creep, picture where the formation has to build and determine where you’re supposed to go from one formation to another.

The Pre-Jump Ritual

Each one of us has our own ritual in the plane besides the gear check and shake hands thing.  During training jumps, we also use the distractions that may happen in the plane as a way to train ourselves to keep our focus on the dive. We realized that we have better jumps and less brainlock when maintaining focus on the jump regardless of the distractions that can happen on the way up to altitude.

Setting the Pace

Moving at a pace individuals and the team as a whole cannot control is simply not efficient. It turns into a big mess, brain locks and usually leads to lower scores.  Plus, when you go at a speed you can't control, it's difficult to stay calm and confident..

Additional Hint

Know formations by letters and numbers: we found it so much easier to remember a dive as “B-C-D” than by “Stair step Diamond-Murphy Flake-Yuan”.

We hope this article has or will help you in your training and also that it helps you have a little more fun on your dives.