Extreme: Banff Film Festival

Continuing on our extreme theme this week. I attended the screening of the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Cape Town. I was blown away by how the creativity of the film makers and the daring of the sportsmen were combined to bring me to a place of an adrenaline-inspired awe! 

Below are some pictures of the various stories that were shown in the combined short-film version. All these stories had to have a few things in common: Mountains, danger and skill. One thing that struck me was the overwhelming sense of focus that each one of these people had. The task at hand was the single most important thing in their lives, at that time. This could be due to the fact that these were life and death situations, but I strongly believe that our ability to stay focused and accomplish the task at hand will eventually separate the success stories from the not-so successful stories.

Sketchy Andy slack-lining across canyons, without a safety harness. He tends to base-jump of this 'stable' base as well!

Crazy rock columns being climbed in the middle of the dessert in Chad! Sometimes without guidelines ...

Bombing 20 meter waterfalls in Mexico, in kayaks! Lot's of blood.

Coastal crew going downhill, fast, very fast! Great jumps, great bikes, big hearts!

A Tree Stump in the Path

My bike and my world!

I was heading full-speed down a single-track on my mountain bike yesterday, when suddenly there was a tree stump in my way. Normally I would have easily been able to avoid such an obstacle by choosing a new line and adjusting my focus and body weight accordingly. But, this time I wasn't as lucky, I went full-tilt into the tree stump and flew over my handle-bars! I came out of the situation relatively unscathed, but just a bit shaken. It did get me thinking though ...

Why did I not manage to avoid this relatively benign obstacle, when I've successfully avoided hundreds like it before and many still during that very same ride? After much pondering, and reliving the incident, I came to the realisation that it was a focus issue. I hit exactly what I was looking at! I was staring at the stump, and because it took up to all of my attention I didn't have the presence of mind to choose the correct line.

What happens in life when we lose focus? There are many things out there to distract us from the plans God has for us, sometimes even seemingly good things: relationships, work, entertainment, money, sport and random problems that pop up. The question is, what are you focussed on?

The writer of Hebrews admonishes us to keep our focus on one thing and one thing only, while we run this race of life:

 " ... let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2 NKJV).

Our focus should be on Jesus, He is always the right line to choose through the lightning fast single-track we call life. If our focus is on little, insignificant problems and side-shows, then we will end up tripping over them and flying into the dust. Do that enough and at some point you wont be getting back up again, you'll stay down and you'll wonder where it all went wrong.

"Keep focused on Jesus and avoid the pitfalls."