Singing and biking - not at the same time, of course. What I have been thinking about this week is how surprisingly similar it is to learn the two activities, as I had lessons for both.

How could that be? Singing and biking don't seem intrinsically very similar. However, they both use your body, therefore it isn't so surprising that the learning processes parallel one another. The basic principle both follow is that one cannot reinforce more than one new action at one time.

At a mountain bike course run in Glendhu Bike Park near Wanaka, I discovered my mountain biking style is antiquated. I learned to mountain bike in the days when mountain biking position was upright, thanks to bike geometry. There was also no suspension to help control the bike. As a result, we learned to bike difficult and steep terrain by hanging off the back of the bike, behind the seat. The rationale was, if you are behind the seat, you can't fall over the handlebars. Falling over the handlebars is an unpleasant and possibly injurious experience that I have always preferred to avoid.

Over three decades later, much has changed in mountain bikes and mountain biking. The angle at the front of the bike is tipped much further back so the rider naturally sits reclined. Suspension cushions impacts and assists traction. The instructor told me how to correct my position. Heels down. Okay, heels down. Body bent at the waist, like you are bowing. Okay, body bent at the waist. Knees and elbows bent and flexible. Okay, knees and elbows bent. Going down an easy trail, heels down, body bent at the waist, knees and elbows flexible, bounce the bike to check your weight is centred, now there's an obstacle ahead. Ride over the obstacle to find my heels are up and I'm back behind the seat. Start again ...

Singing, just the same experience. The teacher says keep you mouth open and open your throat. Okay, got that. Don't project the sounds, keep it back in your mouth so the vibrations resonate through your face. Okay, keeping the sound back. Oh no, my mouth has closed again - New Zealanders have a practise of talking with our jaws clenched and I am no exception. Back to opening my mouth again.

For singing, the best solution is to do voice exercises focusing on just one of those important factors. I can do this in the car while driving – as I wrote about earlier, the best thing about getting and EV and discovering that one can do voice exercise in the car is that I can almost like driving rather than considering it a resource-using waste of time.

For mountain biking I need to do repeat exercises going downhill. This is not as easy as voice exercises between which you only need to take a breath. To cycle downhill, I have to go uphill (requiring lots of breath) and the uphill takes longer than the downhill so I don't have a lot of practice time. It's enough to make me want a nice e-MTB. No, I don't want a nice e-MTB because I want to maintain my uphill climbing strength (I don't care what anyone says about people staying as fit with an e-MTB, I  don't have to work as hard going uphill on an e-bike). It's enough to make me hire a nice e-MTB and go back to Glendhu Mountain Bike Park (which, by the way, is an excellent place to go riding) and practise my skills.

Just like with singing, practising biking requires focusing on a single component of the activity at one time. Optimal practice is to do the same run multiple times and think about that single component each time - heels down the whole way, or body bowed at the waist. Once you have the first component dialled in you can try putting two together, but that's probably not for a while. It's hard to unlearn a biking position decades old.

This might sound boring, repeating the same activity over and over. I don't find it nearly as boring as I did as a child. Practice lets you find calm because you have a single focus – it's a meditative activity. Then, the best part is the immense satisfaction when you realise that have learned something new. You are doing something better than before. You have retrained your body. It's possible. For anyone. Go learn something new!