Monday 10 October 2011

Jon's one to one mtb skills coaching session






Jon turned up as arranged at the Herts skills area and I gave him an outline for the session and Immediately ran him through my simple skills check.
The check revealed the missing looking and body position skills but also uncovered some great habits gained from years of doing various sports that I could use later in the session. I made some set up changes and then we moved onto the 3 drops to apply his physical and mental skill set to that technique.



In no time at all, Jon was landing perfectly and the simplicity of it surprised him.
We then moved onto the skills trail and began working on the 14 sections that are contained within it. I broke the trail into 4 segments and we worked on each segment before linking it all together.
We worked on pumping, something Jon had read loads about but didn't make sense of it but when I explained it he was able to do it straight away. We used the energy gained to link it to flat.bermed, switchback and off camber turns. Rock gardens, steps , jumps and drops.


Soon Jon was riding the trail end to end in a smooth and controlled fashion that belied the speed he was now traveling.
We then moved onto the tabletop and Jon found the ease of jumping to be a very profound experience he said as he easily sailed into the air and landed perfectly.


Jon asked to see my alpine switchbacks, so off we went and I demonstrated how and why the skills applied but he was unable to say yes to the mental questions I teach each rider when deciding whether to ride something so we moved back to the trail for a couple more runs before our session ended.
Great session Jon and I look forward to hearing how your new skill set works for your riding.

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