Wednesday 4 April 2012

Adam's one to one skills session





Adam drove down from Nottingham for his skills session. He said he had a coaching session before with another company last year but I could see that his set up didn't help with the mental barriers in his riding that he spoke of. The skills check revealed footwork, body and looking skills were missing so I adjusted his set up and showed him "why" before moving onto, much to his horror to the drops.
I went through both the physical and mental skill sets and demonstrated all 3 drops to him and to his surprise he began landing perfectly from the word go. His new body position and discovery of a very natural habit he already had in his riding that was bogged down by missing skills shone through. Before we knew it Adam had ridden all 3 drops easily and off we went to the skills trail.
The skills trail has 14 sections contained within it and I showed why the skills set applies to pumping undulations on the trail. Again, Adam found this easy and we used the gained speed to ride the following berm and flat corners. I worked hard on his footwork and looking in corners as it wasn't something that came natural to him as he always cornered flat footed before. The rock garden gave him concern but again when he rode them he found it easy and linked the following berm and switchback in too! The fly out jump saw Adam get into the air comfortably and controlled and before long it was time to ride the entire trail. Each run was faster and more fluid than the previous as he linked drops, steps, berms, flat corners, jumps, pump bumps and rock gardens together. Any errors were now self diagnosed as he moved through to unconscious action with his skills set. I could see he was tiring so I moved us to the 6ft tabletop and applied the very same skills to that too and he was in the air again. Adam then called an end to our session as he was mentally drained. I ended the day with a riding demonstration of the skill set in use in my own riding on the woodwork at Herts.
Great session Adam, high5!

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