Saturday 20 October 2012

Five men become boys again






























Jason, Zach, Pete, Justin and Dave came to Hertfordshire for a skills session with me after recommendation and all arrived as arranged and I set off with my skills check. I could see that they had good riding habits but missed their body position and looking skills. A few up changes soon made a big difference to their overall control and off we went to apply the mental and physical skill sets to our first technique, drops.
It took no time at all for the guys to apply their new skill set and their body positioning made it all effortless too.
 I worked on a body positioning excersise in corners before finally moving onto the skills trail itself where over the next couple of hours, we worked on linking the 14 sections contained within by their identified exits and entries. Bermed, flat, off camber and switchback turns were linked to pumping, rock gardens, fly out jumps, steps and drops. we moved along at a deliberate pace and eventually they were riding the whole trail end to end and every run was faster than the last as they really began to shift. I worked on line choice and braking control when linking drops into corners and I worked hard on the mental skills too.
 I then moved them onto the one thing they never thought they could nor would do, jump a 6ft tabletop.

 I worked individually with them on their speed and eventually they all sailed over the jump and landed perfectly on the transition. I worked hard with Justin on his mental skills and as I did the others all rode the 6ft gap jump too!
We wasn't done yet and as light faded we moved onto our final application of the skills sets, riding steeps. Their new body position and braking control shone through as they rode down a 40ft steep drop off and also a vert drop in too! Our session came to a close their to smiles all round. It was a pleasure to coach them all and an awesome end to a fantastic weeks coaching.
High5!

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