James has been coached by myself previously and returned to bring his riding on further and apply his skill set in different scenarios. I worked on body positioning and also his mental skills for this session.
We began with cornering, rock gardens and pre jumps on the top half of the skills trail and later added in absorbing techniques and linking drops into corners. I isolated his looking by slowing him down on drops and giving James more process time and that worked a treat.
After a break, we moved onto another trail where the sections are closer and come at you faster. I broke the trail down into 3 parts and wee worked on them separately before adding them all together. Steeps, off cambers, berms, upslopes, pumping and near vertical drop offs.
I worked on his body positioning when riding down steep stuff and used a high perhaps 40ft slope to do this before moving onto a lower but way steeps one and that really set off James's adrenaline! After a few runs of the trail we moved on again and I could tell he was beginning to tire mentally but I wanted to develop his pumping further and link it to jumping and cornering too and for this we moved onto the pump and jump trail. Each run was more fluid and faster and after a good few runs James himself declared mental tiredness and our session ended to a nice hot coffee to celebrate another great session.
High5!
Tony makes it look so easy and is so confident and clear in his teaching that I had complete faith in him. I have no doubt that he would not put me in a position where I could not do what he showed that it overcomes (most of the time!) the mental blockage that steep slopes and large gaps can bring about. The fact that it was wet and slippery did not detract from his confidence, so all I could do is follow what he showed. Thoroughly recommended and enjoyable. Thanks Tony & High5!
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