Ian's 50th birthday treat!

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Ian came to me via a recommendation and for his 50th birthday he treated himself. I asked what his aspirations for the session were and he said he'd like to be able to handle airtime and polish up his downhill speed/control.
After the skills check I discovered his one missing skills and set about installing it before moving onto the drop technique. Using the skill set, Ian quickly became comfortable with landing both wheels together and I worked on his body positioning in the air too. I began working on his mental skills too as Ian chose to move onto the larger drop section and landed perfectly time and again.
I then moved us onto the coaching trail where I broke the trail down and worked on each section contained and gradually we moved down the trail linking each section to the last. I timed segments of the trail to show Ian his improvements with each run. We worked on flat, bermed, off camber and switchback corners, rock gardens, up ramps, steps and drops. All sections were linked together smoothly and Ian was flying down the complete trail with incredible time savings!
After a short drink break it was time to teach Ian to jump. For this I use the purpose built tabletop with one half being a gap. Starting on the tabletop I gradually worked on the skill sets application in jumping as I slowly sped Ian up until he was clearing it perfectly. Now he was smiling ear to ear. Ian decided to ride the gap side and straight away cleared the gap and rode it a few times amazed at how easy it felt.
Finally, I brought Ian over to a log gap jump that he saw when he parked up and using a couple of mind tricks he sailed over it which brought our session to an end.
Amazing session Ian!