The final coaching session of 2012

 Nick and James turned up as arranged and the weather played ball and the rain held off for the session too. I ran them through my skills check and discovered they needed looking and body positioning worked on as well as their mental skills.

I began as ever, with applying both mental and physical skills to the drop technique and it didn't take them long to ride all three comfortably.
 We moved onto the skills trail and began working on linking the 14 sections contained within it together. Bermed, off camber, switchback and flat corners were linked to pumping, absorbing, rock gardens, steps, fly out jumps and drops. We moved down the trail gradually always adding the previously worked on sections to the next. I worked on braking and line choice too, especially when linking drops and corners.
 From there I moved onto riding steep stuff and here their new body positioning paid dividends as they rode the drop offs after demonstrations from myself.
 Next up was the 6ft tabletop and gap jump and they both sailed over the tabletop and then used their mental skills to ride the gap too.
 Our session ended with working on linking to berms together before mentally they had had enough and our session came to a close.
 Thanks Nick and James and to all the riders I have met this year.

High5!

Decembers public jumps and drops course

 The session began as I always start them, with my skills check and I made some set up changes to their bikes to enhance their riding position and control.

  We began with the drop technique and soon they were all landing perfectly.

  I then used the end of the skills trail and gave them some basic cornering advice and then they began linking drops into corners.

  We moved onto jumping and before going to the tabletop, I taught them why their mental and physical skills sets applied to taking off on a fly out jump.

  Onto the 6ft tabletop and I worked on getting them all into the air and we began adding speed so some began clearing it entirely.

 the option to ride the gap jump side was there and one rider used his mental skills to decide to ride that to!
A great end to a great week of coaching.

The return of Steve and Richard

 Steve called me for a session after a drop in confidence from attending another coaching firms jumping session at the forest of Dean and his brother, Rich joined him once more.I found the reason for their confidence drop was missing looking when unweighting and I set to work on that and also their mental skills sets too.

  I began with the drop technique to re affirm their looking skills and was also able to teach them why the skills sets apply to beginning to move it in the air too. I then moved them to a drop with a corner and worked on linking the 2 sections together.

From there we moved onto riding steep stuff and using their body position skills they dropped into the section in various different ways and the ease of it all blew them away.
 We had a break and resumed with their bug bear, jumping and using the 6ft tabletop I worked on their mental skills and soon they were sailing over it and even rode the gap jump side too a few times. I could see they were tiring but I wanted to teach them to manual through sections and for this we moved to the pump and jump trail and in no time at all Rich manualed across a tabletop and soon Steve began to get to grips with it also. They then proceeded to choose whether to jump, pump or manual sections on the trail and linked in a s bend set of berms and a 6ft ladder gap jump too!! They were grinning ear to ear but tired and our session came to a close with a pint to celebrate the end of a great session.
High5!