Ian took up a short notice cancellation and I moved his session from May to today. Ian told me that he'd had coaching elsewhere a while ago and that he wanted to learn to jump. I could see that I had to change his set up and the skills check showed me that I needed to work on his footwork, looking and body positioning as well as his mental skills.
We started with drops and the ease of it all surprised him and from there onto the 6ft tabletop
Ian was flying and it was time to work on his cornering and linking segments of a trail together fluidly. Flat, bermed, off camber and switchback turns were linked to drops, pre jumps, rock gardens, steps and fly out jumps and he linked them via line choice and control zones all down the trail. I moved us on to riding alpine switchback and steeps and Ian's new set up and skills made it all easy as he rode a steep he thought impossible to him.
Even with a break, the emntal aspect of my coaching was tiring him but not before I had moved onto the pump and jump trail to link berm riding, pumping, jump and even manualling sections of that trail. Our session ended after nearly 5 hours and I know i'll be riding with Ian again
High5!
Yesterday was life-changing.
ReplyDeleteAfter years of being the fat kid that could'nt get his wheels off the ground / was forever crashing at my local jump spot growing up - I had pretty much shelved the idea of ever being able to clear a double.
Over the past few months I started to toy with the idea of jumping a bit more - but this was more a case of launching off of stuff and just hoping that I landed - but not anymore !
The control I left with yesterday, and the skills to approach anything that the trail throws up left me amazed.
5 hours with Tony changed my whole outlook, not only to biking, but his general demeanor / approach to life is something that really hit home with me.
The pure joy Tony got, from watching me improve was contagious, and I don't think that I stopped grinning all day. This is clearly not a job to him, this is something he does for the love of it.
I drove the 2.5hrs home in silence - just soaking up everything he had said to me over the course of the day - and I know that his teaching will really come into its own, over the next few months as I put it into practice.
Tony - thank you so much !
Hope to see you again soon