Friday 31 May 2013

Taking the sketchy out of the riders from Kent




































  Adrian, Rachel, James and Mark turned up as arranged and I proceeded with my skills check and found body positioning and looking faults and along with a set up change to help things along we set off to the drops to apply their new skills. I worked on their mental skills here too and soon they were up in the air and dropping perfectly, I was even able to show Mark and James why their skills enabled them to style it too.
 We moved onto the skills trail and over the next couple of hours we worked on linking 14 sections of the trail together using their skills sets. Pumping, rockgardens, steps, absorbing up slopes, and drops were all linked to flat, bermed, off camber and switchback turns. I worked n line choice and braking control and soon they were riding faster and smoother than ever.

  We moved onto the 6ft tabletop and gap jump and soon they were flying into the air and landing on the transition perfectly. Rachel was one of the riders to ride the gap jump and the smile on her face said it all.
 Next, we moved onto the pump and jump trail and I worked on pumping to gain free speed from the trail and jumping and soon they were linking 2 chicane berms together at the end too. I covered manualing sections too and Mark really got to grips with it to. It was awesome to watch them all pumping and absorbing so fluidly. I could see they were tiring and soon after the erros crept in and i ended the session as I knew they were tired. Amazing session.
High5!

Thursday 30 May 2013

Joel returns and brings along Steve
























After over a week of hardware failure I lost all pics from last weeks sessions and hence no blog but now I have a new laptop and its business as usual.
Joel and Steve turned up as arranged and I ran them both through my skills check and found that Joel had worked hard on the skills I had instilled in him and that I needed to work on their mental skills as well as Steve's body positioning and looking.
 We began with the drop technique and it took them both no time to comfortably ride all 3 drops and then i moved them onto the 6ft tabletop where I worked hard on Joels mental skillset and Steve applied his physical skills to ride not only the tabletop but the 6ft gap jump too.
I moved them onto the steeps and worked on why their set up and skills made it all way easier than ever and controlled too. they both rode a near vertical drop off with ease and they were stunned by that.
 A short break for food and coffee was followed by working on linking 2 berms together and gaining speed through them and later, onto linking drops into corners. Line choice and braking control made it all very comfortable and their speed through the sections grew.
 Onto the pump and jump trail where they used pumping to gain speed through sections and jump a 9ft tabletop and linked a berm and 3 more jumps into the line too.
 We ended the session with them developing their judgement of speed on a 15ft tabletop and the results amazed them as they flew into the air with control and confidence.
 Amazing session, High5!