Stepping up Dave's riding

Dave arrived as a planned and I began the session with the skills checks, where I discovered that Dave had natural footwork, and a bit of body positioning, bit I needes to work on looking. I also discovered that he unweighted the bike naturally, and that I just needed to add looking to his skillset. I explained what was needed, and he quickly understood, and demonstrated this. I then made a slight set up change, and he straight away understood why I had done it. We moved onto the drop technique, where he was soon riding off the largest drop comfortably, and landing perfectly. I then gave him a quick cornering exercise, where he could further improve his body positioning. I then showed him the skills trail, and we worked through it section bu section, linking corners, rock gardens, fly outs, steps and drops, and Dave was soon riding top to bottom well, and began to self diagnose what he was doing wrong. I then. Showed him the table top, where I controlled his speed for him, and was soon jumping both the tabletop and the gap jump. We then moved onto some steeper stuff, where he used his mental

skillset in order to be able to roll in steeps both with and without apexes, both straight and sideways. I then showed him a larger drop where he again used his mental

skillset to be able to land perfectly. We then moved to some ladders, where I showed him how to control it when off the ground, and we were soon linking ladders, seesaws and wooden ladder drops. I then worked on a larger gap jump with him, which he rode well, and commented on how easy it felt, and we quickly linked this with another ladder drop. We then moved onto the pump and jump trail where he generated his own speed through pumping, and started to jump more table tops. A combination of the heat, and mental tiredness brought our session to an end after nearly 4 hours since we began.

great session Dave! 

Nath.