Bill and Ben's skills session

 Ben and Bill arrived and the skills check showed me some good habits that had been covered up by years of trial and error. I needed to work on looking, body positioning and footwork and then we worked on the mental game too.
 A move to the drops allowed myself to coach the mental skills here and why the skills sets allow style to become easy too. Then we moved to the skills trail to work on linking the 14 sections contained within the trail together via line choice and braking/pedal areas. Flat, bermed, off camber and switchback turns were linked to pumping, jumps, drops, steps , rock gardens and drop offs. Soon they were really flowing along the trail with control and confidence.
 Next we moved to riding near vertical drop offs and this blew them away at how simple and easy it all felt.
We then moved to the one thing they wanted to do, jump tabletops and land perfectly. Using a 6ft tabletop I broke the technique down and then in a few short moves they both sailed over the  jump and after a few goes they used their mental skills to decide to ride the 6ft gap jump too with the same smooth results. The smiles beamed across their faces as it was their 1st ever gap jump and it felt so easy.
We then moved to another trail to work on why to jump or absorb and pump sections of a trail and carry speed through a berm at the end. They were jumping a 9ft tabletop midway through the trail with no worries at all and I decided to move us on to see another section. A 9ft gap jump. This time they used their mental skills to decline to ride it as they both felt cold and tired from the session and the sleet that had appeared so our session closed there.
Amazing progression guys.
High5!