building nick's skills sets

Nick was bought this session as a present for his 40th birthday and today was the day we arranged to meet and awesome weather greeted us. The skills check showed me what was missing in his riding and I made a set up change to help correct his body position and looking skills. Once corrected all that was needed to work on were his mental skills and applying both skills sets to different techniques out on the trails.

We began with drops and Nick's confidence grew as he began landing perfectly, he rode the first two drops but his mental skills didn't respond positively to the 3rd larger drop at this time. However as the session progressed we returned to the drop where he rode it with ease and a big "yahoo!" as he landed.

On to the singletrack and we worked on cornering heavily and linking all the sections within the trail using line choice and braking areas. We worked on pumping, absorbing, jumping and drops. And while linking the 14 sections together Nick found himself naturally becoming fast rather than trying to be fast. We moved to jumping tabletops and used the 6ft tabletop for this and within a few short adjustments he was clearing the tabletop perfectly with a massive smile on his face. I knew he was tiring but we still had some time together so we moved on to the pump and jump trail. He was now choosing sections on the trail to either pump or jump and knowing why he made these choices, as well as carrying speed through the final berms on the trail. Even clearing a 9ft tabletop halfway down the trail comfortably. And after a few more runs, mental tiredness hit home and we brought the session to a close with me giving a demonstration of the same skillset on the high woodwork at Herts.