I could see that the skills sets had been worked on and a couple of errors had crept in by I soon sorted that out and It was predominantly as mental skills session.
We began with body positioning in cornering and linked to berms together and that got them warmed up. Next, we worked on the drop technique and also style in the air which was easy when applying the skills sets. Later we linked drops into corners and worked hard on braking control and line choice too.
We then moved to steeper terrain and worked on steep drop offs and different ways of riding down them, this blew them away as it felt so simple. We then worked on linking all the sections of the trail that ended in the near vertical drop off together and worked on moving the bike in the air and turning in the air too. They got faster and smoother and knew why too!
Alpine style switchbacks were next and using their footwork, body positioning and looking they easily rode those too and they are something that most riders baulk at when seeing them.
We then moved to the 6ft tabletop and gap jump and work on distance and effort at different speeds and how and why to judge it. They all rode the tabletop and gap jump side with grins on their faces, especially Rachel who now found the elusive pop she wanted.
Now I ramped it up again and this time a 9ft gap jump sandwiched between two berms was on the menu and after a couple of demos from myself, they one by one used their mental skills to decide to ride it and it was cool to see it! One by one they rode it and after several runs it was time to move on to a 12ft ladder gap jump. Rachel and Adrian decided they could answer their mental skills questions positively so declined to ride it but Ben and Mark flew it a good few times whilst Rachel picked off a 7ft ladder gap she'd seen Mark ride earlier. 5 hrs since our session started I could see tiredness creep in so our session ended with high5's all round.
Amazing session to end a great week of coaching for myself and Nathan.
High5
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