Thursday 16 October 2014

Teaching Mark why


 Mark came to me via recommendation from Simon at www.nirvanacycles.com and the early morning sunshine arrived and never left us. The skills check showed Mark was missing body position and looking skills and i knew I'd have to work on the mental skills too. We began with applying the skills set to the technique used for  drops and the change was instant. Mark was landing perfectly and controlled and he knew why. I moved to jumping and used a 6 ft tabletop for this and we applied the skills set again to the techniques involved here too and soon he was easily clearing the jump and never felt like he'd left the ground! Mark used his mental skills to ride the gap jump too a few times before we moved to cornering. This was something Mark thought was less important but soon was riding smoother and faster around berms than ever and hitting the jump that followed three linked berms as he had plenty of speed.
 We took a coffee break and resumed and moved to the singletrack skills trail to work on linking sections of a trail together and bit by bit we worked on all 14 sections of the trail together. Berms, flat, off camber and switchback turns were linked via pumping, jumping, steps, rocks and drops. line choice and braking areas were identified and used and soon he was flying along and getting smoother as he became faster and more controlled.
 We moved to the trail that contained the triple berms from earlier and worked on pumping and absorbing sections of the trail and then choosing when and why to jump. Mentally Mark was shattered as unforced errors crept in and not long after we called an end to a cracking session.
 Awesome skills Mark.
High5!























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