Andy contacted me because after 18 years of riding he feels like he plateaued and has developed fears. I explained what we will be doing for today and Andy said he really would love to jump and actually feel the sweet spot of a smooth landing.
During the skills health check I discovered that Andy missed the looking skill and looked into the "now" rather than into the "next". I also found that he pushed his bike natuarlly but didnt feel that was the case until I showed him.
from un weighting the front wheel using his new skill set I moved onto pumping and the dis connected bunny hop. It was clear that Andy could ride very well indeed and that it was going to be the mental side of his skill set that needed work.
From there I moved us to the drop and jump techniques. Beginning with drops I found that Andy went protective at speed and comfort braked in the air. This needed dealing with so we spent quite some time ironing it all out so that he was taking off and landing smoothly and controlled. It was written all over his face that the mental skills had began to show and I named them and pointed out the ones that we needed to work on.
Now, it came time to deal with his wish, jumping and landing on the down slope of a jump.
Andy's mental skills had developed so much now that with a bit of speed control from me I moved him up a slope in 3 moves before he jumped the table top perfectly!
from there, I moved us onto a trail to work on cornering and also linking sections on a trail smoothly and with flow. I split the trail into 3 segments and we began working on the sections within each before linking them all together. rain began to fall heavily and Andy's mental skills began to show as he had concerns about slipperiness but this soon disapeared as he used his new skill set to control grip and confidence grew.
We ended our session after a few complete runs of the trail as Andy got smoother and smoother.
A great session and I look forward to working with Andy again.
perfect illustration in the vid!
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