Putting the spark into James's riding

James was given a voucher for a gift and came to me after reading recommendations online.
The skills check revealed some good habits that were bogged down by errors. Bike set up was altered and I began working on his footwork in corners and also looking and body positioning elsewhere too.
We began with drops and used the 3 isolated drops to focus on body position and looking and James began lading perfectly and the ease of it all really took him by surprise.
We then moved onto the trail and began working on pumping the trails undulations to gain free speed.





The trail contains fourteen sections and I worked with James on linking them together using the correct braking and pedaling areas. Flat, bermed, off camber and switchback turns were linked to drops, fly out jumps, rock gardens and steps. As we moved along the trail working on the next sections, we added the previous ones too and when riding them it all began to come together nicely. We worked hard on linking the drop technique to cornering too and the line choice involved. James was using his 4 mental skills questions that I teach to allow HIM to decide if and what to ride as he applied his new skill set. James began riding the entire trail end to end and any errors were recognized by himself now and the speed he was riding was noticeably faster than before and with each run it became smoother too.
Our last technique we worked on was jumping tabletops and for this I use a 6ft tabletop and once again James used both the physical and mental skills to get into the air and sail over the jump.
After a good few goes the wind changed direction and we ended the session right there as it is dangerous to jump in a side wind.
Great session James and I can't wait for your riding updates!