Mark made his way to me from Reading way and on a crisp, cold morning we started with my skills check. During this time I made set up changes and found looking and body position faults that needed correcting. We moved to our first technique, drops and I showed why the mental and physical skill sets applied. Immediately, Mark could feel the different that his new skills were making as he was landing perfectly and effortlessly.
From there we moved onto the skills trail and I broke the 14 sections down into bite size chunks so Mark could focus on small segments before joining them together. Pumping was the first technique and we used the gained free speed to link in a berm and flat corner. Marks body positioning was something he could feel as he generated a grip he hadn't had previous to seeing me. I added in a rock garden, that Mark required his mental skill set to ride and linked them to the following berm and switchback corners before going back to the start and joining them all together. I moved down to a fly out jump and showed why the skill set enables simple airtime and we linked that to a more technical corner before once again, returning to the top and linking all the previous sections together using the correct braking areas.
I moved onto the end of the trail and worked on linking corners and drop offs together by line choice and braking technique which took some work but soon We were riding the entire trail end to end and the fluid control and new found confidence shone through on each run.
We moved onto what would prove to be the final technique of the session, jumping tabletops.
It took Mark's new physical but also his mental skills to be applied correctly but as commitment to his push blossomed he sailed over the tabletop with a big smile on his face. A few more clears and mental fatigue began to show and the session ended to keep him safe.
Great session!
Had a great time, learn't alot and have been trying to put everything into practice out on the trail :o)
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