Gavin's wife bought him a one to one session as a gift voucher for xmas and today was the day he was looking forward to.
The skills check showed me what was missing from his skill set and I made some set up changes too to help me enhance the new skills I began to install.
We began with drops and Gavin applied his mental and physical skills to land easier and smoother than ever before. Gavin's new body positioning and looking enhancements really paid dividends. I began to show why the same skill set could be used to style it too once in the air.
We moved to the skills trail and began working on linking the 14 sections on the trail together. Flat, bermed, off camber and switchback turns were linked to rock gardens, fly out jumps, drops, steps and pump bumps.
I worked hard on line choice too when linking drops into corners, which was something Gavin always felt out of control with and before long he was riding the entire trail end to end and using the correct braking areas too. Any errors were self diagnosed as he moved through to unconscious action.
After a few runs of the trail I decided to show Gavin why the skills set applied to jumping tabletops and gaps. The ease of it all really blew him away as he sailed over the 6ft tabletop.
Gavin then used his mental skill set to decide to ride the 6ft gap jump too and the same result occurred, landing perfectly on the transition. The heat of the day really drained Gavin and I was feeling the heat too as we called an end to a great session.
High5 Gav!
What an amazing day and not just for the weather. I was a pretty competent rider but as I've gotten older started to lose my confidence in my ability as I pushed my skills, no longer sure I was doing things right. The session I had with Tony has been an epiphany, he simplified all my action to create a compact group of skills I can take anywhere for any situation. Don't listen to the BS in the magazines and on the internet they over complicate and set you into bad habits. I'm still buzzing from the day and can't wait to set out on the trails. A big thanks to Tony and my wife for making my year so far.
ReplyDeleteHigh5!