A trip from Thailand for Simon

 Simon lives in Thailand and decided to combine a trip here with a skills session, so we set a date and today was the day. On meeting we had a coffee and chatted about his previous riding experiences and his aspirations for the session. I started with my skills check and found he had missing looking and body positioning skills which made him run wide in corners and also rode with his head down in another check. I changed his set up and showed him why then off we went to apply the mental and physical skills to the drop technique. It didn't take Simon long to ride all  the two largest drops and before long we were on the skills trail itself. I broke the trail into bite sized segments and we worked our way through each before linking them together. Pumping was used to gain speed from the trail and the speed was controlled by managing speed in the exits and entries to each section. Flat, bermed, off camber and switchback turns were linked to rock gardens, drops, fly out jumps and steps. Before long, Simon was riding the entire trail end to end and getting smoother and more controlled with each run. Any errors were now being self diagnosed and Simon knew why it was right or wrong and also how to correct it.
 We moved off the trail and onto the 6ft tabletop. In a few steps, he was sailing over it and landing perfectly. Simon remarked on how simple it all now felt and effortless. Jump and jump he flew over to cement the technique. For our final application of the skills set, I showed why it applies to hopping over logs on the trail which was something he struggled with before today but no longer and he was now unweighting both ends of the bike and timing it well too.
 Our session ended and we celebrated the session over a cold beer in the sun. A great end to an awesome day.
High5!