Core Skills Program Updates - Mountain Bike Confidence

Most of the core skills remain unchanged, but as I work with an ever increasing number of people I also figure out better ways of teaching different skills adn techniques.

Before I get into telling you about some course re-writes, I'm just going to say that I'd completely forgotten just how much goes into doing this coaching thing. Sure, you've got the exercise of continuously looking at the programs and seeing how they can be improved. But assuming you can actually get through the course updates (of which I actually only managed to finish two today!), there's also the exercise of updating the booking systems, getting the website aligned with the changes that have been made, fixing up the social media stuff followed by doing a wee bit of promotion.

I think I know why I've been avoiding doing it! However doing some program updates is well and truly overdue, as some of the courses I've been running have been the same since 2019 - three years ago! Admittedly most were rewritten in 2020 and I added a few new bits and pieces in 2021, but an overhaul has been well and truly overdue. Particularly in light of my recent announcement to focus on not only just working on riding skills, but the overall confidence of students as well.

Part of the goal of my coaching is turn serious riding faces into relaxed smiles - actually grins are better.

Anyway, I'd like to say that I'm completely finished but as I've implied, the exercise of rewriting programs is not a trivial one. So to begin with I've focused on updating the Core Skills Programs. Which is not to say that there has been anything fundamentally wrong with those courses - which happen to be the most popular of the classes I teach. In fact, the Core Skill A Line course remains mostly unchanged, but has been renamed to "Core Mountain Bike Riding Skills" to reflect it's very skills focused curriculum. Most of the changes have actually been focused on the Core Skills B Line course, and the orphan Intro to Mountain Bike Riding Skills.

I've always told people that have inquired that the Core Skills B Line program was really for riders who wanted to improve their confidence through learning more mountain bike riding skills. And before that level, the Intro to MTB Riding Skills was originally a course designed for people that had very limited to no off-road riding experience. That all changed with the Gold Coast City Council decided to sponsor the Active and Healthy Come and Try Mountain Bike Riding program. Since that time, I've struggled to find the exact place where the Intro course fitted.

It takes confidence to learn to drift - and lately I've finding that I have had students both in the Intro and the Core B class that have wanted to do this.

My previous efforts to make the Intro to MTB Riding Skills course fit better haven't been unsuccessful. However there does feel like there's been a bit of overlap. So I've finally bitten the bullet and decided to merge the Intro to MTB Riding Skills course and the Core Skills B Line program together - taking the best of both to create the Mountain Bike Confidence program.

But it's not just a case of taking the skills from either program and merging them together. I've also updated the program to make it more of a practical "learn on the trails" type approach. One of the things I've learned over the years of coaching is that nothing helps your confidence more than actually trying out skills on a real feature out on the trails - and so that's where this course will focus on teaching riders new skills.

The Mountain Bike Confidence course is centered around helping you to understand what's possible on two wheels and to show you that many skills are well within your capabilities. You may even find that some of those skills are transferable to other life activities.

So if you or someone you know really enjoys mountain bike riding but are finding some parts of being out on the trails somewhat intimidating, the Mountain Bike Confidence course could be for you. For more details on what the program covers, download the course curriculum or get in touch with me and we can have a chat.

And for those of you that are interested in the updates to the other courses, specifically the Flow level programs - they're in the works. Hopefully it won't be too much longer before I get at least one of them finished soon!