5 Reasons MTB Skills Coaching Matters

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Syd Schulz

EXCITING NEWS FIRST!!! I want to share that Macky and I will be leading a 2-day skills clinic with Lee from Lee Likes Bikes in Boulder, CO this October 6-7!! This clinic is going to be AWESOME. The first day will be at Valmont Bike Park, and the second day we will hit the trails and work on skills in real life trail scenarios. The clinic is capped at eight participants (with THREE instructors!) so you will get plenty of personal instruction. At this point, we’ve sold six of the eight spots, so the last two will probably go quick. And I would looooove to have some blog readers there :) :) ALL THE DETAILS HERE!

Okay, now I’m going to convince you that skills coaching really, really matters. For some reason, many mountain bikers don’t believe they need any sort of official instruction — you get faster by riding with faster riders and hitting bigger and bigger features, right? Well, yes and no. This philosophy isn’t necessarily wrong; it’s just inefficient, like teaching yourself to play the flute by watching YouTube videos. (Only it’s worth pointing out that mountain biking poorly has more serious consequences than poor flute-playing. I know because I’ve done both of these activities badly and only one of them left me with broken bones.)

With self-instruction, you might end up at the same level (if you’re lucky), but it will take a lot longer, and you’ll probably acquire some difficult-to-break bad habits. Macky and I have been working with Lee seriously for three years now, and it’s comical to me that I raced professionally for two years with no skills coaching. I don’t know what I was thinking, and if I had realized how much less crashing I would do with just a little bit of instruction from Lee, I would have started a lot sooner.

Macky and I led a group ride in Santa Fe this Sunday and stopped at the Chili Dog rock roll to demo proper form on steep rolls.

Here are 5 reasons mountain bike skills coaching matters (and will make a difference in your riding):

1. You don’t know what you look like on a bike. Chances are you think you look a lot better than you actually do. I am no exception to this rule. I definitely have moments where I’m like “that was rad” and then video footage shows otherwise. Unless you have way better than average body awareness, you probably think you’re in a much lower, more aggressive position than you actually are. Without a coach to provide some real time feedback, it’s really, really difficult to know what you’re doing. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can’t fix it.

2. There is a 90% chance you need to work on cornering. And it’s really hard to work on cornering by yourself. I would say cornering comes naturally to almost no one except maybe those annoyingly skilled people who grew up racing BMX. Assuming that’s not you, skills coaching is the way to go. There are a lot of different elements to proper cornering technique, and if I hadn’t spent months working on cornering in a parking lot (and getting critiqued by Lee!), I never would have been put all the pieces together on the trail. It takes time, practice and most importantly feedback from someone who knows what to look for, because, as was discussed in Point 1, you might think you’re doing it right, but you probably aren’t.

3. Proper riding form will make you safer, as well as more capable and faster (if you want to be). I’ve heard from beginner riders who are scared to take a clinic because they are afraid that they will be pushed out of their comfort zone and get hurt. I think this is a testament to the fact that there are a lot of not so great MTB coaches out there. If you feel like your skills coach is putting you in unsafe situations, the problem is the coach, not skills work in general. It’s possible to work on skills in a controlled, totally un-scary environment. In fact, that’s preferable because it’s hard (impossible?) to learn when you’re scared. Working on proper body positioning and safe braking with a coach will make you so much less likely to crash on the trail.

4. You will progress MUCH faster if you’re not getting hurt. The whole “if you’re not crashing, you’re not learning” spiel is bogus. In my experience, crashing usually makes people scared and discouraged. Sure, it’s nice to think that we learn from our crashes and don’t make the same mistake twice, but evidence points to the contrary. As humans, we’re pretty bad at making objective assessments of our own performance. Freak accidents do happen in mountain biking, but far less than we think — most crashes can be explained by bad body positioning, sketchy braking, lack of commitment and/or (the big one) bad decision making. Working with a skills coach can help you with all of these, because, as referenced in Point #3, they will help you work on skills in low consequence situations.

5. The things that will make you faster, more capable, and safer on a bike, are probably not the things that you’re practicing on your own. Before I worked with Lee, when I went out to “practice skills” I would usually end up working on manuals, wheelies, drops, hopping over logs, etc. Nothing wrong with this kind of play (in fact, it’s awesome!), but the reality is that I was working on flashy stuff while my basic skills were crap. I needed to be working on braking, cornering and basic position on the bike. When I started working with Lee I spent two months doing cornering drills EVERY DAY. I sent Lee videos and he analyzed them and sent them back, and then I tried to do better the next day. It was monotonous, but it worked. I think I was working with Lee for at least six months before we did anything that involved either of my wheels getting off the ground. My point is: my foundations were weak before I started working with a coach, and yours probably are, too.

Lee watching me in the pump track and probably telling me to get even lower.

Ask Syd: Is Online Skills Coaching Right for Me?

Posted on January 17, 2017 by Syd Schulz

Hi Syd! I’ve been enjoying reading your blogs for a while now. Thankyou for being so candid and honest. They’ve been helping me out with my own mountain biking challenges. The question i have is regarding Lee McCormack. I am looking to get stronger and more skilled on the mountain bike. I’m a masters level athlete and pretty new to mountain biking. I’ve got some fears and hesitations to overcome and I’ve got some local races that I’d like to smash outta the park compared to last year. Would you recommend Lee’s online mtb school for me? Thanks!! !

I decided to repost my answer to this question, in case anyone else in curious about whether online skills coaching makes sense for them.

Thanks for writing and glad you like the blog!

Short answer is YES, TOTALLY. Lee’s online school has literally been a lifesaver for me, and has helped me ride so much more safely (and quickly). Since I’m traveling a lot, it would have been impossible to get that kind of instruction in a clinic format.

I think the online program is especially good for anyone who wants to work through things slowly and in their own time, without the pressure of a clinic, but with the encouragement/support/tips from Lee and his entourage of incredibly skilled coaches. The FB group that he has created is a really encouraging environment with everyone giving feedback and working through things on their own time. The flip side, of course, is that you have to be self motivated and get out to practice on your own, but being able to share your progress with Lee and the group creates a good incentive to get out the door, even when the weather is nasty.

As for overcoming fears, I personally have found this kind of instruction — parking lot drills and analyzing form — to be really helpful, because these exercises are low consequence. Trying to learn on a trail, when you are already facing things you’re scared of, or maybe there’s a drop off one side so a screw up would be high consequence, is hard/impossible. If you practice the body mechanics and the skills before you get to the trail, you’ll be so much more comfortable and less afraid.

I have discount codes for Lee’s online school — 20offyear4Syd for a year of training or 10offmonth4Syd if you want to try it out on a monthly basis.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Syd

Click here to read an interview I did with Lee about his online school and his thoughts on being a better learner.

How I Learned How to Learn

Posted on December 1, 2016 by Syd Schulz

This is Part I of a little mini series on “learning to learn.” Part II will feature some pro tips on learning from professional skills coach Lee Likes Bikes, and Part III will give you a blow by blow of how I learned how to wheelie in a week. Sound fun? Cool, let’s get started.

So, first off — I consider learning itself to be a skill. Why?

Because I used to be bad at it, and now I’m not. I think we often confuse the actual process of learning with acquiring a skill. Just because someone learned something quickly doesn’t necessarily mean they are good at learning — it might just mean they already know how to do something similar, and therefore were able to pick up the new skill quickly. When you’re able to learn something completely foreign — through a repeatable process of seeking expert advice, practice and patience (PATIENCE PATIENCE). Then, and only then, do you understand how to learn.

In the past, while I would occasionally pick up a MTB skill quickly, my learning process was a certified disaster. If I didn’t pick something up in the first session, I immediately assumed I would never figure it out. I was hampered by a series of limitations (I don’t hit drops, I suck at riding wet roots, I don’t know how to bunny hop), and I would say things like “I don’t know how to bunny hop so I can’t do x,y,z” like that was a fixed state of things, and then I would pout. Okay, maybe not exactly, but you get the point.

I’ve since developed the following process for improving my ability to learn new skills, and that’s what I want to share with you today. The best part is this works for bike skills, but it always works for pretty much everything else. Win win.

Step One: Start where you are, not where you think you should be.

This is a big one for me. For the first two years I raced mountain bikes I was hampered by this feeling that I was playing constant catch up to girls who were way far ahead of me in every way. (Not going to lie, I still feel like this occasionally). This meant that if I was going to go out and practice my jumping skills, it would always be in reference to the massive drop that so-and-so hit and posted a picture of on Instagram. (Social media can be evil in this regard). And with that reference, everything was a failure. There was literally no way to succeed. To truly learn something, you have to accept your starting point, even if it is miles away from your end goal. Having a lofty goal is great, but not if it’s driving you nuts, and not if it’s based on what someone else is doing.

If you can’t hit drops, that’s cool. Start with popping off a curb. Learn the proper form and get some expert advice (more on coaching in Part II). When you hit a one foot drop, crack open a bottle of champagne. Celebrate that shit. Forget everyone else — just compare yourself to who you were yesterday.

Step Two: Embrace a growth mindset and ditch your limits.

I’ve written about growth mindsets in depth before, as have many other smarter people. The point is — all those “I can’t” statements are unhelpful AF. If you believe you can change, you can. If you believe you can improve, you can. Serious physical or health limitations aside, our biggest limiting factor is almost always our mind. Given enough time, enough patience, enough direction — you can do the things you see as impossible.

Step Three: Practice. Practice. Practice. Patience. Patience. Patience.

We’ve all heard of the 10,000 rule, and we’ve all heard a million renditions of “practice makes perfect.” And yet, a lot of us seem to feel like this doesn’t apply to us. If you’re like me, your internal narrative goes something like “it’s not that I’m not willing to put in the practice, it’s just that I don’t get it, I’m not making any progress, I’m just making the same mistake over and over again.” But the truth is that sometimes improvement is hard to see, and sometimes you have a do something wrong for days on end before it clicks and your body and mind start working together. If you want to learn something, do it everyday. It doesn’t have to be for hours on end — I find that 15 to 30 minutes of working on a new skill is ideal, as I don’t get too tired and frustrated — but it does have to be everyday. Be honest, how many times in your life have you practiced the same skill every day for a week, a month? If the answer is never, you aren’t tapping your potential to learn.

Step Four: Get to know your learning process.

I find that I go through a pretty similar cycle every time I try to learn a new skill. The first few sessions are great and I start to see improvement as I pick off the easy stuff, and begin to understand the theory of the skill. Then, once I understand the theory, I expect myself to immediately be able to execute it. After all, I can see myself doing it in my head, I understand what I’m supposed to be doing, so why is it so hard? Why aren’t I doing it? This phase is the hardest and it can go on for days, weeks, months. And it is frustrating. I usually hit a point where I get angry and want to give up. And then, just when I’ve relegated myself to never being able to do it, something clicks. Now that I’ve gone through this a few times, I’ve been able to recognize the signs, and while I still get frustrated, I embrace it as part of the process — and I know I have to push through a lot of rough practice sessions to get where I’m trying to go.

Step Five: Seek expert advice and be open to it.

This is probably the most important one on here, but it’s not achievable until you’ve embraced Steps One – Four. For example, if you refuse to accept your starting point, you probably won’t like the advice you get because your coach will be telling you to practice the pumptrack while you want to be hitting 30ft doubles. And likewise, if you have a lot of self-imposed limits, you will drive your coach up the wall with “I can’t” statements. And if you don’t practice, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

I’ll be going WAY deeper on the idea of seeking and accepting advice in Part II of this series, which will be all about skills coaching, why you should do it, and how to maximize the benefit you get from it. I’ll be bringing in some expert commentary from Lee Likes Bikes, so if you have any questions you want me to ask him, pipe up in the comments!

And make sure you check out Part II and Part III of this learning series.