Return of the Jedi

Last friday Mark2, Dave and I got up very early to hit the M25 before the morning rush and headed up to Woburn Sands, near Milton Keynes, for an MTB coaching session with Tony "Jedi" Doyle of UK Bike Skills. I've been researching MTB coaching since our session with R Kelly and had come to the conclusion that Jedi was just what we need in terms of moving on our technical capabilities.
Fortunately this turned out to be correct! Tony focuses a lot of effort on the phsycological aspects of riding, although of course the technical skills need to be present too. This included working out our individual learning styles (all visual kinetic) so that he could tailor his approach to us. I think we had an advantage in terms of understanding (if not always doing) the basics of looking, footwork and VPC's etc that we had picked up from Richard.
Tony built on this with energy management, introducing us to the push and bilateral pumping. We then moved onto a small drop to implement these techniques.
Once he was happy we had got it he took us to a tabletop to practice and then onto a linked series of berms to focus on our cornering.
We had the advantage of a lovely day at Woburn and the new technical trails there certainly pushed us.
The finale of the day was a steep track, starting with steep loamy berms, running through a "black grade" drop of about 3 feet and finishing with a 7 ft double. Tony broke it into sections for us to session and then we finished with several runs at the whole thing. We all cracked the trail and came away very stoked!
As a part of the deal Tony asks you to keep in touch by mail and to ask him any questions which arise as you try to put the skills into practice day to day. He's keen that we share and discuss our learnings with our riding group (apologies to Dunnie and Andy who got the first taste of this on saturday!).
From my own perspective it didn't contradict the RK experience (they are both CTC qualified) but built on that foundation and took it to the next level. I also feel really confident at the moment, demonstrated by the fact that I took on the double on Donnie Darko for the first time on saturday without issue.
I would absolutely recommend that any of you guys who want to move your riding on look up UK Bike Skills and get yourselves up there. There is also a blog and some photos of our day on the link.
Rich