Over the past two months I have been working with Breeze and Energise Me, running Rider Development sessions for ladies who want to feel more confident and able on their bikes.
When we were younger we could pretend and visualise anything we wanted, we could be dragon slayers or in a rock band. This ability to imagine is what helps children to learn. When I coach children we often talk about cones being trees and wiping mud off our shoes to visualise the bottom of the pedal stroke.
Going from coaching children to adults was a new challenge. As adults we tend to be less imaginative which can make learning feel harder.
I adapted my coaching techniques to accommodate for the way the ladies wanted to learn, using short demonstrations with plenty of practise and time for questions and feedback on how they felt. It was interesting, usually if you ask children if they have a question very rarely will they say yes, so I have to ask a lot of direct questions to check for understanding, the ladies were very different. If they were not sure they would double check they had understood correctly by asking questions, which as a coach was very helpful and meant we had plenty of practises and reinforcement of techniques.
The three sessions where all about building skill and confidence, so each week we re-capped the coaching points from the week before and embedded them before moving onto the next skill.
Over the three weeks we covered braking, cornering and gear selection thinking about real life situations where these techniques would be used. The skills section was followed by going out in a led ride to put it all into practise. This proved a winning formula, it worked very well and showed the importance of programs like Breeze to help develop grass roots cycling.
The feedback from the three weeks was good and I am hoping to do more sessions very soon.
To enquire about these coaching sessions please contact Hannah