Persistence And Art Of Motorcycle Riding
Our coach suggested that she may want to quit the course and move down to a lower level. What did she do?
She came back the next day and you won’t believe what happened.
Before I get to that – I want to apologize. I have been delinquent this week. It is already Friday and this is only my second article of the week. The summer at RevCon has been insane (in a good way) with almost double the enrollment in our HockeyStrong training group compared to last year, so we have added another training session in the morning. Plus we just added a new NHL player to the training roster, plus more of our athletes are coming home from University and we still have all our on-going clients to see and it has been busy! Busy, but loads of fun!
I am working to keep up with you all, because I know your off-season is important too, but this week I am definitely behind. I am in Colorado Springs for the NSCA Hockey Training Clinic until tomorrow and then I will fly the red-eye home. The next week it is off to Vancouver where I am running an off-ice training workshop for goalies. This is a small group session so I can go through step by step how to structure your off-season training to maximize your stability, strength, speed and stamina – we will walk through every step. I think there are a couple spots left if you are ready to stop making excuses and take action (like Stacey did in the article below) – – Just CLICK HERE – if the info page comes up for you, there is space. If the page does not come up, then the workshop is full.
Don’t think I am all work and no play these days – I came out to Colorado a day early to get hiking with my buddy Andy up in Rocky Mountain National Park – it was a beauty of a day!
GRIT in ACTION
If you missed it, Paul and I did our motorcycle licenses last weekend. At the beginning of the course our
coaches/instructors asked everyone what experience they had riding motorcycles and why we were there.
Most people had ridden at least a dirt bike before. I had never been on a motorcycle in my life – they were very
taboo in our household – and there was another woman, Stacey, who had ridden on the back of her husband’s for
the past 18-years and now she was ready to drive her own. We were both pretty nervous.
We were partnered up for the first few drills where we had to push each other on the motorcycle and learn to
put on the brakes and make a turn to the left and right. We couldn’t start the engine until everyone got these
down.
Lots Of Reasons To Quit
Very long story short – Stacey was WAY out of her comfort zone. She did not find success on any of the
exercises at first, everything came hard for her. She got pulled out of the main group and one of the instructors
had to work individually with her on the basic skills while we were all learning to shift gears up and down.
Don’t get me wrong, I found it challenging too, I was concentrating like crazy and still had the occasional full body spaz, which had my bike lurching back and forth down the course. But Stacey was getting dominated by the bike. She confessed to me after the second day that she was close to tears five times that day and if she is anything like me, saying I was ‘close to tears five times’ means I actually cried about seven times.
At the end of that first 9-hour day on the bike the head instructor/coach even suggested that Stacey not come back the next day and instead drop down to the lower level course that did not end in a test for the license, it was just an ‘Introductory’ course.
The next morning Stacey was back, but still unsure of what to do. I am sure she felt that everyone was thinking ‘what’s she doing back here’. I encouraged her to keep going andso did a few others and keep going she did!
You know what? Her skills were WAY better the second day – she relaxed a little and trusted her training – she was not trying to force the bike, she was working with it. There were still moments, but such an improvement!
At the end of the day when test time came – with everyone else in the course watching – Stacey did it! She did
not ride the course perfectly, none of us did (I lost marks for being too slow on one drill) but she passed. When
we looked at her score sheet she lost points on the first three tests, but then settled down and rode the rest of it
perfectly.
So, I think you are seeing the point here. It is okay to be out of your comfort zone. Stacey was not an athlete,
she was someone’s Mom and this was a very new experience for her, but she found it – she gutted it out and
didn’t listen when someone suggested she could not do it.
If she can do it, you can certainly do that. Not everyone passed – one of the participants who had done great all
weekend let her nerves get the best of her and figuratively crumpled during the test – I am not sure she passed
a single skill. Stacey could have still failed too and that would have been disappointing, but it would have still
been awesome that she pushed through.
So I am not saying you can do ANYTHING you will not all make it to the NHL, some of you won’t make it to
the top level of men’s league and some will not make it to AAA hockey. What I am saying is you can TRY to
do anything and just see what happens, but be prepared and find out for yourself.
The dream is free. The hustle is sold separately.
Cheers,
M
PS – remember there is no guarantee you will achieve all of your goals, but there is 100% chance you will fail if you don’t take consistent action day after day. You can just follow the recipe – it is simple. I have even done the work for you HERE