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Need to improve your riding? 23 sessions later. An e-book review. “23 Sessions Later: The freeriders guide to mountainboarding” is written by Ryan Saunders, owner, editor and long time writer for MountainBoard.net, and is a downloadable tutored program. How to start, how to improve and develop, and how to push yourself towards a happy riding future. In short, a ‘how to a be a good or better rider’ book. Not designed to be read in one go however, it uses a focus-based, goal oriented approach- taking the form of 23 training sessions you tackle independantly. Ryan has created these 23 steps to take you from total-novice to gnar-shredder, or, to improve your game if you already ride. Freestyle and competition are not mentioned here, this is about you and your general free riding; earthy advancement and soul carving encouraged. The manual itself is 40 pages long, concise, and is not pointlessly over-illustrated - so won’t milk your printer. The pics used are relevant to the page and include a few cool riding shots but are largely incidental. Some diagrams may have helped newbies here, but the focus is on getting out and just doin’ it. It reads really well. If you’re aware of mountainboard.net, you’ll know Ryan is a passionate writer as well as rider, and his writing style is a pleasure to read. Punchy pointers and meditative statements work well to make you feel the ride, as does the open-ended nature of listening to experience - ultimately, it’s up to you – “ your style is unique, and that’s what makes it real. Don’t try to ride like everyone else, mountainboarding is open to each of us for our own personal interpretation” Handy ideas and advice gives encouragement to your goal for that lesson. Breaking each session into ‘Objective’, ‘location’ and a description of the training gives you a real program of intent. The first 8 or so sessions are covering the basics like ‘co-existing with gravity’, looking closer at your board & bindings, then turns and terrain. Speed wobble, carving and successful powerslides are tackled in the middle section, along with an interesting tire-inflation exercise and post-ride maintenance ( too often neglected! ). There could have been a little more practical advice here, such as tips on 90ing in, tic-tacking, nose/tail rolls, pops/ollies, and scrubbing speed, but pretty much everything else is covered and text is informative and interesting at all times. Sessions 15 through 23 are The Money however; the ones that will inspire and add to your enthusiasm as a rider. With ace titles like ( session 17 ) 'Riding the Moment' and ( session 20 ) 'Negotiation with Elevation', this is the mind games section. Ryan’s prose is creative and accessible and comes into it’s own in these later entries. They have great descriptions and he sometimes comes across as some kind of wise old mountainboarding Morpheus or Mr. Miyagi. One of many examples possible, from session 16 – (Fuel your Ride, Not your Fear) “Feel the adrenaline building up and focus on it…Search the emotions that are now flowing in for a negative feeling, a doubt or hesitation maybe…(then) switch to a positive feeling and focus on it so that you push out of your mind everything else. Fill yourself with this emotion and then add it to the rush of adrenaline.” This sums up using nerves ( excitement + fear + adrenaline ) positively and perfectly. The next session, ‘riding the moment’, uses more zen-like advice: “…focus on the present, on each bump as it passes under your board, on the feeling of dirt giving way beneath your tires…” All good stuff, not too long, and fun to read and re-read. After reading it through repeatedly myself, I realised the only fair way to review it would be to actually put it into practise and go do some riding, and do you know what? It worked. We took our boards and 23 Sessions and practiced mountainboarding. We all got a bit more focused than normal, put more effort in to technique, and challenged ourselves. For instance, I hardly ever ride switch for long purely because it doesn’t feel natural. I’ll always pop back round before going far, so I did loads of runs switch, forcing myself to be different. I later did a nice run where ( for a few seconds ) I forgot what was my normal stance was; that’s never happened before... sweet! Dedicating yourself to actually doing the exercises laid out for that day will undoubtedly force you into tackling the issues within your own riding, and definitely spur you on. ( Smilie says: be at one with gravity or the ground might eat your head ) It is by no means comprehensive of the sport as a whole but it doesn't claim to be. I felt that it covers really good ground, and encourages those wickedly enjoyable freeride days, especially so for the fresh blood - those new to off-road wheelie boards. It would be awesome as a newbie - tackling it with some mates, sharing the sage advice of the e-book instructor. Best of all, you can take bits of it with you on your day out riding: you can't do that with a dvd. Certainly, it'd be a great gift from someone who knows you've just got into boarding, and then to spend the entire summer riding the program... So if you have the personal dedication and perseverance ( addiction? ), you will undoubtedly benefit from your $9.99 ( under 7 quid ) investment. That's much less than a lesson from a centre, and will keep you busy for so much more than an hour. Combined with other advice out there ( there's loads more on mountainboard.net, mbs.com and munroboards.com, as well as Remolition's own How-to's & tiposophy ), this is a truly valuable aid. I'm an experienced rider and i got a lot from it too. 23 Sessions will take you from humble beginner to potential thrasher, with your own style and skills. A great, useful mountainboarding product and great value for money to boot. Ride on, Ryan! read more blurb and get hold of a copy here words by Wilz |
