Do you actually want to improve your MTB Skills? Learn the Brave Endeavors 4 pillars approach to improvement! Backed by research and experience, you can implement these 4 pillars on your own or with the help of a coach. Let’s dive in!

Beginner’s Mindset.
In order to improve, you must adopt a Beginner’s Mindset. This mental state of “newness” allows you to let go of past experiences, expectations, and attachment to outcomes. Open yourself up to trying and recognize failure is part of learning. You may mess up at least 180 times before you nail a new skill. Improvement does not happen immediately! Remember when you were a kid and everything felt new? There’s a reason kids learn at a much faster rate than adults. They are in a mental state of readiness. As adults, we are often faced with the expectation to already “know the things.” Opening ourselves up to newness and learning is scary! It takes bravery to say, “I want to learn. I want to improve.” The number one key to improve your MTB skills is to start with a beginner’s mindset!

2. Honest Progression

Just the way a good teacher does not start a multiplication lesson before students can add, don’t expect to be ripping corners or clearing root drops if you can’t ride with your feet supporting you more than your hands. Progression starts with taking an honest look at your current skill set. This is where a coach, friend, or even your phone can provide objective feedback.

As a mountain bike coach, I regularly encounter folks who want to learn to jump, ride drops, or corner at speed yet lack the fundamental ability to ride with heavy feet and light hands. In order to improve on the bike, you need to take an honest look at your skill set!

Evaluate your own strengths and weaknesses, then incorporate progression.

Pro Tip: Never underestimate the value of practicing the fundamentals!

To improve on the bike, start from the ground up. Your feet are your foundation. Yes, you have five points of contact on the bike (2 feet, 2 hands, 1 butt) however in order to progress your skills you must have a solid foundation that originates in your feet! If you skip the basics it’s like building a house on a shaky platform.

When your foundation is solid, it’s time to progress! Everyone has a different starting point so you must find the challenge appropriate for you. But the key to honest progression is to start with small obstacles or challenges and progress in a purpose driven manner. For example, let’s say your goal is to ride up and over rocky/chunky obstacles.

1) Ride over the stick you would have ridden over without a second's thought. Practice driving down through your feet in order to unweight the bike. Observe what you do with your body, what happens with the bike, and notice what your inner dialogue sounds like.

2) Progress: Ride over a bigger stick.

3) Progress: Put the stick on a downhill. Replace the stick with a log. Add a turn after riding over the log…

4) Continue in this manner for 20-60 minutes, then go do something else and return to your progression another day!

Slowly increase the challenge. Focus on your successes and learn from your mistake. Keep the beginner’s mindset front and center! With focussed, honest progression you will be amazed at how quickly your skills improve!

3. FLOW. Sinking into a flow state is one of the best ways to improve on the bike! Many of us, especially women, have a hard time turning off our brain. Thoughts flood in like waters during a storm, muddying the clarity we long for. Thoughts such as:

I can’t ride over that log because it’s too big.
I’m embarrassed to even try
Last time I crashed.
What if I get stuck…
I have a million things to do at home…

It can be really hard to turn off the flood of negative self-talk, especially if you’re standing still. One of the fastest ways to sink into flow is through challenges that are slightly outside your comfort zone! Find your flow through the movement of progression (Step #2). Be present. There’s no phone. No work “to-do list.” It’s you and your bike. Through movement, your brain starts to quiet, and you become 100% focussed on the task at hand. You find your own form of meditation, or flow state, and re-write your brain’s pathways with thoughts AND experiences of “I can” rather than “I can’t.” Riding in a flow state will not only help improve your MTB Skills, but your confidence as well.

“Confidence occurs when the insidious self-perception that you ‘aren’t able’ is trumped by the stark reality of your achievements.” - The Confidence Code (Kay and Shipman)

4) Deliberate Practice “AKA: Sessioning.”

Don’t expect to improve a skill by practicing it once on your way down the trail. Actively seek challenges and features to repeatedly practice. Ride the root drop 8 times. Then ride it 18 more times! Ride the corner, then ride back up and do it again. And again. If you want to improve on the bike, you need to put in repeated and focussed efforts. In academia this is called “deliberate practice.” In mountain biking, we call this “sessioning.” Find features on the trail and session them. Pro Tip: Pick a number of attempts in order to keep things safe and fun!

Shuttling or lift accessed mountain bike parks are a tremendous learning tool! You won’t tire yourself out with the climb so you’ll have energy to practice your skills on the way down.

When faced with an obstacle that appears too big or too scary we return to step #1) Adopt a beginner’s mind, expect to fail, and know that messing up is part of the growth process. #2) Progress with intentional and manageable challenges and sink into flow (#3). Repeat the process (#4)!

Through this four step process you will experience the quintessential “ah-ha” moments in mountain biking and improve your skills!

Bonus #5) Take a Skills Clinic

If you’re serious about improving as a rider, there’s no better way to improve than with personal instruction. Join a Brave Endeavors clinic and you begin with the end in mind. You state your goals and we work to develop a process best suited for you, to find success. Obstacles and challenges are tackled from a mindset and skill perspective. Often you have the skill to ride a feature, but lack the confidence. Other times you genuinely have no idea what to do with your bike or body to get around that dang corner, over those crazy roots, or up and over the jagged rock. Improve both your mental confidence and your physical skills with coaching! Find success on the mountain bike and get that ear to ear grin that leaves your cheeks sore and your fist flying in the air with pride. Brave Endeavors is more than a MTB Skills Clinic. It’s an opportunity for you to rewire your brain through physical and mental accomplishments, increase your confidence, embrace new challenges, and ultimately, Be More Brave!

Ready to start? Explore MTB Clinics HERE.

No clinics available where you live? Join the phenomenal MTB coach Joanna Yates for a 30 day skills challenge that can be done from your home, regardless of where you live!