This weekend, I’ll be instructing the basic motorcycle riding course to newcomers for the last time in 2011, but oddly, unlike seasons before, I feel unusually sentimental. My 26th season as an instructor is closing. It’s probably the combination of PMS – no not that the female thing - “parked bike syndrome”. Yes motorcycling is closing down for the season and I’m rejecting it!
Students often ask, “Doesn’t this teaching ever get tiring? - no, not for me it’s eternally rewarding. My instructional experiences have taken me to training folks in the Caribbean and throughout Europe right back to Canada where it all began. I fondly remember when I took the licensing course and learned to ride- 1983, Dartmouth Nova Scotia. (*photo below shows me on rented Kawasaki 440LTD from Mic Mac Cycle.This is the first bike I took on the real road! Notice the helmet tied on? I took a male friend of mine for a ride! He was a tall fella, 6' 2" my first passenger.)
Students often ask, “Doesn’t this teaching ever get tiring? - no, not for me it’s eternally rewarding. My instructional experiences have taken me to training folks in the Caribbean and throughout Europe right back to Canada where it all began. I fondly remember when I took the licensing course and learned to ride- 1983, Dartmouth Nova Scotia. (*photo below shows me on rented Kawasaki 440LTD from Mic Mac Cycle.This is the first bike I took on the real road! Notice the helmet tied on? I took a male friend of mine for a ride! He was a tall fella, 6' 2" my first passenger.)
I doubt any rider ever forgets the time they learned to ride. I recall my instructors; not their names but their faces. They were great folks and one was a woman. To me this was normal, a woman instructor/rider. We had a blast! Instructors are urged to bring the ‘fun’ factor into training. I’m sure we’ve all said “are we having fun yet?” Humour greatly reduces stress or anxiety which some students may have. Then again, instructors are characteristically fun loving, adventurous nutty folks! And that week in Eastern Canada within the parking lot of that training course my life changed; I took to riding like a mermaid to the sea! Would you believe I was the one in the class who was consistently hollered at from across the parking lot - “Vicki! Slow down”!
A good instructor continues to hone one’s own self knowledge and riding skills in order to bring the best to the student. This fits perfectly with the passion – the advancement of knowledge! I recall when I first started teaching which wasn’t that long after I became a rider- I discovered the absence of mechanical know-how. I’d never ‘wrenched’ before. Immediately I enrolled into an advanced motorcycle mechanics course. It worked! I was able to bring even more shared knowledge to my students and engage better discussions with my, mostly male, peers. Plus, I could interject if hey were talking nonsense- as often guys do! *wink*. (pictured below, though poor quality, is me riding over the 'teeter-totter" part of rider training back then!)
No matter the character, culture, age or mindset of the student, my enthusiasm for bringing a learner into the total realm of motorcycling is nonstop! And my specialized focus to women riders, as a woman who has gone through the rungs in a ‘male directed sport’- transmits a broader (no pun intended) language for proficient, confident motorcycle operation.
So... here’s to the motorcycle training course finale of 2011! Here’s to the students, the newcomers this weekend who too, will make the very same discovery, motorcycle riding which to this day has continued to thrill me and give me “kicks” beyond …expression! Yes, thank you God for motorcycling!
