Hi All :-), New Here With Pleasure.

[Rtitan]

Hi all,

 

My name is Ronen acovi, I had just attended the last Las-Vegas 2-days camp levels 1 and 2.

Currently, I live in Pasadena, near LA, finishing my post-doctoral research at NASA-JPL. Originally, I came from Israel more than 2.5 years ego and I'm going back there to marry my fiancee, Sharon.

 

First I would like very much to thank everyone involved with CSS and the Las-Vegas camp.

In the past I heard a lot about CSS, I read Keith's books but never even dared to imagine what could I gained from the course itself.

 

As a scientist (I'm a PhD. in Astrophysics... ) I see how the phrase "The science of..." has been used for so many things and fields that any connection between them, the way the are done and science - doesn't exist, even if we stretch the term "science" to it's maximum capacity...

What I saw and went through during this camp, in my personal view, is indeed "The science of riding motorcycles".

The teaching methods, the practicing, the reviews, the second, third and even more trials to improve and get better and better up to the highest level of finness - was what I was used to only during my qualification process as a scientist.

Every action had a well established reason. Any point was reviewed from several aspects and I had learned so much not only about riding - but the physiology, psychology of riding and the processes that take place in our brains while riding (or driving).

 

Second, the patience, the smiles. The ability of the instructors to know and to teach and to observe - both in class and on track.

In class I had Dylan, Andi and Gary as instructors. All of them were very well prepared, even to deal with unexpected questions.

On track, I had Gary as my coach... I didn't have the opportunity to ride with other instructors so I'll say a few words about Gary, assuming with an intelegent guess that all the other coaches don't fall far from it:

At first was very much afraid of riding there... I was out on the still wet track the third rider in the first morning, first session watching the first rider low-side - live, and I had never experienced a track riding before. I was slow and had a lot of mistakes. Gary picked them one after the other, observed and recognized their source and had very useful suggestions during the briefings. On track, I used to find him passing me, tapping on the tail and demonstrating the right way to do things, letting me practice it fir the rest of the session. The ability to observe the source of mistakes and the patience were amazing, and very assuring.

Needless to say that I had one of the greatest experience there.

Back to Pasadena and my own bike - the improvement is very much felt.

 

Just a small story to share with you - I hesitated weather to go to the 2-day camp or not since currently I'm a bit tight with money... My fiancee urged me to go since once I'm back to israel, it will be much harder to do. So we returned two very good tickets for a U2 concert in June in order to pay the tuition. That was a very good choice :-), I'm very happy with it.

 

One more thing: As I said, I'm an astrophysicist and a physicist... During the camp I noticed that people had a lot of interest and questions regarding the physics of motorcycles. I'll be very happy to talk and answer question about it :-).

 

Nice to meet you all, and thank you for a great camp!

 

Ronen.

[warregl]

Hi Ronen,

 

Welcome to the forum and great post! That is high praise for the folks at CSS and I have to agree. While not an actual "rocket scientist" myself (as I am constantly reminded by my staff ), I totally agree with your opinion. I've spent entirely too many hours in ineffective corporate training to not appreciate such a well run operation. And your point about the patience and the smiles is well made. For most of us this is a hobby (habit?) that is done for the love, not the money so making the learning experience enjoyable as well as effective is truly appreciated.

 

Many thanks for sharing your story and be sure to do something nice for that fiancée of yours, she seems like a real keeper (as we say here in the South).

 

Best,

 

Carey

 

BTW…I've seen U2 several times and they are amazing but I think you did the right thing.