Time 7:45am-5:15pm
Day 3 began on the range. We ran through the remainder of the exercises and started worrying about our skills test.
That's right, the RCC's were going to be tested on the BRC. After all, it only makes sense that the Rider Coaches can perform the exercises and demo them in a way that shows good technique.
As the day wore on it became apparent that a few of our number were succombing to the dreaded box disease. All they could talk about was fear of not being able to do the box. They even practiced the box during breaks.
I find the fear of the box to be unfounded. It's simply another exercise and there is more than enough preparation to prepare you for it in the BRC... which granted we were only doing an abbreviated version of but we were all experienced riders. Furthermore, other than dropping your bike it's very hard to fail soley based on a bad box performance.
So as we finished the course we were lined up and run through the skills test. As a rider coach candidate you are held to a higher bar than the the BRC students. Furthermore, while you aren't graded here, you are expected to be readily demonstrating good riding technique. That's something that can actually affect you later.
Sadly I aquired 2 points during my exercise and didn't have the pefect score I desired. It happened in the quick stop for stopping 2 feet later than I should have stopped. On the other hand, given that my right hand hasn't fully recovered and that I had to relearn the use of my right arm... I'm totally calling it the accidents fault
We reviewed our scores individually and they told me that I looked amazing. There was room for improvement but there's always room for improvement. Sure one guy only recieved 1 point off but he has a good two decades of experience on me
. After lunch we met back in the classroom to experience the BRC classroom as students. We say an experienced instructor demonstrate many of the lessons and it greatly added to my appreciation of the course. Yet, we were quick to realize only 12 of us had returned. One of us had failed the skills test.
After the classroom overview we went over what will b ehappening the following week. We were assigned four lessons that we had to learn intimately to be able to teach to our students (aka other ridercoaches) as we went through the BRC again next weekend for peer teaching. We also went over our 60 question pre course homework assignment. We were told that this would serve as our study guide for our knowledge test the following weekend.
A skills test this weekend, a knowledge test the following weekend yet the third weekend remains a mystery. The instructors told us that we would be teaching a class of hand picked brc students that had been through the class a few times already but failed miserably. I have a sneaking suspicion that we will be teaching experienced rider coaches. They will most likely try to trip us up but you can be assured that I will rise to the occasion.
However, after that things began to smooth out.