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We had a skills training day yesterday. This is part of our Marshals training and we do some odd stuff that you normally would not do.

One of the exercises is a controlled fast stop. Not quite an emergency stop. What we want is to see you stop as quick as possible from the time you start braking. The point being that you never stop braking or you never jockey the brakes in the exercise.

The guys, really struggled. You had a start cone and I was stood beside 4 cones in a square. We told everyone to start braking and then continue until you came to a complete stop, the cones mean nothing.

The girls, no problem. They pulled brakes and stopped. The guys could not overcome this compulsion to stop in the cones and subsequently cocked the whole thing up time and time again

I’m not visualizing what you are talking about but we had a “stop fast” exercise in my class and I don’t remember seeing any difference between men and women that I can remember. Must have been a klutzy bunch of guys.

Did the same exercise and made the same observation back when I was an instructor. Women just make better students. They may not pick up the techniques as quickly as the males, but they are just better students and more receptive to learning.

Girls rule, boys drool

LOL

Gummiente wrote:Women just make better students. They may not pick up the techniques as quickly as the males, but they are just better students and more receptive to learning.

I think you are bang on with this, and no this is not just another sexist remark... I sincerely believe it's true.

I found that it only takes a slightly different phrasing to get better results from the guys... "Do you think you could get stopped faster next time?"

P

I don't see how a male or a female can be generalized to be better or worse students. It is totally up to the individual, not the gender.

havegunjoe wrote:I’m not visualizing what you are talking about but we had a “stop fast” exercise in my class and I don’t remember seeing any difference between men and women that I can remember. Must have been a klutzy bunch of guys.

I will try paint a picture.

ride your bike towards me, go into 2nd gear. Now pull in clutch, set up your front and rear brake levers and start to apply pressure. KEEP applying pressure until you stop. Ignore the cones in front of you.

The girls all managed to do this.

The guys all wanted to stop inside the box made by the cones. If I had taken the cones away, then I doubt that I would have had a problem. For some reason the guys kept aiming for the box, no matter how much I told them to ignore them. It was contagious, almost like a hive behavior that when one started they all did it. It was just one of those things that once started just was not going to get better. Like an actor having the giggles and screwing up the take every time

Isn't this something to do with the fact that men & women use left/right brain differently. I'm sure I have read something related to interpreting instructions.

Reminds me of my driving instructor who said he always had problems with medics/nurses. Seems that because we are so used to referring to patient left/right it caused difficulties particularly with reverse parking ie turn steering opposite direction etc.

It could have something to do with the male ego getting in the way.

Not that women aren't egotistical with other things. It's just that, as guys, we think we're supposed to be good at this stuff, right? Machinery, operating vehicles, yadda yadda. All that social conditioning, uh, malarkey.

I guess it's vaguely related to the whole "guys hate asking for directions" cliché.

I can vouch for sunshine229, she learned quite fast after her MSF training.