started off downhill and just got worse from there. I lasted 2.5 hours before I had completely blacked myself out.
they wouldn't let me ride the suzuki tu250 because I would have to one foot it. the other bikes with close to under me pegs were out because I was on tip toes. I ended up on a honda with forward pegs, but I don't think it was the rebel, I don't know. when they taught us the back brake, it was the first of many times one of the instructors had to help me. My foot was straining to turn in enough to get on it without digging my knee into the side of the tank. I actually don't think I used it at all today and I'm not sure they even noticed. another one on one time was my bike didn't like neutral. it would go to first/second, anything but. I digress....
learning the friction zone by rocking the bike back and forth...simple. no problem. learning it by walking with the bike...i stalled a couple times due to not giving it enough throttle but got passed that. or so i thought. I also VERY quickly learned the awful habit of flinstone walking when coming to a stop. I never did it before because I never thought to since I can only put one foot down on my bike. so I didn't learn my friction zone by doing said flinstone walking.
Once we started actually going around the course is when I started really getting down on myself. I couldn't help but constantly feel like I was slowing the other 10 people down because I needed more time on each exercise. each time I messed up, wether with stopping while doing the flinstone walk, being wobbly as heck trying to get my feet on the pegs at first, being told I was going slow enough to use direct steering (so of course the next time around that's what I do and I direct steered myself in the opposite direction towards a curb/grassy area. I got myself stopped a bit away from it.) so I went to counter steering the next time (the good thing about being there, I now know what that feels like!) and did it fine. but of course the next time I went outside the cones while doing it. then we went to upshifting into second and third gear. I can shift up and down just fine, but everytime I messed up something else little I was concentrating on that and forgetting where I was supposed to up/downshift because there were multiple places we were going all over between the three gears.
the one instructor didn't want me to leave but he understood that the way I was feeling it wasn't going to work. I wasn't having fun, I was downing myself for being the worst person there, and while I hadn't reached the danger zone of being kicked out, I knew that I needed a slower pace and more one on one instruction. My anxiety about group learning got the best of me, I tried my best to not let it, but bit by bit it niggled itself in there like I was worried it would. Unfortunately, there is no one on one instruction from the state and you aren't allowed to practice on the courses do to insurance liability. so now I have to figure out somehow to have someone that knows their stuff to help me practice so I can pass the bmv test/or retake the course.
so a waste of time and money for the most part, it just wasn't working for me. basically what I learned today aside from the countersteering, I had already done on my ninja, with far less anxiety and far less hiccups, all while having fun.