Lee Parks Total Control ARC

[dave42]

My fiancee and I took Lee's level 1 course a little over a week ago and would like to share our impressions. I know some of the guys here have taken it before; please feel free to hop in and tell us what your thoughts are.

Our class met up outside of Camp Pendleton's gate at 7:30am on a Saturday. First order of business was checking and adjusting our tire pressure. As a whole, our class had some pretty experienced riders. I've been riding for over 10 years and I think half of the class was in the same boat. One is a current MSF instructor, a couple of guys have been riding for 20 years, then there's my fiancee, who's been doing actual riding for a little over 3 months (although she does about 350 miles per week). This brings up an interesting point that was noted later in the day.

Out of roughly 15 bikes we had 1 Ninjette, maybe 4 supersports, 2 superbikes, a few sport touring bikes, a goldwing, some other sport bikes such as a Ninja 650, a Ninja 1000, etc. No cruisers this time around. The ninjette's set to 28psi while the 600's (including my own) were set to 30 to improve grip. After that was sorted out we started our classroom session, followed by range time, followed by more classroom lectures, then more range time, with some additional exercises thrown to introduce and reinforce some concepts introduced during the lectures.

The first exercise we did was throttle control. If you've read the book you know what's coming; the main focus is to keep smooth and manipulate throttle without upsetting the suspension. After we're used to that trail braking in straight lines was introduced. Each of the exercise introduces a concept that was basically rolled into the next, and before long we had our classroom session on cornering, then started our first turning drill on a 40-foot circle. First looking through the exit was emphasized, then more classroom session on locating turn points and the "close your eyes and grab the water bottle" exercise. That was fun and surprisingly easy once I stopped trying to visualize myself walking to the water bottle 15 feet away with my eyes shut.

The meat and potatoes of the class was cornering technique and body positioning. In the book Lee had outlined a 10 step procedure for executing a turn. While that is a pretty long list, by the end of the class I had that burnt into my brain enough that even now when I'm on the street I'd start muttering "reposition foot... preposition body... outside grip... locate turn..." to myself every time a turn is coming up. We turned left, instructors gave us feedback, turned left some more, got some more feedback, turned left some more, repeat until we got better, then turned right, got mad at myself for forgetting stuff, received more feedback, and so on. Towards the end of the day we started working on turning left, straighten up without repositioning bodies, turned left again, reversed directions, then s-curve turn drills before wrapping up for the day.

There were a couple of things that I really had problems with from riding only on streets for extended periods of time without going on tracks (last time I went on a track was like 10 years ago). Since I'm always worried about getting nailed by a car that I somehow didn't see, I tend to keep my eyeballs scanning all over the place in front of me until I was at the turn point, then as I started to turn I started looking for the exit. That's a bit late and I eventually started doing what I was supposed to, which is looking for the exit 15 feet or so (at under 30mph) before I hit the turn point. I had to really work on it to break that habit.

Another thing that I was tripping up on was because I did a good amount of gymkhana drills in the past year, my thighs now automatically clamp to the tank when I was turning. That in turn locked my feet on to the pegs enough that I was still having problems repositioning my feet at the end of the class. The balls of my feet were already on the pegs but I wasn't loose enough to reposition my toe to the outside of the peg, and that ended up preventing my hips from opening up. I'm getting better now, but there's still a lot of work to do. At least my upper body loosened up after a while and I started looking into the turn more, which lead to faster speeds and more predictable lines; this pic was taken as I was coming out of a lean:



The real funny part was that my fiancee, the person with the least amount of time spent on a bike, also the person with the smallest bike, was the only one who dragged knees during the class. Like I said before, most of us have been riding for a while, and she showed all of us up:







Lee predicted this before we went on the range for the first exercize too; most of us ended up picking up bad habits for one reason or another, and the more time we spent doing the same thing, the harder it is to break out of them. Do I really have 10 years worth of riding experience, or do I have 1 year of learning and then spend 9 years repeating the same thing? I think that's the one thing I'll always remember now that I've seen the effect of that first-hand and I'm going to really make an effort to go to a class or a track once a year at least. Starting next year. Have a wedding to save up for first.

Lee was there with 2 instructors for our class and they were all very knowledgeable and patient enough to put up with all of our questions. As busy as they were, they stuck around talking to us until we finally left at around 8:30 in the evening even though the class was supposed to be over at around 6. I highly recommend checking out the course and can't say enough good things about it.

(Hey Alex, I hope I didn't post this in the wrong section)

[fishdip]

Is it just me or dose it look like she is trying to drag knee to hard?

[Racer x]

I took both levels of the corse. Totally loved it. Later when I worked in a motorcycle shop. I practiced in the parking lot. I highly recommend it.

[Toly]

Yup, that's a great course. BTW, it's easier to drag a knee on the Ninjette than other bikes. Also having less bad habits to undo helps
Congats!

[Motofool]

Great post, Dave !!!

Could you explain this a little more?

Originally Posted by dave42

.............then more classroom session on locating turn points and the "close your eyes and grab the water bottle" exercise. That was fun and surprisingly easy once I stopped trying to visualize myself walking to the water bottle 15 feet away with my eyes shut..........

[Panda]

Thanks! I think I'll take it now.

[CC Cowboy]

If she had longer arms she could drag an elbow.

[dave42]

Originally Posted by CC Cowboy

If she had longer arms she could drag an elbow.

Man ain't that the truth.

Hernan, the exercise here I think is to help you stop focusing on the turn point once you've located it so you can start looking for the exit. This is what we did:

Stand up, and put a water bottle right in front of your feet. Look at it, see where it is, close your eyes, then bend down and grab it. Nobody missed it in my group of 5.

Move the bottle to about 5 feet away from you. Look at it, close your eyes, and go pick it up. Some of the guys started missing it. I didn't.

Move the bottle to 15 feet away. Look at it, close your eyes, and go pick it up.

The tendency on the 3rd scenario is that you'll start counting steps, visualizing where it is, and a lot of times basically visualize your position in relation to the bottle as you're walking. The end result of doing so is everybody fell about a foot short of where they're supposed to be except me (I'll bring this up later on a follow up). Lesson here is once you know where it is, anticipating it will more than likely make you end up acting too early. Just leave it where it is and turn your head from spotlight mode (focusing on the bottle) to floodlight mode (look for the exit and pay attention to your surroundings).

[Panda]

What are the gear requirements for the course?

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by dave42

..........Lesson here is once you know where it is, anticipating it will more than likely make you end up acting too early. Just leave it where it is and turn your head from spotlight mode (focusing on the bottle) to floodlight mode (look for the exit and pay attention to your surroundings).

Excellent, thanks !!!

[g21-30]

Originally Posted by Panda

What are the gear requirements for the course?

http://www.totalcontroltraining.net/HTML/FAQ.html

[dave42]

It's now been a little over a week since we took the course and although I haven't had time to go to the local twisties yet I've done 3 short practice sessions to keep sharp. Here are some things that I've noticed:

I stopped turning on increments after the class. Before the class my tendency was to go into a turn by slightly pressing on the inside bar then continue to increase until I felt the line was correct. Now, I decide where the turn point will be, look at the exit of the turn, then flop the bike over into the lean and that's it. If something is on the pavement and I need to change my line, I'll change it. Other than that I really don't need to do anything else. Flop into the lean, throttle, pressure on the outside grip, and I'm out.

I also started paying a lot more attention to my feet after the class. Still need to work on positioning but I'm getting better. Also need to start sitting further back in the seat to give myself more room.

This is not to say I don't have anything else to improve; there was a lot of information to digest and I've been running everything through my head and re-evaluating everything I'm doing wrong. I still need to work on looking through turns more since I have over 10 years of bad habit to break, specifically not stopping my head once I spot the exit in the corner of my eyes. I really need to have my nose squared up to the exit so I can see what's outside of it.

Another thing is I tend to pay too much attention to repositioning my body and forgetting everything else. Probably because I'm not used to doing that so I don't give myself enough time to get set up, resulting in rushing everything when I'm trying to turn. This is probably also made worse by my tendencies of not overly-anticipating turn points. That water bottle exercise I posted about in the reply above? Everybody that day fell short on the last step because they were anticipating it. Me, I overshot it. I tend to push the envelope quite a bit and see how far I can get away with things, and while that's fine in some aspects, it'll probably get me into more trouble than I can handle eventually. Case in point: I leaned over too far for the speed I was going during my last practice this past weekend, now I'm waiting on another new left mirror to show up in the mail. Lesson learned: don't go that far at 15 mph.

[CycleCam303]

That's cool. I liked his book. I still think his explanation of body positioning is the best. A little excessive on the street though. I'm jelly of your fiancé. I can't drag knee on the ninjette. And Dave you should become a road racer. Not being scared to find the limits means you'll be much faster than most amateurs...you might not last long though lol.

[dave42]

Yeah Cam I can just see the parts bill adding up... I should probably wait until we move to a place with a garage to do anything fun though. Having to fix stuff in our apartment's car port kinda sucks since my tool bench and tool chests are all in the livingroom right now, and moving our bikes into the livingroom for anything other than storage when we go out of town is not really doable with our furniture in the way.

And yes, I agree, it's excessive for the street. Which probably adds to my discomfort during the course since I've only done street for a long time.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by dave42

......Lesson learned: don't go that far at 15 mph.

..........and if you do, over-steering will reduce the radius of turn (if the front tire's patch can stand it) and could save your mirror.

[dave42]

I'll just take off the stupid mirror next time before I start a practice round. 2nd time I broke the left mirror.

[Slick_Stevo]

I took that course up here in Toronto at the beginning of June.

Lee is a great guy with tons of skills... but my take on the course was a little different from yours..

Maybe it was the way the course was set up and all the other riders around me plus I was a little nervous cause most of the other riders had way more experience than me and were on bigger bikes, and it was raining. I left there feeling that they criticized more than they helped.

On the other hand, I have since done 2 and 1/2 days of track school and feel that some of the basics that were taught at Total Control have helped me.


Oh and btw.... in the second picture her foot is off the peg pointing down...not good