After a bit of a hiatus, we got back to the lessons. I also put some frame sliders on which is good because it appears she has gotten over her fear of letting it hit the ground.
Between the rain and some construction going on at the college, our normal practice spot has been unusable. I like that spot and have not found another that has the space to really practice while not adding to her anxiety with traffic and people. To be honest, I think she needed another challenge. Practice timing stops, shifting up and down and general use of the friction zone on the clutch. Practice, practice practice.
As a side note, before we go out to practice, I put together an outline of what we should do. I focus on what her strengths have been to get off to a good start and what her weakness' are and how to practice them or change the lesson to make it stick better. For the most part, it works. One thing that has me questioning my strategy is when she gives an anxious response to new stuff. Part of what makes me effective (I think) is being able to identify where her head is at and what would it take for me to be confident and successful at a given challenge. When people get full of anxiety, that condition takes on a life of its own and disengages the intellectual parts of the brain. Its very rare that happens with me but when it has, I have to take a step back and usually go at it another day. So her response to my new lessons are always anxious which makes me second guess my methods, should i back this down by half? Turns out my definition of anxious is different than hers and she really means a healthy dose of nervous. We talked about how I interpreted her reaction and asked how she thought the lessons were overall. I took it too literally, discussing it made me realize it was a normal expected amount from doing something new. This (conversation) really has taken my coaching skills up a notch.
Anyway, we couldn't use the college parking lot, I really thought it was time to get her out of the parking lot anyway so the plan was to ride laps around my neighborhood. Its a mile of so with blind curves and hills with a stop sign. The focus was on timing her stops and getting smoother shifting. Getting out of the driveway would be our first challenge, it slopes down about 10ft theres a little curb and then my across the street neighbors yard, you have to make a sharp left turn on to the street. I demonstrated a few times narrating through intercoms. She was making me nervous being so nervous and all I could see was the mailbox, tree and house across the street. I had her shut the engine off and I pushed her until the slope, she controlled her speed, made the turn and we're off.
After several laps around the hood without incident it was time for a break. She has to come up the hill. I showed her how to use the back brake to hold and using the clutch ect, Too slow and fell over. Ok, good got that out of the way. Picked it up got back on and motored right up. Cooled off it was time to go again, did some laps, more sloped stop sign, driveway practice it was time to move on.
The road my neighborhood is on is a nice 45mph, mostly straight approx 3 mile rd with a corkscrew. Theres 2 large aprons at either end to pull over and turn around. She did great and I could her having fun with the increased speed and the wind cooling everything off. She loved it. Cars going by, no panic. Whew! Thats a win. On the same road past my neighbor hood it turns in to a 5 mile deals gap. Tight twisty up down, its a roller coaster. My thought was not much traffic and with her confidence at an all time high, lets go. No drama, good pace (hard to tell where she is looking though) and having fun despite way more traffic than I anticipated. I didn't like it but she was good so we went. This road tees into another deadend road. The stop sign is on a slope. In between cars, I demo'd what to do. Again, nervous, anxious but she is doing it. First thing is to turn around in the space of the street and... too slow wobbles over and down.
Picked it up, took a breath and followed her back home. Overall, she did way better than I had anticipated, had fun and most importantly, got a taste of why we do this. The good stuff. She was beaming with confidence and blew off the drops. It won't be long and it will be time for a track day.
ETA, apologies for the wall of text, this is actually the cliff notes version