Martti Kuoppa is doing some great work behind the scenes with Toon Pakphum, helping Toon train ready for the contest, read on and watch the footage. Amazing!
“It is not an easy task to do a 100% no touch run at the competition. As a matter of a fact, it is quite rare in the Flatland game to see a 0 touch run. Sometimes we do see such runs but mostly performed by the riders in top 3.
Of course that is not the only thing to be taken into consideration as there are the judging criterias of Difficulty, Creativity, Variety etc. which also counts. But in my books, consistency should be valued very high if the other criterias are also in high level.
Having said all this, if the rider wants to place good at the contest the practice should be planned the way it supports the idea of doing a no touch run during the contest. And if the rider cannot perform a no touch contest run at the home spot, it is very unlikely for the rider to do a clean run at the contest (or even do a 1 – 2 touch run). In that case the performance at the contest would be relying on luck. And if we want to make a good (or great) placing at the contest we don´t want to rely on luck.
The knowledge of the fact that you have done your homework properply and you have done your full run 100% flawless at your homespot (not just once but many many times) really holds you in the midst of the pressure you face during the contest. If you know you have not done the homework for the contests, of course the nervousness will do a lot of damage on your performance when you are in the pressure cooker (your 3 minutes on a contest stage), unless you get lucky and somehow manage to stay on your bike but again, I would not reply on luck.
What I´m doing with the riders I coach is something that removes completely the idea of being lucky at the contests and prepares the rider mentally and physically to perform the run in the middle of a highly stressfull situation. If then for some reason things does not work out on the contest floor. we can at least look back and say we really tried our best and there is always the next contest to do better.
Enjoy the 3rd episode of the SHADOW PRACTICE series where Toon is presenting his updated 2019 contest run without doing any mistakes.”
Thank you very much!
-MK
I’m not sure I’d heard of any rider or riders teaching flat, other than I think Jean Provost in China;& Effraim? In the past I’d heard flat was taught at Woodward in the Us. However,I think it’s great,& as I said before Toon certainly puts in the hours you have to. And what a great teacher he’s got in you Marti.