Mentor's Comment:
8 September 2006
Don't worry about it BuckBuck.
Concentration is just as important as riding skills. The penalties of not paying attention while riding can be severe. A motorcyclist's ability to concentrate is his most important tool.
Keep all of your attention on what you are doing. This gives you a reserve of "what if" ability to deal with the unexpected such as another vehicle coming into your lane.
Good skills for listening to yourself.
When looking back now to September 2006 and the lead up to getting my Restricted, I have read with uncanny interest re-living the insight and determination I had. Uncanny in the sense that I know, that in not only riding but also in my interactions with other people, I have been able to 'check' myself and question my reactions - here some very good cognitive behaviour techniques were being implemented and the following two and a half years has enabled me to evaluate what were at times some very false logic thought processes....hey for some of you out there this may be a bit 'foreign', said in the nicest possible way, but for others I hope that what I have said makes sense.
Where one may draw a line between being a person with an obsessive compulsive personality disorder, or indeed looking at it now, in its broadest sense, the whole process of learning a new skill which in and of itself was very beneficial is intriguing - to me. For you the reader I think realising that, me as a newbie, who pretty much had unconditional opportunity specifically 'plenty of time to go out and ride', and as a consequence I tried be constructive, that is to say, to approach the learning process with a structure.
In the years following, it took effort on my part to recognise that I was a person that was 'too structured' and thanks to many individuals that went out of their way to tell me this in quiet confidence, and thanks also to those that were up front in your face in forum threads - sometimes a wakeup call is never too late, and that is precisely what occurred through 2007/08...I will address some of those issues later in the blogg.
I will progressively review each month of my learning to ride log and include it in my blogg.
I am happy to receive Personal Messages - PMs if people want to discuss aspects I have raised.
Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy...The Eagles
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