I Trained like a Motorcycle Coach for a Week

It's not a guarantee that you're going to be a coach. I am at the MSF campus in Colton, California to train to become an MSF coach. Pretty nervous, you can't tell. Seven years ago, I took the MSF course on a whim. I was doing a checklist of things I hadn't had the time to do before. Newly single and trying to find my own way. I thought I could learn to ride in a weekend and then move on with my life. A one and done, like skydiving. But after that weekend, I was hooked. Since then, riding has become one of the biggest, most joyful parts of my life. I wanted to be able to give that back to new riders that were in a similar place that I was back then. So my name is June Villegas. I'm an MSF coach trainer for the dirt bike school. We have Carolyn who's taking the class. She is self-aware and technical. Hopefully that'll transfer over to the dirt bike side. And I'm looking forward to having her in my class. So my riding experience is I've been riding for seven years. My dirt experience is I'm pretty new. It may look like I've been doing it a long time just because you've seen videos over a couple of years. But really my only experience is about half a dozen classes in 2021. So I have the equivalent of like seven days riding on dirt experience. There's some people that just don't do well or can't comprehend everything or need a little more time. Some people realize, you know what, this is not for me. It was a four-day course at the Honda Rider Education Center in Colton, California. We got a lot of material study beforehand, which probably took me a total of three days over the span of a few weeks to review. There would be a written test, a riding test, and finally, teaching a real live class with real students. Feeling a lot of pressure. Yeah, that first quiz test, I don't think I did well at all. Although the MSF even let me try out for the coaching program, in my head, I felt like I had to be a much more experienced dirt bike rider, a motocross champion, or someone who's been riding dirt since she was a kid. I thought about my 13-year-old neighbor, Coach, who I met when I was doing my 100 U-turns for 30 days challenge. MSF had gifted him a free dirt bike class. I was the first rider he had met. I told him I could be assisting teach that dirt bike class he would take. I couldn't let him down. Just got back to the hotel room. We went over the coaching lessons plans, kind of how to coach, and did like the test. I did not do well. The questions are, they're asked in such a way that it's like, it's not something you can just guess or common sense. It's like you really need to know. Anyways, I think I might go out for dinner with Andrea and the coaches, or I might order and go to bed by like 7 30. We'll see. Okay. And then we have Mercedes Natvig. Very accomplished. Badass. My name is Mercedes Natvig. I am also known as Mercedes Gonzalez from my racing career. I raced motocross for 18 years and I was able to be a multi-time women's champion. I wanted to give back and I decided to become a MSF dirt bike coach. After some more classroom exercises, we learned something that made me that much more nervous. Yeah. Wait, so can you, like, if you drop your bike, can you just do it over again? No. Like, no, like for real? One and done. So you can't up it up. Oh my God. Don't drop your bike. Yeah, just don't drop your bike. Oh. That's easy. Easy. See it? It's not a guarantee that you're going to be a coach. That's our brake. Remember, smoother. As long as I didn't do this during the test, I'd be okay. So I dropped the bike again today in the U-turn uphill. I kept hitting the front brake. I don't know, those uphill exercises were really challenging. There's so many things you need to think about with your body position. It didn't matter that I wasn't the smartest or that being clumsy was just my reputation growing up. It didn't matter that I was the smallest in my family, so much smaller that people called me the runt and a doctor prescribed me medicine to increase my appetite. All that mattered, all that I could do in this moment was not give up. I had a new rider kid to be a good example to. And failing this in front of all you watching would be embarrassing. Huh? You okay? Yeah, I'm okay. That's a big motorcycle, man. Can you feel all your fingers? Big bike for a little girl. Can you feel all your fingers? Yeah. It's very discouraging to drop a bike. Even though the idea is it's supposed to be it's part of learning, it's what happens. But I don't know, I can't help but get discouraged sometimes, especially if I'm taking tallies. I was like the first person to drop the bike. Did you both drop too? Oh, yeah. How did you feel when you dropped yours? I drop my bike all the time. I got over that hurdle years ago. Wait, really? Y'all don't care? No, I crash all the time. So up until this point, I've been doing the 125, where both my feet are flat and it's much easier. But now that we've restarted the lessons from the basics, I'm feeling more comfortable. So I want to try the big one again, the 250, where I can barely touch the ground. I know many of you watching are probably surprised I went for the bigger bike, and that many of you think people should flat foot a bike. Although I was flat footing the 125, it was only 125. It had a jumpier throttle in first gear, and second gear seemed to lag too much at slow speeds. Not to mention, it's sized for children. So body positioning on it felt very uncomfortable, making it actually harder to ride than the taller 250. The 250's only challenge is putting my feet down, which ideally you do a lot less of that than actually riding. And it's a challenge easily overcome by just putting one foot down instead of tiptoeing. It's what I do on my Tiger 900. Once you're riding, the size of a bike doesn't matter. It's only when the throttle is closed that you need some tricks that are easy to learn, which you can see in my many short rider tricks videos. Nice bike! It explains a lot. I had the ability to work with his dad, and when Jordan started coming to the center, you could tell he was just obsessed with motorcycles. Positive self-talk, right. But also, I'm thinking on that sheet, it said the one thing you can't do or you'll fail is drop, and I have done a lot of that today. So I'm back in the hotel room. Tomorrow is the test, but today we did what the test is. The hardest exercises were in the class, but not in the test. The written test, we cannot miss more than 10. I missed 15 the first round. School was a struggle for me. Like, I tried really, really hard. I don't know, academia is just not- doesn't come naturally to me. Probably the only thing that comes naturally to me is drawing. But that doesn't really matter. I feel like if you want something, then just do it. I will not be going out tonight for dinner. I will be ordering DoorDash and studying. Well, I did not wear knee pads underneath my pants, so that's what happened. Oh, this is awkward. You can tell I haven't shaved. And I still have no clue what the hell this is, but it's not gone. And one popped up on my finger, too. So, well, I might be turning into Spider-Man soon. Or Poison Ivy Woman. I don't know. Well, we'll see. And finally, it was test day. Graded our lives away. And then it was time for the writing test. Part of the exam was a U-turn on the hill. I haven't done that yet without dropping the bike. So I'm feeling pretty worried. And because at this point, it's evaluation day. And I have not done that move without dropping the bike. The thing I love about riders is there are no mean girls here. We have each other's backs. So just like you normally do a turn. Act like you're just doing a turn. Luckily, that was not during the test. Todd, my fellow classmate. He's also a coach for his own business teaching ADV riding. So he helped me out with that U-turn literally right before the evaluation. If it wasn't for you, Todd, I probably would have failed. So thank you. It wasn't over yet. We still had to teach one day of a real live class with real students. That's how you were stopping. You think you passed? Oh, I don't know. Wait, does that mean I passed? Of course it means you passed. I passed. Apparently, the test and the things we'd be teaching were much more simple than some of the riding we were doing that week. How did you all feel during like the riding exam? Oh, like clenched up. So nervous. Okay, I wasn't alone. That's the thing about pressure. I mean, like everyone has this like test anxiety. Yeah. And so it's just like you could be perfect, but when you're being scrutinized, that's what you're training to get past. Because that's the hardest part. It's just having other people judge you. Yay, we're a bunch of passers. And finally, the moment I had been most nervous about. Today, we are teaching an actual class, like a real class, not each other, as we've been basically practicing by teaching each other. And now we're teaching real students, people who are genuinely new riders, never been on a bike. That's what we're doing today. As I go up to coach in front of these students that have never ridden before, I'm like super, super nervous, super anxious, just hoping I do it right. So once it actually started, it ended up being chaos. The recommended time is about 15 minutes and I took 40 minutes. I ended up like a couple of the students were struggling with friction zone. So I mean, I'm like, well, we can't stop until you've got it. So I really wanted to make sure they got it. How are you feeling? I'm glad you felt it. Okay, not gonna lie. I was seriously concerned at the start of this lesson. And now, oh, really? Someone just dropped it right when I was saying it. Other than that drop, now they're killing it. They are doing great. These people literally became riders in a few hours. It is amazing. Like they were literally struggling, like just trying to turn the bike on and move 10 feet. And now they're doing weaves on the sand. It's amazing. I'm so proud of them. Here we go. I feel like I'm as excited for the other coaches as I am for the students. Like I just want to cheer everyone on. I'm like, yeah, they're coaching so good. And now they're riding so good. It's just, it's awesome. Becoming a dirt bike coach, it's not just about if you're a good rider. Some of my best coaches did not ride dirt bikes that much. They had a little experience, but not a whole lot of experience. What made them a good coach was that they were personable, they were patient, and they knew how to get the lesson across. So I definitely didn't come into this thinking I qualified or was good enough to be a coach. Carolyn did great. She had one of the hardest lessons that we had. Four of the six riders did not know anything about motorcycles. She did great, showed the people how to stop properly, how to operate their motorcycles properly. And she is considered an MSF dirt bike school coach today. Now I see maybe I'm not teaching the blue belt class, the advanced class, but I can definitely help someone learn to turn on a motorcycle, learn to use their clutch, learn to stop properly and say, good job. I'm proud of you. I did it. I'm officially an MSF dirt bike coach. I didn't have to say I failed in a YouTube video. And most importantly, I could tell coach I passed and that I'd be assisting in his dirt bike class. The great thing about becoming a coach is that before I do my own class, I'll be working with my old certified dirt bike school coaches right alongside them, gaining even more experience. Never stop learning.