my motorcycle only while I’m riding it (a tiny fraction of the time frame of ownership) and enjoying it much less in between those times when I’m standing next to it, doubled over. Sounds like a bad trade to me. I’d be giving up more than half the fun and possibly cheating myself out of even greater joy later on—if I can make it through flight school.
Back to School
June 2003
I’ve probably taught more people to ride in the dirt than on the street. That’s partly because new riders often feel less intimidated away from traffic and pavement, but it’s also because many basic skills are easier to learn on dirt bikes, which tend to be much lighter and more easily maneuvered at slow speeds than their road-going counterparts. This is not to say that off-road riding is inherently easier; in fact, it can be much more daunting than street riding, depending on the terrain. Selecting a location that offers just the right amount of challenge is key. Most off-highway vehicle (OHV) parks, like the one that served as backdrop here, offer widely varying geography and learning opportunities.
At the teaching hospital where I did my clinical internship, the staff was fond of repeating the admonition “learn it, teach it, know it.” This sometimes seemed like a justification for handing off pedagogic responsibilities: a sleep-deprived intern or resident would be assigned the task of presenting some portion of an upcoming seminar, thereby relieving the faculty of responsibility for preparing a lesson stimulating enough to hold the attention of our bleary-eyed group. With many years’ distance on that ordeal, I now appreciate the great wisdom captured so succinctly in that little phrase.
To be able to explain something clearly, answer questions coherently, provide good examples, and integrate your point into some larger frame of reference, you must really understand the concepts involved and know exactly how they fit together. Vague impressions won’t do. An intuitive grasp might suffice for your own practical purposes, but you can’t communicate that to someone else without articulating the details and clarifying the relevant links. This can be quite challenging because many important ideas are difficult to get into words. You have to lay out complex interconnections in linear language, even when they actually exist as a three- (or more!) dimensional web. Visual images can help, and the student’s own personal experience may be an essential component of mastery—repeatedly trying, failing, making successive approximations, and eventually getting it right. But the verbal interactions between teacher and student are almost always the glue that holds the rest of the process together.
Obviously, the strategic preparation for giving a lecture or leading a training exercise involves learning on the presenter’s part. Ideally, this person will have mastered not only the material to be transmitted but also a compelling means of delivery. These two don’t necessarily go together. Many a university researcher—who undoubtedly understands his subject better than most anyone he talks to—has no clue how to make his or her knowledge digestible to the horde of semicongealed young minds to whom he or she is “Professor.” Of course, it’s also true that a presenter can conceal much shoddy thinking behind a slick performance or befuddling barrage of jargon.
Small dirt bikes make excellent first mounts for young (and not-so-young) riders. They’re cheap and easy to maintain, and allow for relatively low-stakes exploration of traction limits. Lessons learned here transfer readily to less-forgiving pavement later. Here, Dylan perfects his power-slide.
But, in addition to what must take place before the teaching moment, there is the potential for discovery in that moment and after it. Someone might pose a question from an unanticipated direction, opening up a new realm for exploration or exposing a weakness in the current model (or an area of the teacher’s ignorance). This is part of what keeps the work interesting for professional instructors (the better ones, at least) charged with covering the same topic over and over again: the information may not change, but the angles from which it can be viewed are infinite if it is presented to new people. Teachers also get tremendous gratification via their vicarious participation in students’ breakthroughs; a student’s thrill can rekindle the original delight that the teacher experienced long ago.
And so it was that I took my new riding buddy out for a spin…
Granted, the odds were stacked in favor of my seeming a more geyser-like font of knowledge than I really am. Jack was a robust, adventurous guy (he took up rock climbing in his late fifties), but, at sixty-two, he was twenty years my senior. He had only recently swung a leg over the saddle of a motorcycle for the first time, whereas I’ve been riding for nearly thirty years. And the bike he was riding was dwarfed by mine in both power and agility. Did I mention we were going to cover some genuinely intimidating (even to an experienced rider) terrain? It was a perfect opportunity for me to exploit Jack’s newbie status and don the oily mantle of Motorcycling Guru. The master’s genius is sometimes merely a function of the novice’s ignorance!
Nevertheless, I did have something of value to offer. As a multiple-decade subscriber to numerous enthusiast publications and student at half a dozen riding schools through the years, I’ve learned a fair amount about the basic mechanics, techniques, and physics of motorcycling. I have language—not just an experiential understanding—for all that stuff because I’ve read it and heard it all many times. So, when Jack kept stalling his bike on uphill sections, I was able to explain what was happening inside his engine (idle set too low, not enough flywheel effect), why he needed to compensate by keeping the gas on and modulating his speed with the clutch lever (the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s “friction zone”), and how momentum stabilizes the bike over uneven ground (resist that urge to shut the throttle when scared!). It all made sense to him pretty quickly, and Jack gained competence and confidence with every round of practice. By the end of the ride, he looked markedly better on steep hills, and he was having a lot more fun moving instead of trying to keep his mount balanced upright on an incline while jumping up and down on his kick-starter.
In some ways, it was more fun for me, too, because I didn’t have to go back and check on him as often. But all the stopping and coaching had been enjoyable in its own right, and it was well worth the effort. He grinned big while telling me what he was learning, which was more than what I was teaching. He’d notice a nuance here or relate two sensations there—things I’d never thought of. I kept finding myself on the lookout for an experience he’d described when I got back on my own bike. And I felt warm waves of memories as Jack’s excitement called up images of my own early struggles. It was deeply satisfying to be able to pass along the joys of riding and to harvest yet another type of fruit from past labors.
On our ride, I went back to school—only this time, I was the teacher. At least that’s what someone looking in from the outside would say. Actually, I was learning right along with Jack. Although I do have a lot of words for how it all works, there are still some aspects of riding that remain primarily visual or kinesthetic or reflexive for me. Getting those aspects into plain language forced me to think more clearly about how I ride. There were times when we discussed—or I observed—his difficulties, and I didn’t have a neat package of answers like I had for the slow-uphill problem. Then I had to do some fresh analysis and some experimenting of my own. There are things he didn’t even know to ask about at this stage, and things he couldn’t learn until he learned something else first.
I had my own blind spots, too, although I expected to illuminate them (for both of us) by Jack’s future queries. Teaching an absolute beginner forced me to prioritize and sequence the various lessons of riding, and I realized that the order in which they should be taught is nothing like the order in which I learned them. And that insight explained some of my bad habits, as well as suggested how I might fix them.
So, take a new rider with you somewhere soon. He or she just might teach you a thing or two.
Near-Life Experiences
July
