Workin' the Skills with Lee McCormack

BRRAAP! I definitely heard him say it.
Will and I were lucky enough to have a private skills session with Lee McCormack, of leelikesbikes.com and Mastering Mountain Bike Skills fame. He's a cool guy, he knows his stuff, and most importantly, he's good at explaining it to other people. So what all did we do?
Well, for the first hour or so, we didn't leave the pavement. Not what you would expect from a mountain bike clinic, but it turned out to be pretty darn educational. Everything we worked on was very simple: Basic body position, braking, cornering. You'd think that by now both Will and I would be fairly adept at these things. And we were. But getting them perfect? That's another story. When trying to bring together all the elements for a perfect corner, I'd not felt so gumpy on a bike in quite a while. It did make me feel better knowing that Lee starts everyone out at the same level, even the pro downhillers.
After we'd gotten these concepts down enough that we could go home and practice, Lee took us over to a set of rollers. We worked on pumping, and surprise, I had a hard time being smooth while working on my upper body motions. But when it came time to work on pumping with our legs, I was feeling like a champ. That doesn't mean I don't have many things to work on in that arena, but at least I didn't feel like such a gump.
Finally, Lee worked with Will on jumping while I continued cornering (Crazy! I always thought cornering was my strong point).
Lee had to take off to take care of his wife (she's resting up after knee surgery), so Will and I made our way to White Ranch for a short but strenuous ride. All that wok with Lee was paying off; I felt more confident and comfortable on technical sections of the trail just by being in the attack position on the bike.

So, was the skills clinic worth it? Today I feel as tired as if I creamed myself in a race yesterday. Except that we spent most of our time in a parking lot.
Worth it?
Yes.