Teaching Adults how to cycle

[Ali Poonawala]

Hi friends..

Both sessions took place.

Begur session :

Ganesh reports:

"

19-feb-2023: begur: learner 3 trainer 1

busy morning at begur. swagata started rolling dealing with her wobbly starts which later settles fine through the session. otherwise, she is progressing steady gaining confidence in riding straight lines. next session, we need to focus on her start/stop and maintaining straight line.

little keerthana was brought by her parents to learn cycling. however, upon enquiry, her dad chandrasekar himself was a potential learner. although it was not the plan, he was quick to use the opportunity and stayed through the session to learn. anyway, our miss india is a bit too tall for keerthana who was not very happy of not being able to learn today :) she is about to get a bike of her size before she comes back, soon.

radhika, who had done 1 session at cubbon earlier needed a little help with a couple of rounds but soon picked up to be on her own. she was quite impressive in dealing with speed bumps and learning to control speed by judging when and when not to pedal. more practice to follow after a good start.

chadrasekar is trying a bike for the first time. we initiated with basic theory and off to trying a bit of one legged tapping and pedaling to get comfortable with the bike and balance. hope to see him next week to take it further. 

"

Thanks Ganesh..a tough day, well negotiated !💐👌

Cubbon Park session:

The winter is quietly receeding but the morning was still crispy as I went past teaching area into the KSLTA stadium where clean up was going on war footing, for tennis event. 

Thick layer of dust on the bicycles took a while to dislodge, but eventualy persistence paid and with help from Naresh, Parag Mamatha and Maya, the show rolled in.

Trainers : 

Parag, Ali, Junaid, Krishna

Newbies:

Syeda, Divit, Maya, Anuradha.

Seniors

Reethi, Swathi ,Sudha, Mamta, Sapna

Trainee : Naresh

CifoS : Nidhi, Anushka (+ Ria)

I started with Maya, who had ? learnt riding bicycle as a child and ? was an Activa user till recently.

She was tentative to begin with but scooting was easy for her but she refused to go to pedalling this session and will do it next time ! Admire that self discipline ! 🙏💐

Divit was a passer by newbie and got familiar with Naresh looking after his progress..his balancing skills were good so a session or two and he will be on her own

 

Habiba tried to tame the foldie ! She learnt to jump off the saddle to stop and also take a standing start, great achievement for the sprightly kid... however, her pedal discipline is atrocious. She is going to crack it soon

Poojya, doing an induction road ride for recent learners, came in escorting Anuradha who was lost in Cubbon ! Dheeraj too dropped in later to say hello..both onderful people for cause of cycling 💐💖

Anuradha got into basic posture and scooting but was too tired to do a lot. 

Sudha was lamenting about weak right side as she diligantly kept doing upslope scooting, a skill I too manage to acquire only few months ago.. Great positive lady ..Respects !

Parag's report :

"

Seniors

Reethi- Started with pedaling up and down for a few rounds, then progressed to zig-zagging and finally turning. Started on hand signaling, needs a bit more practice with that and bit of safety, and she should be ready to ride on the road in a week. She is already looking for a cycle to buy.

Mamta- Is scooting well, and doing bit of pedaling also, the balance is there, just need to develop a bit more confidence.

Sapna - Pedaled up and down,  She is able to ride and even turn, but has to try and get rid of the lurch.

Special Mention: Nidhi rode all the way from Kanakapura road (15 km one way), congratulations to her, and we hope to see her cycle more often at the park. She was accompanied by her friend Anushka who is a cyclist too, we hope to get her onboard as a trainer.

"

Thanks Parag 💐🙏

Junaid's remarks:

"

Very uneventful Sunday , as not many turned up ! Maybe the hot weather put off ??

Swathi was getting her act together, and was practicing turns and circles and Mamta was taking it at her own pace !

Slow and steady !

had the picture taken as usual and enjoyed Mamta's cookies, before leaving for the day !

"

Thanks Junaid 💐🙏

 

Krishna's report:

"

I am Krishna reporting.

I got into the arena around 845 when the session was in motion on a bright day. I got a fine student in Sudha who was on her second day in learning.  She is in very fine spirits and determined to learn both cycling and swimming. Any guesses of her age. She is close to 60. Fine, coming for her progress today, she is put on scooting on scooting pedalless Machine ( cycle). She is comfortable on slopes and even rather flat surface. Has to click the knack of pushing with feet on gradient. Braking and keeping in line is an issue no lurching though. She has the strength. She is ok to graduate to pedals next week. Wishing her best, i signed off for the day.

"

Thanks Krishna🙏💐

After a selfie with Nidhi, Anushka, Ria 

and Parag, we set for home.

Till next week end

Keep pedalling !

Ali Poonawala 

[Ali Poonawala]

Hi friends...

We had both sessions today, 

first Begur report with Ganesh    :

"

26-Feb-2023, Begur: Trainer 1, Learner 4

Warm and busy morning at Begur. Good problem to have, more learners. Bad problem, short of bikes leading to long waits. Made the best of what we had. 

Swagata started practicing straight lines and was comfortably doing fine through the session. Towards the finish, Swagata practiced for clean start/stop and saw good progress doing so along startight line road markings.

Young Rinaaz is new with us. She was brought by dad along with mom and little sibling who was a handful for the parents to control the energy. Dad had brought Rinaaz to us because she was not pedaling full circle on her own bike with balancing wheels. He said, in spite of all their attempts, she was just tapping the pedal back and forth not going anywhere. 

With that, we started with Rinaaz, and just in the first round she happily started pedaling well and complete. Just needed some constant reminder to do so. A good progress based on why she was here. She is also fearless to try and in a habit of constantly mumbling. Few things I could pick up is 'Happy', ' Beautiful', ... as she goes on full throttle while I run along holding the bike :) The challenge here is to make her stop talking and listen to what we say. Appreciate her good attempt today, need a few more session before she will pick up balancing. 

Deepa and Chandrasekar had a long wait for their turn and I had to extend the session by an hour more to do justice.

Deepa did well riding straight, her lurch is still coming back a bit affecting her starts. Need focus on keeping the spine straight

Chandrasekar is continuing his scooting practice trying different variants combined with supported full pedaling attempts. Need more sessions to strike the breakthrough.

"

Thanks Ganesh.💐👍

Cubbon session:

Trainers: 4+1

Ali, Parag, Junaid, Krishna + Venkatesh

Trainee trainer:1

Naresh

Newbies: 8

Chetana, Chaitra, Ashita, Dr Kamalini, Ahana, Fatima, Sahana, Ashima

Seniors: 6

Anuradha, Syeda, Manasi, Tushar Shetty, Tushar Anand, Sandeep 

Perpetuals: ?

Shraddha, Sai, mom and Katraj ladies, Habiba + cousins

Although there were apprehension about Tennis final clashing with our session, the event was scheduled for 6 PM so although lot of people, including cops, wandering about, we carried on as usual.

Katraj gang helped with bikes. Chetana was already there and Dr Kamalini arrived soon. While I was showing the starting position and static balancing.. the tsunami of  newbies and seniors occured !

Chetana :is comfortable upslope pedaling but finds downslope a challenge and will be fine next session or two.

Kamalini :already rides two wheeler so progressed well to pedalling and U turns. 

Syeda: She had an accident which has  significantly curtailed her mobility. Still, she is bravely fighting it out. 

Anuradha : Doing much better, the upslope start got better once she stopped re touching earth with left foot after take off.

Habiba : Better pedal grip, better balance but still unreliable to let go on her own. 

Parag's report:

Guest Instructor- Parags friend Venkatesh came and helped Fatima learn pedaling. Hopefully we will see him volunteer more often.

Newbies

Fatima- She picked up balancing and scooting quickly, and movec to Peadling

Sahana- Did scooting, and a bit of pedaling. Needs more practice to be confident of scooting for longer intervals. As she put it herself  "She is clear on the theory, but not the practical part," and managed to give gyaan to her friends Ahana and Ashima on what they were doing wrong ;-0)

Ahana- Did scooting, and did some pedaling for a bit towards the end.

Ashima- Did scooting, and moved on to pedaling for a bit, but still has a bit of a lurch.

Chaitra- Started with scooting and a bit of pedaling in the end.

Seniors

Manasi- She had come for one class, then took a break as she was traveling, and today resumed with scooting. Her balance is fine, and is ready to move to pedaling.

Tushar Shetty- Came on a rental bike and practiced turning, signaling, stopping safely etc. Braking and stopping safely still seems to be a bit of a challenge for all of the 3 seniors who came on rental bikes.

"

Thanks Parag...Sandeep is good with brakes, even senior Tushar is fine 

Krishna's report:

"

This is Krishna reporting from cubbons.

Dr Kamalini and Ms Anuradha were the learners. Dr said, it was her first session. So also Ms Anuradha ( not sure). Both turned to be twin stars of the day. When  I stepped in to the session, they were learning to scoot with the instructions from Parag who had briefed them all about the basics. With the encouragement of 'do it' with pedalling, both cracked the knack and were comfortably up by the end of the session. Dr has the lurching  and Ms Anuradha has lesser of it. With the enthusiasm, that they stayed on the cycle balancing and riding on I put off corrections to lurching to next week. Like they say children on their feet in these two are on wheels. They needed energy fill up of tender coconut to continue efforts. Will take them to turning etc next week, (today, both went home happily saying ' we did it' )confidently, if I do not run away on extra ride next week.

"

Thanks Krishna💐🙏

Junaid's remarks:

"

First off the block was Fatima Sadia, a first timer who took off with super confidence ! and got her balance well in her first attempt , Congrats, she has the tendency to panic, that needs overcoming, she needs to practice more.

Ashita was the next and had some trouble getting her balance and she would need to work on her posture more, hopefully she will crack it in her next session.

Ahana was late to start scooting.

Sanjana was scooting all the time and she will attempt to start balancing in the next class.

"

Thanks Junaid💐🙏

The session was folded on time and after  photos by spandan, brief chit chat with students, we dispersed.

Till next weekend, 

Keep Pedalling !

Ali Poonawala