Tag: experience

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78. Working to gain a BTEC Part One

How do you get a qualification in motorcycle coaching? Here’s my experience.

Working to gain a BTEC Part One

Soon after starting Survival Skills, I decided to look for some kind of recognised qualification as a post-test instructor. Although I was already a CBT and DAS qualified instructor and have a Masters degree in a science, something more relevant would look good on the CV, I thought. The best bet at the time looked to be a Driver Education course at Middlesex University, firstly partly because it had a distance learning option and I lived in Kent, and secondly because it could be extended through NVQ to degree, master and even PhD level.

After signing on and parting with the relevant amount of cash, my first modules arrived in the autumn. I knuckled down and got stuck into the work. With the deadline approaching two months later, I presented the work only to discover my tutor had taken a holiday just as we were supposed to be submitting the work. I was told it would now be marked too late to move onto the second module in the spring. I wasn’t particularly happy about that. I was even less happy when several of the topics I’d submitted were rejected because they were motorcycle-specific – I was told they didn’t have a tutor who knew anything about motorcycles. Hardly my problem, I thought. Eventually, I gathered a couple of points towards an NVQ, but as the experience hadn’t been brilliant I reluctantly decided to drop it and save my money.

Instead I turned to the BTEC in Advanced Motorcycle Instruction that was run by South Lincs Motorcycle Training. It turned out to be a far better choice than the Middlesex University course.

Both courses used an element of ‘accreditation of prior learning’ (APL) element for instructors with previous experience to replace traditional ‘taught’ courses. The idea is that you show the assessors that you have not only been teaching, but that you have used the courses you have taught as a learning experience for yourself to develop and improve both personal skills and the training being delivered. It avoids the need to spend weeks in the classroom being taught what you already know.

The required format for the BTEC was slightly different from the Middx course. This meant the original submission I had made to Middx was a useful background document, The main exhibit was to be a portfolio which still needed fleshing out with the hard evidence.

Sounds easy? Yes, at first sight. Easy enough to provide photocopies of my driving licence and CBT card. Not too difficult to provide copies of my current training notes. But to demonstrate learning?

Fortunately I’m one of those people who NEVER throws anything away. That does mean the office is knee-deep in paperwork and old bike magazines but it also meant I could lay hands on old notes which I used to develop the syllabus, briefing notes at various stages of development, course details themselves including debriefing notes and so on, right up to the current ‘in-use’ stuff.

First up I assembled notes from the original instructor training course I attended in 1995. I added the DAS training course I personally wrote back in early 1997 for the basic training school to help instructors pass the Direct Access assessment. I had a large pile of notes which became the drafts, redrafts, final versions and revised final versions of my advanced training syllabus itself. I had the same stacks of papers showing the various stages of development of the course handouts that go to the trainees. I added copies of other training materials such as training aids and assessment sheets. I added items of interest from from the website and motorcycle forums. I added original drafts and photocopies of items that appeared in the various magazines I have had articles published in. Finally, I added selected emails from trainees requesting courses and the follow up written debriefs that are provided with the courses.

The result? An overflowing A4 box-file on which I couldn’t actually shut the lid.

I made a date for an interview to determine whether the portfolio was up to the job and to see if I could justify the learning I was claiming. It wasn’t quite the grilling I had expected – Malcolm Palmer popped over to meet me in Oxford and spent a long evening chatting informally over several mugs of tea and a plate of fish and chips, whilst going piece-by-piece through the file. However, he was thorough – around 4 hours later (too late for a quick pint) Malcom left me with a list of what he would like included and copied for the formal submission for APL.

Now all I had to do was copy those I needed to submit, and annotate them to explain what they were and why I was submitting them. Job done, I thought.

Ha. What seemed like a couple of hours work dragged on into weeks of sifting the box, and hunting for the original files on the PC and long-lost zip disks (remember them?). Sometimes I discovered they were formatted for an extinct version of a word processor it seemed no-one else had ever used. In some cases I was able to reformat and print a copy, but where the notes were handwritten or the PC version was long gone, I had to scan then print page-by-page for the portfolio.

Eventually, everything was neatly placed in a large red ring binder and dropped off to Malcolm the evening before the second part of the APL assessment.

…. to be continued ….

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76. What is ‘Spidey Sense’ and how do we develop it?

This is another article which pushed boundaries at the time I wrote it — and got a lot of push-back too — but the core concept that experienced riders developing a subconscious “sixth sense” through pattern recognition is very much valid. Modern research into situational awareness, threat perception, and tacit knowledge in driving and riding supports the idea that repeated experience trains the brain to detect subtle cues. The description of Reptilian / Mid-brain / Neo-cortex interactions has turned out to be a rather over-simplified model and neuroscience today sees the brain as far more interconnected than this triune model suggests, with threat detection and decision-making distributed across multiple networks, but it works well for communicating automatic vs. conscious responses to riders and in the context of helping riders understand their reactions, it remains a clear, accessible metaphor. Experienced riders develop Spidey Sense by building a large internal database of patterns, so potential hazards trigger an early warning before the threat becomes immediate. Coupled with proactive scanning and deliberate practice, this allows us to anticipate, prepare, and respond effectively, reducing reliance on panic reactions and improving overall situational awareness.

What is ‘Spidey Sense’ and how do we develop it?

If you’re anything of a fan, you’ll know that when the bad guys are around, Spider-Man gets a “tingle” from his ‘Spidey Sense’. And experienced riders will also report how they get a sixth sense that things aren’t quite right, so they slow down, look around, just before something unpleasant happens, and thank their lucky stars for the warning. When that happens, we’re developing a kind of biking Spidey Sense. As you have probably realised by now if you’ve read some of the other related articles, the design brief for our 200,000 year-old brain never included the ability to ride motorcycles, so we have to make considerable compromises to ride motorcycles. But what exactly is this ‘sixth sense’? A quick lesson on how our brains are put together will help.

One model of the brain is the so-called ‘triune’ brain, because it consists of three parts.

At the top is the ‘Thinking Cap’, the Neo-Cortex which the most modern and largest part of the brain. In very simplistic terms it’s where conscious thinking is performed and where our reasoning skills are centered.

At the bottom – it’s directly connected to the spinal cord – is the most primitive part of our brain. It’s sometimes called the ‘Reptilian Brain’ because we share it with crocodiles. Responsible for controlling many of the basic body functions, it’s also constantly on guard for danger. It’s blisteringly quick in responding – it needs to be if we’re to duck when someone hurls a rock at our head – but it doesn’t think. It only chooses the most basic fight or flight responses.

Sitting between the two and hard-wired to both is the Mid-brain. Here the Reticular Activating System works with the Limbic System to control attention. This part of the brain works completely below the level of our awareness and acts as a filter on incoming data, attempting to pick out parts with meaning. You’ll probably know how we can hear someone mentioning our name across a crowded room, and how that perks up our conscious attention. The same process goes on to filter relevant information from the vast amount of visual data sent to the brain by the eyes.

But in certain circumstances, the Mid-brain can also route data perceived as a potential threat straight to the Reptilian brain, which goes into automatic fight or flight mode. In biking terms, that’s usually manifested as a panic grab at the brakes, freezing completely and target fixation. Recognise those reactions? You should, because these are the ‘Survival Reactions’ that Keith Code identified in Twist of the Wrist some years ago.

With the proviso that to learn, we need to survive, we can learn from emergencies. We may do some reflective thinking after the event and come up with a better option – why controlled braking is better than a panic grab, for example.

But it seems that scary incidents are also subconsciously ‘logged’ and become embedded. As we continue to ride, what seems to happen is that the Mid-brain continues to process the incoming data – remember, this is happening below the level of consciousness – but increasingly compares it against a database of stored memories, trying to find a match. The more riding experience we have, the bigger the database of past experiences and the more likely the Mid-brain is to find a match. If the past event had unpleasant consequences, then a “things aren’t right” message gets sent to wake up the Neo-cortex. Just as hearing our name across the room flicks us into full-on attention, we’re suddenly on full alert with Spidy Sense triggered.

Of course, it’s not foolproof.

For starters, inexperienced riders don’t have much experience to call on. So in novel circumstances, there is nothing alarming enough to trigger the Mid-brain to wake up the Neo-Cortex. We ride, totally oblivious, into danger. Only when the threat of personal harm becomes obvious enough is control turned over to the Reptilian brain – and that’s when the panic responses kick in.

For a more experienced rider, there’s a second issue. Although we are now on high alert, we’re still only aware that things aren’t quite right. That may help us to take some pro-active action – slowing down is nearly always a good first step – but it’s no guarantee we’ll respond appropriately.

Worse, we may be out of time before we finally identify the source of our anxiety. Analyses of accidents and in the laboratory suggest that it can take us two to three seconds to consciously turn our attention towards a developing threat, to analyse the situation and figure out what’s happening, and come up with a solution. 200,000 years ago, that might have been acceptable, but on modern roads and travelling at a very modest 30mph, it’s an age. We’ve covered forty metres in three seconds. So out of time, the Mid-brain may hand over control to the Reptilian brain. We’re no better off than the novice rider who never saw the threat coming.

A partial solution is to create ‘muscle memory’ pathways to defeat the Survival Reactions. Despite the name, the links we build are really in the brain, but they do control muscles. For example we can learn to overcome the instinctive front brake grab when a car pulls out, or the frozen steering when we’re running wide on a corner, by ‘burning’ learned responses. And we do that by mastering, then regularly practising, techniques such as progressively squeezing the brakes and controlled swerves. The idea is that even when the Reptilian brain tries to take over, we don’t let it totally control our reactions.

But there’s one more thing to think about. The trigger for the Reptilian brain to kick in is often motion detection in our peripheral vision, which is incredibly sensitive to movement. If we suddenly detect movement close at hand, swerving the other way can save the day. But it’s essentially a ‘reactive’ response, after the problem has developed.

The clearly-focussed, colour cone of vision which allows us to see sharp detail is a very narrow, just a few degrees wide. If we only look at the road ahead of us, we won’t gain information about hazards left or right of our path. So we need to be PRO-ACTIVE with our observation, keeping our eyes moving so we are actively searching out potential hazards before they become bigger threats that tingle our Spidey Sense.

By developing ‘situational awareness’ we reduce the chances of having to rely on Spidey Sense too often. And then we give ourselves a MUCH better chance of avoiding triggering the Reptilian brain’s panic reactions. Find out how to develop situational awareness of a Survival Skills advanced motorcycle training course.