Session 5 Debrief: Good Sharp Turns

I arrived at the training ground a few minutes late. One of the experienced kids, who has completed all their classes, was practicing ‘L’ in both directions. I was instructed to try the same.

After that, we went on a drive that went well in many ways. I tried my hand at U-turns which uncovered some of my weaknesses. This is a positive because now I know where I need to focus more in my upcoming sessions.

Now, I have ten sessions left that I plan on completing without skipping a beat. Moreover, in the upcoming weekend, it is quite likely that I and the boys will go to used car dealerships to pick up a machine for my in-depth training.

A lot of decisions need to be made in that direction.

But first, the recap.

Session 5 Recap

When I tried the ‘L’ at the beginning of my class, I messed it up entirely, in both directions. Then, my teacher advised me to look at the tracks drawn on the ground to keep the car in a straight line. It worked, but primarily because I just held the steering in its place. 

Maybe that’s how it was supposed to be.

Honestly, I would love more of these types of ‘refining’ sessions where the basics of driving a car are dug into the mind. At the same time, these types of trainings do require a lot of time that my coach may not have considering the sheer number of students attending his classes.

Anyway, we went on for a drive after that. My primary objective was to get the turns right. The long-term goal here is to get my car (whenever that happens) to the field safely and bring it home during my personal practice sessions.

It went well. Toward the end of the drive, I practiced a bunch of U-turns in the middle of the road that went poorly. The reason is cognitive overload. As a noob driver, I find it difficult not to spread my attention thin onto a variety of things like oncoming traffic and road presence.

Consequently, my control over the clutch or the hand-eye coordination with the car’s movement suffers massively. 

After seeing me struggle, my teacher demonstrated it himself and asked if I would like to have another go. I refused because I knew the root cause wasn’t related to me being afraid of taking risks, it was due to circumstantial factors.

I suggested that we would practice the same in the field tomorrow and he agreed. Let’s see what happens in the upcoming sessions.

Areas of Focus

As usual, there were plenty of positives to take from this session. The turns were clean and required minimal intervention from my instructor. The upshifts and downshifts, although a bit scrappy, were decent and didn’t affect the momentum.

At the same time, there were some clear areas of improvement. Of course, as a beginner, i can get better everywhere, but things like finer clutch control and maneuverability are currently the biggest goals.

As soon as these are done well, I will prioritize reversing the car. It is not something we are typically used to but is a critical part of driving a vehicle.

If I am being realistic, I can only learn them at the basic levels. It is hard to learn all of that with 15-20 minutes of driving where making mistakes is almost illegal or too costly. As mentioned earlier, I am thinking of the long-term training that’ll happen with my own vehicle.

Looking Forward: Ten Days of Grind

I am pretty optimistic that I will learn U-turns and reversing the car for the next few classes in the training field under controlled conditions.

The next ten days will feature the remaining ten driving lessons where I will update about the things I am progressively learning. Unless something significant happens, I won’t take a break and wrap all of these things up in one stretch.

My other content creation efforts will take the back seat unless I am feeling super motivated during the weekends because after work I will be writing the session debriefs. These are a crucial tool in enhancing my driving skills.

Until next time,

Tara

—

Next Chapter: Session 6 Debrief: Repetition of Yesterday

Previous Chapter: Session 4 Debrief: Smooth Drive With Turning Problems

Index (with Prologue): The Path to Driving License