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[mr72]

My dad had a similar response about our BRC experience. Of course he had been riding motorcycles off and on, often times for years as his sole transportation, for over 40 years before he took the course. He had a lot of habits, both good and bad, which were not precisely what the course called for. But after it was all over and he was out riding his own bike again he said that he really did feel much better on the bike and, as he said, "more confident". The biggest thing the course exposed in my dad was difficulty in low-speed maneuvering. I think by riding off-road and on the road for decades he had developed a lot of habits and shortcuts in technique that work at speed but are detrimental at sub-walking pace.

OTOH I had never (legally) ridden a motorcycle on the road and had only ridden primarily off-road on an old enduro bike when I was a kid over 25 years before I took this course. I had a few weeks of riding-around-the-block experience on my GS. But I had over 35 years of regular and constant bicycling experience including very technical mountain biking and well-crafted low-speed maneuvering skills on a 2-wheel vehicle. So this stuff was a snap for me. I could have probably easily done trials in that one weekend's training. I had a harder time (and still do) getting comfortable with the lean angle required for >20mph turns. I constantly felt like the bike was going to wash out, and even two years and 3K miles later I still feel that way.

I think this all has a lot to do with how you approach the course and your prior experience. In the end I learned a lot and so did my dad but we each learned different things to add to or augment our prior experience. To this day when we ride together I marvel at how effortlessly he takes turns at speed on his Shadow 750 with 20 year old crap tires and how hard I have to work my far more sporty and recently-shod GS500 to keep up, and my guess is he wonders how I manage to do stop signs and parking lots without putting a foot down.