I enjoyed tonights session overall. I think we all learnt quite a bit from you, Ven and SaM, so hurrah for that. And I think I proved I am indeed a total noob at drifting, but at least I'm trying.

The trouble is it's completely wrong for me - I have a part of my brain that makes me catch slides, not hold them, and it's weird forcing myself to shut that bit off.

On the downside it was quite hard to tell what was happening and when, and there was a lot of sitting around. But I guess thats the point of the lessons. I think one or two nameless individuals spoilt some stuff by repeatedly going on track or not doing as they were asked, and being stoned is no excuse.

But yeah, good first session, and I look forward to the next one.

But I can't see why certain drifters moan about too little steering lock. As far as I can see the XRG and XRT have plenty, and the tyres last long enough to do at least two if not three laps of blackwood.

Overall I think I can see what you were trying to do, but in my humble opinion I think it failed; badly.

Issues:

• Disagreement from a few instructors - sending mixed messages.
  
• Poor coordination - Pretty obvious, and I understand that it comes with practise.
  
• Demo's over the 'net will rarely work. Theres too much lag between actual input and what we see rendered.
  
• A lot of the talks could've been written before hand, and been reading homework - this would've created less boredom.
  
• 2 or 3 at a time after talks, whilst a good idea, didnt seem to work imho. I for one, havent a clue what was said about my performance on various tasks. By the time I got to look it was past the history.
  
• Mass mob mentality - nothing the instructors could do on their part, its a bit of a flaw with LFS / any online game in this respect.
  
• Some of the staff / instructors seemed to be taking this as a chance to show off on occasion.
  
• Constructive criticism seemed to just vanish.
  

Pro's:

• 
  
• Lots of "well done" comments for those that impressed and deserved it, especially increasing towards the end.
  
• [Mostly] High Quality Demo's.
  
• 1 starting point caused much hilarity. This needs to be kept.
  

To be brutally honest, I've felt like I've pissed away 2 and a half hours of my life. I totally appreciate what was put in front of us, the amount of work required by the organisers to do this, and the resources needed (thanks clownpaint). But it just seemed to be the text I've read before regurgitated, and spat out at me in a different format. I dont feel like I've learnt much new, just had a limited chance to practise infront of those that I respect, and feel like a bit of a dick to be honest.

The school is a good idea, but perhaps its better for smaller sessions. Like you would experience in real life, 3/4 instructors couldnt teach 20 others to drive. Its impossible. Understandably this would take up more time in the short term, but racers like myself who possibly need more pointers than Tristan or Hyperactive (for example) would perhaps benefit from this setup more.

Just some food for thought.

Aye, sorry I had to go guys.

Only a few things I have to say:
- seemed to take a while to explain stuff, led to frustrating wait sometimes
- agree with the_angry_angel that feedback in the 3's got a bit lost and that perhaps it would've been easier in smaller groups.

perhaps we could split into 2 groups and run on alternate weeks?

Yes, I would've organized it different, but I'm only an instructor. Al.wong/rev.monkey is the organizer.

Alot went really well and I think lots of the things that went wrong can be improved in the following lessons.

yes, i do take the blame for lack of organization. thats why this thread is up, so i can make things better please keep posting

angry angel:

i am planning to have demo replays created so that you guys can study from the 'tapes' so to speak, then practice. then when DES come around, you guys will know what you're doing, and we will essentially be there to give you pointers to improve further. it depends on the level of commitment present within the group. our organisation was low indeed, and that will be corrected.

tbh, i was expecting like 10-15 people that signed up, not fifty billion in one session!

TBH, i was hoping that there would be a higher level of maturity... but i guess it runs away when boredom sets in.

i think more 1on1 time with the instructors (less people on the server essentially) more well behaved students and tips from an instructor while hes watching you via voice com would greatly improve the value of those lessons

Quote from tristancliffe :

I enjoyed tonights session overall. I think we all learnt quite a bit from you, Ven and SaM, so hurrah for that. And I think I proved I am indeed a total noob at drifting, but at least I'm trying.

The trouble is it's completely wrong for me - I have a part of my brain that makes me catch slides, not hold them, and it's weird forcing myself to shut that bit off.

On the downside it was quite hard to tell what was happening and when, and there was a lot of sitting around. But I guess thats the point of the lessons. I think one or two nameless individuals spoilt some stuff by repeatedly going on track or not doing as they were asked, and being stoned is no excuse.

But yeah, good first session, and I look forward to the next one.

But I can't see why certain drifters moan about too little steering lock. As far as I can see the XRG and XRT have plenty, and the tyres last long enough to do at least two if not three laps of blackwood.

All he said... Plus, I got in very late (two hours, if I remember correctly), so I missed the introduction, which I noticed by watching all the other doing fine but myself keeps spinning... Hope it gets better next time...

I liked and enjoyed it but at times there was too much childish behaviour. Which I guess was because there were a lot of time when we should just have sit there silently an look at when somebody makes a spin.

For the next time I have some suggestions: ()
a) as many trainees at same time as possible when doing practising. Will reduce the time needed for just sitting around

b) Feedback after the exercise, not at the same time Given individually to each participant right after his "show". Chance to ask questions and get answers. And chance to try it again, even if it takes time

c) As much info about the event beforehand as possible. I thought the car we would use was XRT but in the beginning I found out that we use XRG...for example. Never driven that thing before Also releasing the schedule for the event will make people concentrate more because people would know what to do next. Also chance to practise beforehand.

d) to save time, one instructor could "show off" at the same time as another explains stuff.

But I had fun

Thoroughly enjoyed my introduction to the drifting scene.

Thought the remarks that we got for our attempts were informative and constructive.

I also agree maybe another session be added where racers/wannabe drifters will be split up. Apart from the occasional long wait for an exercise to commence and useless posts for humours sake i believe the session was a success and can only get better.

I look forward to the next RTDC session

GOOD WORK GUYS

The above pretty much sumed it up: Notably comments are after practise and if best: Make a destinated area for one on one tutorial while the others can practise on themselves in another area, nothing can replace actual track time.

I think some of us should be a bit more disciplined but I understand most of us are out of school for quite some time.

In conclusion a very enjoyable session, looking forward for the next one.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Overall I think I can see what you were trying to do, but in my humble opinion I think it failed; badly.

Issues:

• Disagreement from a few instructors - sending mixed messages.
  
• Poor coordination - Pretty obvious, and I understand that it comes with practise.
  
• Demo's over the 'net will rarely work. Theres too much lag between actual input and what we see rendered.
  
• A lot of the talks could've been written before hand, and been reading homework - this would've created less boredom.
  
• 2 or 3 at a time after talks, whilst a good idea, didnt seem to work imho. I for one, havent a clue what was said about my performance on various tasks. By the time I got to look it was past the history.
  
• Mass mob mentality - nothing the instructors could do on their part, its a bit of a flaw with LFS / any online game in this respect.
  
• Some of the staff / instructors seemed to be taking this as a chance to show off on occasion.
  
• Constructive criticism seemed to just vanish.

Pro's:

• Lots of "well done" comments for those that impressed and deserved it, especially increasing towards the end.
  
• [Mostly] High Quality Demo's.
  
• 1 starting point caused much hilarity. This needs to be kept.

To be brutally honest, I've felt like I've pissed away 2 and a half hours of my life. I totally appreciate what was put in front of us, the amount of work required by the organisers to do this, and the resources needed (thanks clownpaint). But it just seemed to be the text I've read before regurgitated, and spat out at me in a different format. I dont feel like I've learnt much new, just had a limited chance to practise infront of those that I respect, and feel like a bit of a dick to be honest.

The school is a good idea, but perhaps its better for smaller sessions. Like you would experience in real life, 3/4 instructors couldnt teach 20 others to drive. Its impossible. Understandably this would take up more time in the short term, but racers like myself who possibly need more pointers than Tristan or Hyperactive (for example) would perhaps benefit from this setup more.

Just some food for thought.

yup, i agree with your point on showing off. it came from me too. but first times dont always go well, and im sure once we get the hang of things it will go alot better!

also, imo yes like taa said it should be in smaller groups. like in groups of 5. its so much easier that way.

i gotta say the american session was great ... even though the server was a bit crowded towards the end (when gooden joined that is)

- maybe after you sent everbody your setups there should have been a few minutes of free practice so we could have familiarized ourselves with those setups

- oh btw ... after watching the drift bible dvd i cant say i agree with the way braking and feint drift were taught in this session
the way braking was introduced sounds more like a variation of the handbrake turn to me and feint more like what i learned as manji or scandinavian flick (drifting the other way before the drift)

oh yeah one last thing ... i finally understand why tristan despises drifting ... todays session got me a blister on my left thumb => drifting hurts (probably even kills) => drifting sucks =)

good and properly run drift replays should be made and uploaded for the racers/students to download and speculate before the lesson starts, therefore the instructors can focus more on teaching and pointing out errors of a student or what needs to be improved. Instead of still spending time doing the explaining and demo-ing.

Don't know if that'll work though, just a thought as I'm not sure what happened in the server afterall. Oh and good to hear the RTDC first session went on nicely

Damn, had to miss it!

First of all, congratulations all trainees. You all did very well and I saw that everyone was advancing. Keep it up.

On my part, I will try to give out more criticism to the students in the next session.

Just thought of an idea - name colours. All students have to have normal grey names, whilst intructors have to have red. This means that any red letters on the screen are obvious so it's easier to filter chat from instruction.

nice and simple!

Good Idea

I agree with everything said in this thread so far. The beginning instructions were nice for total drift newbies and I think everyone learned something this day.

We were way too many people, though - for a optimal learning/teaching-effort ratio I'd suggest about 10 people max. Besides that, there's only so much you can learn from reading and watching others, which we did too much IMO. It's very nice that you mastered drifting around Blackwood, but that doesn't help the newcomers at all, especially if the lag eats most of the finer details

I think the best way is as following

• Lessons to explain a technique [Duration: short]
  Every trainee is spectating, one trainer explains something and the other shows it. Emphasis is on "short". Pre-written text messages would be nice.
  .
  
• Guided single/double/triple lessons [Duration: short-medium]
  One to three trainees do a specific subject, trainers watch and comment on it afterwards. These should also be relatively short, so each trainee does it once and depending on trainee skill he may have some more tries in the same run.
  .
  
• Open practice/education [Duration: long]
  All trainees are on the track. Each trainer picks one trainee, watches him, comments on his driving and gives some tips. This is rotated for a while, maybe until every trainee has been watched twice. The trainer may or may not announce who he's watching.
  This should also be what we do most of the time. Talking is good, practice is better.
  

Quote from tristancliffe :

Just thought of an idea - name colours. All students have to have normal grey names, whilst intructors have to have red. This means that any red letters on the screen are obvious so it's easier to filter chat from instruction.

Oh yes! A mute button would've been godsend at times

PS: SHHHH!

SHHH stop the SHHHHs!!!

Quote from tristancliffe :

Just thought of an idea - name colours. All students have to have normal grey names, whilst intructors have to have red. This means that any red letters on the screen are obvious so it's easier to filter chat from instruction.

Nooo! I want my pink rtdc tag illepall

(actually it would be better to have some similar colours )


I am actually against to have smaller groups because bigger groups allow wider skill ranges.

And what exactly is the benefit of wider skill ranges?

IMO these lessons are very much like school, and thinking of my school time I remember a trend that was always true: less students = more attention = better learning.
Really, with that many drift-noobs one rotation took ages, and the "class" was very hard to keep under control. With smaller classes, teaching would be more personal and the experience would be better for everyone.

You see more errors and know/learn better what not to do Also more people = different ways of doing things.

As I see it, it's more of a community event (in a way) than a true training session and more people just bring more life to it. Also easier for the instructors to have two big sessions instead of 4 or 5 smaller ones.