Humbled And Frustrated Already!

Ergh, I really wish I could contribute more to this thread but this load im on is extremely tight and I need to be driving every minute I can :/

Hey don't sweat it. We've got ya covered. All I have left to do today is go feed the cows and chickens. Takes 20 minutes. We'll hold down the fort til you get the chance.

I looked like a monkey ******* a football!!!

funniest thing I've read on this forum

It was interesting to see the guys who had never even seen a trailer before pick it up quicker. It defiantly seems the more you think you know the worse off you will be. Just like shifting. The instructor even mentioned that the guys who drive manual cars are much harder to teach shifting.

This is absolutely right. People who have driven manual 5 speeds forever habitually deep clutch and try to single clutch. You have ingrained muscle memory that has to be broken. My guess on the offset is you might be trying to gradually drift the trailer into the hole. While it can be done an easier method is to turn the whole vehicle to 45 degree , straight back until your rear tandems are even with the line of cones in the middle then turn the whole vehicle 45 degrees the other way. Done correctly you now have a straight line back to finish the maneuver. When you are backing at a 45, try to keep both the left and right target comes in their respective mirrors.

Ahh backing. I still break out in a cold sweat when I think of how those first three months were for me "backing." It was brutal! Some days I would feel like I was starting to get it, others I would literally throw my hands up and look to the sky and say "God please just let it go in!"

I was in your situation in training, there was another guy who drove a fire truck in his town before and of course he would back up like a pro. He'd always get it within one shot it seemed, and even if he did miss the mark, he knew what it was and adjusted quickly. Then came my turn to back...10 minutes and 20 pull ups later...

Like was mentioned, it is probably oversteering and nerves. Try not to oversteer (which is easier said than done) and remember that the trailer reacts differently at different speeds. I was the king of oversteering when I learned to back. I'm actually surprised no one gave me that name as a cb handle

And don't get mad when you don't get it in on the first time, you're not out there to show your instructor that you're the worlds best backer. Believe me, he/she has seen it all. You just need to back good enough where they feel comfortable giving you a license. And for what it's worth, when you back, try calling out what you need to do when you back up. For example, if you need to turn left, say "turn left." before you start turning. It worked for me the first couple of weeks solo. And if someone is getting it better than you, that's fine, remember your day will come too. I was a lousy backer in training and I got talked about a lot when I went to truck stops on my own, but then one day it just "clicked."

You'll get it, just give it time.

others I would literally throw my hands up and look to the sky and say "God please just let it go in!"

That's awesome! We've all put in our time praying to the "Backing Gods" and asking them for mercy. I can't tell ya how many places I've been to over the years that you'd swear it wasn't possible to get a trailer in there if you hadn't known someone had done it before. In fact, I've actually asked that question a couple of times to dock workers. "Are you sure you've had 53' trailers in that dock before??"