Elbows UP!
The best lesson anyone ever taught me was the imortance of keeping my elbows UP.
Let me repeat, elbows up.
Now I'll shout it ELBOWS UP.
Now in italics, elbows up.
Now in Spanglish, el elbows up.....
If you are crashing stupidly, I'll bet you are dropping your elbows. If I'm wrong, I'll wear Birkenstocks....
You should be feeling a nasty burn in your upper arms for the first several rides until you get those muscles trained. If it doesn't hurt, you aren't keeping your elbows up high enough.
Here's the deal - if your elbows are up, when the bike moves under you, it just rocks under your shoulders - engineers will describe it as a four bar parallel link system. The bike wants to go straight due to the geometry unless and until you put input into the bars. When you ride with your elbows down, any bike movement causes the bars to move which results in unstable steering and possible oscillation. YOU are steering the bike when you don't intend to. Have Mr Steve stand behind you holding the bike upright and you stand on the pegs with your elbows down while he gives the bike a sudden rock to one side. You will steer. Try it with elbows up an you will not steer.
If you think I'm full of beans, next time you are crashing, with your last possible ounce of fight, force yourself to put (you gurssed it) your elbows up and I bet you save it. You'll be amazed.