General ideas for teaching
The annual ritual, No Stirrup November, is almost upon us. Say you YAY! Or Nay? As an instructor I love this opportunity to be creative and to help students achieve basic goals. I’ve included downloads at the end of this post to help make No Stirrup November rewarding for you and your students. Be sure […]
Good riding is as much the result of conditioning the rider’s thought processes and reflexes, as it is conditioning the body and learning skills. What a rider does or does not put into their mind will have direct bearing on what their body produces while riding. Automatic Reflexes Automatic Reflexes are the moves and reactions […]
A solid and correct base of support is one of the best gifts we can give to students because it’s the foundation of good riding and balance. Definition A quick Internet search for “base of support” produced the following from Physiopedia : The base of support (BOS) refers to the area beneath an object or […]
Writing about two-point was supposed to be easy. After all, two-point is the mainstay position for the hunter-jumper world. Definition I planned to start out with the definition of two-point used by the leading authorities. That seemed simple enough. Start with the definition and build from there. Right? Wrong. I looked through more than a […]
The following simple exercise can be used for all levels of independent riders in a variety of settings and seats ranging from a pole on the ground to a jump. This Simple Exercise has Multiple Benefits How often do we teach riders to look at an inanimate object as they ride a line or direction? […]
Participating in your first dressage test is a big event and everyone wants to do their best. You are a fortunate rider if you do your first test on a school master but not everyone has that opportunity. Just being ready to compete is a big step but if your horse is new to […]
Why Rate the Gait? Before your students learn lengthenings, rebalancing, corner adustments or even takes a ride in the pasture they need to learn to rate the gait. It doesn’t matter whether you teach dressage, hunt seat, saddle seat, or western riding, the need is the same and this exercise will help. The need to […]
How important is riding without stirrups? Whenever I ask a class of new riders “What keeps you on the horse” one person will answer “the stirrups”. Rider’s receive security from their stirrups and become dependent upon them, so it’s important to also teach them riding without stirrups. After all we want don’t want our student’s […]
Spatial awareness is a persons ability to be aware of their body in a space and how it relates to other things in that space. When your new student comes to his first time experience, riding lesson, he doesn’t come with spatial awareness as it relates to horses, automatically built in. This is one of […]
What Are Toe Touches? Toe Touches are an on-the-horse exercise during which the rider stays seated and reaches down with his hand to touch his toes, one foot and one hand at a time. There are two types of Toe Touches: Same Side Cross overs Why they are beneficial Co-ordination co-ordination increases when the student has […]
