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- Thread starter Horsey person23
- Start date
I thought you were giving up riding?
It may be this instructor has a different style, there's a lot to be said for learning to feel what's going on underneath you - riders who can are nearly always the ones who can get a "lazy" horse going without a stick or indeed much leg aid! If you stop being dismissive about the lack of fancy work you may learn an awful lot about the basics and find they make a huge difference. I'm also a bit puzzled why you say in the past your order of asking was "leg, hand, crop" - what happened to body/seat and why hand?
Rather than complain to anyone I'd say if you get her again ask her to explain a bit more as you felt you didn't understand what she was teaching you last time and would like to get more out of your lesson (and more doesn't mean more canter or moves) rather than feel like a passenger. Oh and for the record one transition done well is worth more than a hundred done badly!
It may be this instructor has a different style, there's a lot to be said for learning to feel what's going on underneath you - riders who can are nearly always the ones who can get a "lazy" horse going without a stick or indeed much leg aid! If you stop being dismissive about the lack of fancy work you may learn an awful lot about the basics and find they make a huge difference. I'm also a bit puzzled why you say in the past your order of asking was "leg, hand, crop" - what happened to body/seat and why hand?
Rather than complain to anyone I'd say if you get her again ask her to explain a bit more as you felt you didn't understand what she was teaching you last time and would like to get more out of your lesson (and more doesn't mean more canter or moves) rather than feel like a passenger. Oh and for the record one transition done well is worth more than a hundred done badly!
I agree this is very different from normal UK BHS teaching. But feeling the horse is what I was taught to do by the trainer Mark Rashid and it is the root of my riding.
The question is what do you feel? And has anyone suggested what you should feel for?
Rashid usually starts by explaiing the beat of each gait. So walk is a 4 times beat and as the horse walks you should feel each of our ips drop (alternately) as the hindlegs of the horse move.
Lots of people think that when your hip rises, that is the point the horse's hind leg rises too. But in fact it is the opposite. Imagine the horse like a table with a leg at each corner. If his right hind leg is off the ground, there is nothing supporting the table at that corner ad it will dip.
When the hind leg of the horse is off the ground, that is the moment you can guide it. For instance in leg yield. But knowing which leg is off the ground will also help you to time your cue for canter.
The movement you feel iunder your seat bones in trot is the same as in walk, but it is now 2 beat.
Feeling the horse move under you and understanding what you feel means that by relaxing or stiffening your seat you can slow down or energise the horse. Rashid taught his studients in a circle in a school to transition up and down simply by thinking the new rhythm,
If you relax and breathe deep and start to experiment with this you will find the horse under you responding and reacting. You are allowing the horse to move forward but you have the choice also to stiffen and thus slow the horse.
It is an additional and reciprocal means of communicating with the horse through the feel in your seat and your thighs. I found this easy to do from the start of my lessons when I could hardly ride at all. My RI told me that some people never "get it". You may be a very good rider but never use this feel at all.
But if you can work it out with the help of this teacher, it is a great thing to have in ones riding repertoire. Going into canter can be magic.
The question is what do you feel? And has anyone suggested what you should feel for?
Rashid usually starts by explaiing the beat of each gait. So walk is a 4 times beat and as the horse walks you should feel each of our ips drop (alternately) as the hindlegs of the horse move.
Lots of people think that when your hip rises, that is the point the horse's hind leg rises too. But in fact it is the opposite. Imagine the horse like a table with a leg at each corner. If his right hind leg is off the ground, there is nothing supporting the table at that corner ad it will dip.
When the hind leg of the horse is off the ground, that is the moment you can guide it. For instance in leg yield. But knowing which leg is off the ground will also help you to time your cue for canter.
The movement you feel iunder your seat bones in trot is the same as in walk, but it is now 2 beat.
Feeling the horse move under you and understanding what you feel means that by relaxing or stiffening your seat you can slow down or energise the horse. Rashid taught his studients in a circle in a school to transition up and down simply by thinking the new rhythm,
If you relax and breathe deep and start to experiment with this you will find the horse under you responding and reacting. You are allowing the horse to move forward but you have the choice also to stiffen and thus slow the horse.
It is an additional and reciprocal means of communicating with the horse through the feel in your seat and your thighs. I found this easy to do from the start of my lessons when I could hardly ride at all. My RI told me that some people never "get it". You may be a very good rider but never use this feel at all.
But if you can work it out with the help of this teacher, it is a great thing to have in ones riding repertoire. Going into canter can be magic.
So if you're that unhappy and determined to find fault find another instructor, but I think you could be missing an opportunity to learn a more subtle form of riding. I will say that if you'd learned how to focus on the stride and timing of aids from your other RI then you should have been able to apply it to this horse without having to be told how - you really should be able to take things from a lesson and carry them forward. Likewise your position, you should be capable by now of correcting that for yourself if it's a known problem, otherwise what's the point in a lesson? I feel this RI is treating you like an adult rider who can work some stuff out for themself and learn from trying, and appreciates the chance to, but maybe she needs to realise you still need to be talked through verything at the moment.
Either talk to her or find someone else, but I don't think it would be fair to complain to her employer about her when you haven't talked to her first. Why didn;t you say something in the lesson?
Either talk to her or find someone else, but I don't think it would be fair to complain to her employer about her when you haven't talked to her first. Why didn;t you say something in the lesson?
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