Academic Art of Riding - Bettina Biolik

28/01/2025

Practicing transitions in and out of school halt has really helped develop Minor’s school halt 🥰
Minor today during filming for my Classroom (series about the work in standstill).

27/01/2025

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade 🍋
I have a nasty inflammation in my right shoulder, and while it's already heaps better, I still can't move my arm normally. So I did some liberty with all the horses today 🥰
While lots of transitions and more "action" are great when I work with Weto, I take care to alternate phases of activity with phases of calmness with Minor. I think he will make a great liberty pony, don't you think?

26/01/2025

Transitions forward - collection - forward

Transitions are a very important training element. How you get into and out of an exercise matters!

Let's look at this short example, collection in trot. If during the transition into collection, the horse is already, or still, crooked and stiff, we will have the same problems in the collection. The horse will be on the shoulder and struggle to lift the trunk.

We are often too quick to work in collection, and it seems many prefer "collection at all costs" to a nicely balanced forward. We see lots of backwards working front legs and haunches without proper bending of the joints. Stepping on the place with stiff legs and without lift is not collection. It's also not very useful for anything.

Right now, I'm training for more collection with Minor (you could also call it piaffe...), but I'm very picky about the "how". I want Minor to keep lift and to not loose the lift when I transition into collection and back into forward. For Minor, it's easier to transition into collection than to transition out of it, and I really liked this short moment in time, because he tried very much

23/01/2025

I feel so honored that I can support these two 🥰🥰🥰

22/01/2025

My new course is slowly taking shape...FROM ZERO TO HERO - LEADING TRAINING FOR THE ART OF RIDING...very soon ready to release! So excited 🤩 Watch the video to learn what's going to be in the course:

17/01/2025

Australia was my big surprise in the last two years. To be honest, Australia is really far away from where I live and I had never given it a lot of thought. Then I shared a post in the Academic Art of Riding group in Australia announcing my 2023 clinics. I didn’t really think that I would actually travel to Australia, I just shared this post in all of the academic groups I’m a member in.
And half a year later, I had my visa and actually boarded a plane to Perth!
In 2023 and 2024, I taught 27 clinics in Australia and I met so many of you live. I didn’t really know much about Australia and I was just amazed by your openness to learn, by your smart questions, by your generosity.
Somehow, Andrew Turnbull, Marina Morton, Lisa Roper Susan Castel, Lee-Anne Shepherd, Anke Hawke, Terri Campbell and Lynn Scott jumped in on the occasion to host clinics for me although we didn’t really know each other. And yet, with each and every one of you, I felt like I already knew you for years. Maybe because we all care so much for horses and people. We share the same passions, ideas and worries. You have my deepest gratitude for arranging these amazing clinic for me! Because of you, we are all able to meet, learn, and connect.
Dear Anke Hawke, my tour coordinator and planner, juggles the dates and everyone’s requirements, and doing a damn good job at it. Anke, you’re my hero!
With each clinic I teach, I learn so much. Each clinic tour is truly special to me, and these are not just words. I feel that each tour reshapes me a little. I come back a different human. The intensity of teaching 2 clinics a week, the travelling, the breathtaking nature, the kindness of the people. It all blends to an incredible experience.
So I’m beyond exited to announce our next tour:

💎 WA PERTH March 19/20 2025, arranged by AMT Equestrian Services, [email protected]
💎 VIC MELBOURNE March 22/23 2025, arranged by Marina Morton Dressage and Horsemanship, [email protected]
💎 SA ADELAIDE March 26/27 2025, arranged by Susan Castel Equine Consultant/Coach, [email protected]
💎 ACT CANBERRA March 29/30 2025, arranged by Anamir Equine, [email protected]
💎 NSW MINIMBAH April 2/3 2025, arranged by Anke Hawke Balanced Dressage, [email protected]
💎 NSW MINIMBAH April 5/6 2025, arranged by Anke Hawke Balanced Dressage, [email protected]
💎 QLD SUNSHINE COAST April 9/10 2025, arranged by Lynn Scott, [email protected]
I hope to see you there! Make the time to come, even just for a few hours, to connect to people who care as deeply about horses as you do. There is a beautiful community of enthusiastic horse people in Australia, and I feel honoured to be a part of it for two months a year.
I feel that Australia is no longer a place far away when it comes to the academic art of riding, but a place “on the map” with a lot of good people and a lot of heart.
See you very soon!
XOXO, Bettina

12/01/2025

The average view time of videos on social media is 4,57 seconds… So this video is a bit of a rebel act ;)
It’s winter in Poland and the ground is frozen. It snows, melts, snows. Not the best conditions for training! I’m so glad I can train the academic groundwork with my horses. Slow, safe, and yet very effective!
Warming up the joints gently, stretching, lifting, straightening, building strength…
The academic groundwork is so versatile: from basic to advanced, for young and older horses. We school our eye and feel, and build our connection.
In a world that’s more and more crazy, dare to slow down and to enjoy the moment together.
Interested? I just released new videos in the groundwork module of my classroom - full length training sessions with my horses. The groundwork module also contains videos on how to get started with groundwork, how to teach the aids, and videos about each side movement: Shoulder-in, quarter-in, half-pass, pirouette, renvers pirouette. There is also lots of info about the school halt and how to start collection in groundwork.
Curious? The first month is 25% off! Stay as long as you like and join a community of lovely horse people.
Link to the classroom in the bio and in comments!

09/01/2025

Many of us are experiencing the fallout of the welfare issues in the horse industry. We get negative comments, maybe messages. I know that many are upset about that right now and demand a better discussion culture among equestrians. I definitely wouldn’t mind NOT having to monitor my accounts so closely.
Yes, of course we should treat each other with respect. However, I find it much more problematic that horses are still treated like sports equipment. They have to function and what is going on inside often seems to be irrelevant. The tortured facial expressions are hard to bear. This is about animal welfare.
I think it's good that riders can be held accountable through the wide reach of the internet. Because the knowledge has been available for a long time. There are enough studies and freely accessible information, books. Anyone who pulls a horse's head down onto its chest and causes blue tongues these days knows exactly what he/she is doing. The FEI and national associations hide behind the slogan “more research is needed”. No, it isn’t. The equestrian sport is under criticism and I think rightfully so.
I say this as a trainer who gives courses internationally and makes a living from horses and riding. So many of my clients have been told by previous trainers that they just have to assert themselves and that the horse just needs “a few wet saddle blankets”. Horses are ridden despite lameness and a lot of stress and suffering is caused by harmful living conditions, feeding and training.

Yes, I also experience negative comments under my posts. While I can simply delete them, the horses that are tortured in the name of sport cannot simply delete their riders. We have to help them, because they have no voice themselves. As long as these abuses are present, I think we have to live with the other side of the coin. If the sport does not reform itself, sooner or later politics will do it (as is already happening in some countries). And then we will get laws that we are all not happy with.
Personally, I have decided to bear the negativity with grace. Because I think the alternative is that nothing will change. And I don’t find that acceptable.

06/01/2025

“We have ruled out pain” is a sentence I often hear. Here are some great points to consider when something is off with your horse:

Getting to the root of a pain problem -

As our understanding of pain related behaviour improves, there are many situations where horses might present with a "nothingy something" of an issue but there is no clear indicator of where that problem might be arising from.

The interesting (challenging) thing with this is that, if there is no overt lameness or "if I poke here it really hurts", then oftentimes there is no clear start line for your diagnostic journey.

This can be very frustrating because you can find yourself running around in circles not knowing where to start, with conflicting advice from the professionals around you - some of whom might tell you unhelpful things like "just ride through it" or "it's just bad behaviour"

And this is where I have found traditional diagnostics really need to up their game because from a welfare perspective we need to be intervening with pain before a horse is hopping lame or ditching their rider.

And this in turn will encourage people to pay attention to the smaller behaviours rather than waiting for lameness or waiting to be ditched!

What I have learned is that sometimes you have to pick a place to start and work from there.

This means you may be searching for a little while and you might be ruling out more areas through diagnostics than ruling in areas, but that in and of itself is useful information.

Here is what my career has taught me so far:

- If you think there is a problem, there probably is. Find yourself a team of professionals that will support you.

Sometimes a professional might tell you there isn't a problem because they don't have the skillset to see it or find it, another opinion can often be a good thing - though do keep in mind that too many chefs spoil the broth.

There is many a time where I will say "there is a problem - I can't tell you what, though my observation/palpation skills tell me xyz and I will support you in finding out what it is".

- Sometimes there is so much peripheral noise that you need to strip out a lot of variables and then reassess. This includes improving your horse's management to meet their ethological needs and reducing the workload to see where a problem stops being a problem. These all take time.

I have also found that horses can present as painful because their human is expecting way, way, way too much from them given their physical and emotional health. Getting comfortable doing less and going slower is a solid way of rounding off with a happier, healthier horse that you can actually do more with in the long run.

- I'm a "let's deal with the elephant in the room" kind of gal:

If your horse has poor foot balance, deal with that and then go from there. This could include radiographs to monitor changes in hoof angle and this might mean seeking advice from other hoof care providers to support you and your current hoof care provider in improving things.

Likewise, if your horse's back looks like a saggy hammock, or they have weird lumps/spinal protrusions, deal with that. You could get radiographs to tell you the orientation of the spinous processes. Then rebuild your horse's spinal angle and see where that gets you.

- The problem will continue to be a problem until you have actually resolved it! If your horse has diagnosed hoof balance issues, which you are working on resolving, but the balance is still poor, then it will still be an issue!! This means you have to adjust your expectations of your horse accordingly!

- If you are requesting relatively non-invasive diagnostics, e.g. radiographing/ultrasounding your horse's limbs or back, and you are prepared to pay actual hard earned money for this service even though it might show you absolutely nothing of any value (although to me, ruling out an area is of enormous value), please don't let a professional convince you not to UNLESS they have a reasonable counter plan for another diagnostic (NB a bone scan, to the tune of thousands of £££ is not a suitable counterplan in my opinion)

"I suggested to my vet that we xray my horse's back but they palpated it and said that his reactions were normal so there is no reason to xray"

"Okay well what did they suggest instead?"

"They didn't"

"Great, so you have a horse that presents with pain under saddle and yet we are still no further forward with determining the cause"

- Equally, diagnostics and expertise do come with a price tag, this means that in order to find out what is going on with your horse, you do need to spend money. I know this gets tricky when your horse is presenting with a nothingy something and you have a limited budget to deal with it because you really want to spend that money wisely, but turning up to your vet and saying "I have 55p and three buttons to spend, please tell me what's wrong with my horse", is really unfair on your vet and also your horse.

"I had his hocks medicated but it didn't change anything"

"Did you do any diagnostics?"

"No, we just medicated"

"So what you're saying is you did something painful, that isn't without its risks, despite having not done any due diligence, which means you've spent money you don't have on something that wasn't the problem?"

- It is not as simple as medicating and riding into the sunset.

Why did your horse get the diagnosis they got?

What have you done to improve their management/lifestyle/way of going so you can reduce the instances of this happening again? For biomechanic induced issues, you need to solve the problem by altering their biomechanics; medicating is a way of reducing the pain/inflammation to buy you a window of time to do this in.

-

The relationship between pain and behaviour are very complicated. I really wish it was as simple as "nerve block here" to get results. There is so much more I could add and the nuances are vast.

There will of course be outliers to this - people who tried all of the above and are still without answers, or those who walked to hell and back to get them - and for those people I understand that this post might be very triggering, I am sorry about that. I hope you can see here that this is a good starting place for many people and I welcome your experience in the comments if you feel it has the power to help someone.

The final thing I will say is this -

Your horse does not need to perform in any way, shape or form in order to be deserving of your love, care and dedication to them. And if you feel they do, then perhaps you should consider getting a bicycle instead ❤️

29/12/2024

2024 slowly comes to a close and it’s a year I will forever be very grateful for 🙏
I have travelled around 100.000km, give or take a few thousand 🙈, have taught 30 clinics, hundreds of online lessons, have developed my classroom further and most of all have met so many wonderful people and horses. I have seen the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland and went on a cruise on the Everglades in Queensland Australia. I have memories to last me a lifetime and I feel like a squirrel with a big fat storage of nuts for winter when I look at all the photos I took with my phones this year.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
Grateful for every moment, every conversation, every lesson learned and taught.
I see you all in 2025 🥂🎉

28/12/2024

The other day I wanted to film some work in hand with Minor, but my camera had a malfunction. Well, actually the sim card was full and the camera started to film random 2 seconds until it quit entirely. I strung all the pieces together and out came a nice short movie 😅
At the moment I'm practicing some work in hand from the outside. It's a new thing for us and here you can see maybe our fourth practice session.

27/12/2024

“New research into the complexities of bio-tensegrity have now included the tensions created by nervous tissue, the vascular tissue, the movement of the viscera and bodily fluids (liquid fascia), such as blood, lymph, interstitial and intracellular fluids, recognising how body fluids can manipulate mechanical tensions faster than muscles and govern functionality (Bordoni and Myers 2020). Bordoni and Myers (2020) express how while myofascial lines and kinetic chains provide a fundamental understanding of the body as a continuum, the current concepts do not include all the components to explain the nuances of a mobile existence.
Therefore, while as I have presented here, there is anatomical evidence for myofascial lines, kinetic chains and logical thinking behind bio-tensegrity, the discussion of these theories often lack understanding of integral components that control these systems and ultimately stops the body from being a pile of connected tissue, on the floor. One being the nervous system.”

The interconnectivity of the horse’s musculoskeletal system, and the complexities of movement is continuously being unravelled and has taken large steps recently as we have delved into the realms of myofascial lines and bio-tensegrity. Research has also quantified the hoof, as the ground interface...

26/12/2024

My original plan for Christmas was to stay on the couch and not do anything. The short story is - I didn't manage ;) Maybe it's because I just love what I do. And I guess the relatively good weather also played a part (around zero and sunny).

Anyway, yesterday and today I had short but lovely riding sessions with Minor. I have been telling here a bit about how riding in Minor is a lot slower than I anticipated and I honestly talked about what the struggle is. I don't think I want to do that anymore.

As a response to my posts, I received a lot of (well-meaning) messages. That I should test Minor for MIM, that he probably has ECVM, that he could have kissing spines, and so on.

I don't share any of those concerns. Minor is as fit as a fiddle and was never sick one day in his life (knock on wood). Never lame, never stumbles, has soft muscles, loves to work, always gives 120%, loves to jump the tree trunks on our forest trail, is learning piaffe in hand right now, and loves levade.

I also received a lot of advice. Some I tried, some, knowing my horse, I didn't want to try. In the end, I think, it just boils down to not being able to be consistent enough because of my travels (and the weather - no indoor) and just listening to Minor and what he needs from me.

I asked my teachers for advice and they confirmed my own idea - that the main problem is probably him not seeing me as he is used to from the ground. In order to help with that I have done some work in hand from the outside (with Minor bended away from me so he doesn't see me) and it has really helped. I think now it's just a matter of time.

I have shared today's uncut and commented (short) riding session in my classroom. It's a space where I feel safe enough to share my work with all it's ups and downs.

If the weather stays friendly for the next days, I plan to do a little riding each day 🥰

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and got some rest 🎄

24/12/2024

Merry Christmas everyone 🎄
Festive greetings from my desk ✨

18/12/2024

For the longest time, work in hand in trot with Minor felt a lot like a race. “I can run faster!!” That’s what he seemed to think. And of course he’s a lot faster ;)

Since a few weeks, I finally have the feeling that we can trot “together”. He is a lot better staying next to me and listens better to the aids (well, most of the time anyway ;) )

We start having moments of flow in trot 🥰 I’m not sure what prompted the change. I suspect it’s experimenting with my position. Sometimes I’m on the inside and sometimes I’m on the outside. When I’m on the outside, he doesn’t see me that well and has to rely more on feel.

In the pictures you can see how I’m changing position. Sometimes he’s bended towards me, sometimes away from me. Work in progress 🥰

16/12/2024

Straightening up after an exercise ✨

When working dressage exercises such as shoulder-in and quarter-in, I find it important to take the horse into the exercise and also out of the exercise again.

Of course, one can also flow from one exercise to another, but what I see in general is that horses are taken into an exercise and that there is no clear end to it. The horse "kind of" continues and gradually takes itself out of the exercise.

So try to straighten up your horse with a quarter-in aid after a shoulder-in and a shoulder-in aid after a quarter-in! You will feel how this helps balance and suppleness ❤️

Here are two examples of how I straighten up after a shoulder-in - one is groundwork the other is ridden :)

13/12/2024

Some days, the training is just perfect. Everything seems to come together. The horses are soft, focused, respond so well to the aids that you just have to think something and they do it. Stuff that you have been practicing for a while is finally working. Lots of flow, mutual understanding.

By now, I know that these are the "dangerous" days. Because I expect the next days to be like that as well. I think I had a "breakthrough" and from now on it's going to be like that.

Some years ago I noticed that the day after a "perfect" day, things seem to go to sh**t suddenly. Took me a while, but I learned it was me. My expectations. I didn't meet my horses where they were at, but assumed it's all going to be just as nice.

I got smarter through the years. I had a new rule: Don't work the horses the day after a "perfect" day. Just let it sink in, enjoy it, also give myself time to reflect on it.

I still do that and it has helped me a lot to get out of trap of being disappointed after a "perfect" ride. So I'm glad that I'm out teaching this weekend in Poland, because today was an absolutely perfect day!!!

Do you know what I'm talking about? Or is it only me?