04/18/2025
Our instructors do an amazing job regardless of the desired discipline teaching the fundameals. It's what the advanced riders fall back on to fix little things that come up along the way in training. Work on your horsemanship and the issues seem to go away quicker.
Yes we have lost students because they weren't reaching their goals of jumping soon enough but we have good riders learning skills on all levels of horses.
Most riding students today start their lessons at a discipline centered barn. Few of these barns begin with the fundamentals of general riding such as balance. Instead, these discipline focused programs teach the forms and positions of their specific discipline. This leaves voids in their training that they discover many years later when they try to switch to some other discipline or type of riding.
The best way to teach riding begins with teaching the fundamentals of horsemanship. In addition to riding, driving or other activities, authentic horsemanship includes teaching basic elements of horse care and horse training. For example, the first thing I teach new students about horse training is that we are always training or untraining a horse when we ride. Regarding horsemanship horse care, I teach basics like getting a horse out of a pasture, how to safely approach a horse, hoof cleaning, careful saddling and bridling, as well as how to do a simple assessment of a horse's condition and state of mind that they are about to ride.
Effective riding instruction begins with having the student add new skills or tools to the student's equestrian toolbox. Balance comes first. Much later, when a student develops an effective balanced seat, we stop adding tools and refine their use of their acquired tools so as to help them achieve unity of balance and movement with their horse.
Once they achieve a degree of unity, we stop adding new tools unless new tools are required for specific discipline. Much later, when the student learns to ride consistently in unity, we optimize the use of their acquired tools to allow them to do more with less. Optimization of their acquired tools eventually expands the range of some tools' applications such that the applications overlap with other of their tools' uses. This is when we begin to remove tools from their toolbox because they can do more with fewer tools.
I believe that the elevated fear and the many injuries riders experience today are the result of having never learned the fundamentals of balance and shared movement with a horse. Instead, they learned to be a Hunter Jumper, or a Reiner, or some other specialty without ever establishing a solid, effective, balanced seat. They are rightfully fearful and get hurt because balance is essential, and it should be established before learning specialized methods.
basic related post on safely approaching a horse -
www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02sP2HpSPwofCPTcoa6J9ziob4Y1dhbvUWpfBiA9bJUZmADwQBqRKn6VjMUjqxtpcYl
related post beginning riders stirrups length -
www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02973AXNj7tcRCTrr6s9WQASUtLA3rJSGmSnXc6gwyFasQTtMyQWdivRsd63htxJidl
related post for advanced riders -
www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02tfc9K6eQSzFgRzigsGUnvypafbnsFhf4PBNqjrEnFR9eo2daoaMnkbFY1Af9zQBdl
