12/08/2024
Horsemanship is an art and it ought to be taught as such. I don’t have many kids that cross my path with the passion and patience.
Some pondering on teaching riders, and the difference between a lesson program and a riding school -
I think one of the biggest issues with current riding instruction is we teach people how to control the horse before we teach them to FEEL and RIDE the horse. These are very different skill sets leading to very different outcomes.
Generally, a beginner horse is one who is safe enough to be ridden by a beginner. And often, they are stiff, likely halfway lame, and dull. So if you put these two together- a newbie rider, and a stiff and tolerant horse, people learn to over aid, squeeze, pull, and “make” horses do things. It’s pretty hard to learn subtle feelings and find the horses body underneath you when you have to kick to make them go and pull to make them turn.
Add to that normalizing the feeling of stiffness and half-lameness to riders, and they will really struggle to learn what a horse SHOULD feel like.
In clinics, I am often faced with the dilemma of teaching a rider and horse pair who have 99 problems but a seat ain’t one : I have to decide the most urgent problem- out of control horse brought to safety, or teaching a seat. If we had real riding SCHOOLS, riders could be taught a seat BEFORE learning how to control the out of control horse, and later, the seat would be one of those tools to help guide the horse with much more ease and significantly much less pulling, kicking, and bending horses heads up their butts to stop out of control forward motion.
What would a riding school look like?
It would have straight, supple well-trained horses for students of all levels to ride on
It would prioritize FEEL and the seat, giving students lessons in finding their seat until they could manage solo - then teach them AIDS.
It would not cater to the students wants or desires but instead stick to an understood progression of developing skill.
This reduces wear and tear on lesson horses dramatically, with no pulling and kicking on tolerant saints of lesson horses, while an instructor guides the horse to move well on the lunge for the student to memorize this feel. Of course, instructors would be riding them to maintain their fitness and responsiveness to aids, but these horses would not be repeatedly degraded for the sake of teaching beginners.
What’s the downside ? Who has a string of supple, straight horses for students to ride?
And who can afford to open this school?
And who has a list of clients begging to learn the hard way and get no immediate gratification who will stick to learning long enough to produce skill?
This may be an imaginary pipe dream anymore
