Megan is just back from being one of the instructors at the all-star Warwick Summer School – and we asked her to talk about instruction and instructors this month….
We all say we will use the summer to improve our riding, our horses, and of course our fitness. To improve fitness we join the latest new age gym, book ourselves into some heavy duty classes, get put through our paces by some over-toned over-tanned Ken or Barbie just to stumble out looking like a soggy beetroot. We then never go back, but convince ourselves that the mere fact we have a gym membership card in our handbag and wear running shoes up to the stables means we to will be toned in no time. Ha, if only it were that easy! I’d be a size 8 by next week.
Improving your riding and your horse should be a lot more fun than going to the gym. You feel a partnership and understanding growing between you and your trusty steed and this is a very rewarding feeling. For this to happen you need to have the right influence over your horse, the right frame of mind, and a coach or instructor that you can understand, and understands your horse.
If you are looking for someone to help you, you need to look around. First look at the style of riders out there at the competitions. If you like the way someone rides, and how their horses go, just ask them who helps them. If this rider you like the look of happens to be one of the better riders in the sport, and is into teaching, then see if you can watch them teach a lesson or two with someone of a similar standard to yourself. This will give you a feeling for how they teach – they may seem really nice and ride well, but put them in their arena, and they may turn into a screaming belittling horror show with the communication skill of a toadstool! Not what you really want in a coach, no matter how nice their horses go, or how many wins they’ve had, no coach should be like that. If that’s what you just observed, you can just walk away pleased it wasn’t you paying for the lesson.
Emma Mason was one of the guest instructors at Warwick
Then there is the instructor who can communicate with you at your level of knowledge, e.g. in layman’s terms if you are still unsure of all the fancy terminology. This coach will then teach you what the fancy terminology means AND what it feels like, when you eventually manage to do it. I believe your coach should first focus on the riders position and continue to correct it at every stage. Then you are then able to improve your horse and get him more supple, engaged and obedient.
For this to happen you need to be patient and dedicated. Just having the most expensive dressage bridle won’t actually make your horse any more engaged. Having a comfortable correctly fitting bridle and bit will make the horse more comfortable and happy to work for you though. Once you and your horse have the basic skills and feel your coach can push you just the right amount every lesson, (if you’ve been doing your homework and are ready that is) so you start to really improve. This, for me, is the best way – no fancy tricks before the rider is ready, really understands the basics and has a good feel.
Kevin McNab helps a student through the water at Warwick
The Summer Schools: weekends of hundreds of horses and people of all ages riding in sometimes nasty heat and large groups. Down here in Adelaide we just don’t have the massive summer school program like in NSW and QLD. I was asked to go up and do the Warwick summer school last year and I had a ball and I did it again this year. They have some obscene amount of riders, something close to 200 and about 16 coaches. In this clinic the riders do two lessons a day, one show jumping and one cross country and have four different instructors over the two days. This is actually good and bad: good because if you didn’t like the way one lesson was done and you didn’t click with your coach then you weren’t going to see them again anyway; bad because you may have made some really good progress with one coach and you won’t get a back up lesson the next day. When I do clinics like this I don’t just go and start jumping everything in sight so the riders get to school all the fences. I treat it like lessons at home and I spend half of the lesson getting a better balance, position and connection between horse and rider.
Christopher Burton is another of the popular trainers at Warwick
This solves most of the nervous Nelly nerves because suddenly they don’t feel out of control on the cross country course. I get heaps from the other coaches, “oh Megan’s still warming up and my group have done 6 different jumps already!” I can’t help it, I just hate watching people jump looking like they’re about to fall off when you can change so much with just a few exercises to improve horse and rider balance.
When you ride in a group lesson the time you get one-on-one with your instructor is limited, so you need to make the most of the whole time. You should watch the other riders do their bit and ask questions. Try to see what the instructor is seeing when you watch the other riders. This will give you a good visual of what you might need to do.
If the instructor says “could you feel that?” when something you did made the horse go better, don’t just answer yes even if you didn’t feel it, just so you look clever in front of the group. Or if you think you did, say you think so and then explain what you think you felt. This gives the instructor an idea of your understanding and feeling. If you seem interested in your lesson then the instructor will react well to your interest and you will get more from them. Even if what they are saying seems strange there is no harm in going along with it for the lesson as it might actually be quite helpful, as long as it’s not abusive. You can take what you have learnt, store it away and if it doesn’t work for one horse it may work for the next one. It’s good to have different options to solve the same problem as every horse may need a very slightly different approach.
And Lindy’s there when Megan needs her – here they discuss Megan’s test at the WEG in Aachen and as you see from their faces, it was great!
To improve, you need help, you don’t reach a certain stage in your riding when you stop needing lessons. All the top riders need help and eyes on the ground to improve and stay at the top. I do my regular lessons with Lindy Wright and clinics with Wayne Roycroft, Jamie Coman and Alexa Bell. I also will do a clinic with someone who sounds interesting, just to get a different perspective on things, but I will always have my regular dressage coach Lindy. I think it’s important you don’t just become a clinic junkie going to every clinic within a 4hour radius. You need that one consistent voice that you totally understand, it may take awhile to find that instructor you really like and start improving with but it’s worth it to look around, watch some lessons and try a couple out.
This article first appeared in THM April 2007.