Filed under Teaching Tips …

Teaching From the Center of the Arena

Teaching from the center of the arena is one of the hardest things for Instructors in Training to learn! But it’s an important teaching technique to learn for several reasons: Why teach from the center of the arena? In group lessons, you are able to see all of the riders at once – and if … Continue reading →

Reward the Try

Baby’s first horse fair! This weekend we went to the Hoosier Horse Fair in Indianapolis. It was so much fun, but bringing a baby definitely changes your experience of the fair – aka how much time you spend watching clinicians VS. how much time you spend in the kiddy korral (after much hollering at Peggy … Continue reading →

Arena Letter Memorization

Many barns have up arena letters based on the dressage arena to help direct students where to go. Here is some info and fun acronyms for remembering the order of these letters! First off, why are there letters to begin with? To instruct riders where to perform different movements, used primarily in dressage testing. Where … Continue reading →

The Equicube

I recently stumbled across this teaching tool on the interwebs: The Equicube. It’s a tool that strengthens the rider’s core and helps them find correct posture and ride from their center.  This is it, as shown on their website: It seems to me the biggest benefits for riding instruction, both for TR and able bodied … Continue reading →

Using the horse as a personality

In my training so far, I have seen in therapeutic riding that the main uses of the horse include: movement (their gaits directly transmit movement and require balance reactions) reflection of actions (as herd animals, horses act a mirror to the rider’s own tensions and actions, which can be used to change behavior) acceptance (horses … Continue reading →

Praise vs. Acknowledgement

When learning to teach riding lessons I was told to include a lot of feedback, in the form of specific praise or correction. However, recently I’ve been discovering a third type of feedback: observation. Here is the difference. Praise (Also called “Evaluative Praise.”) uses evaluative words (good, great) judges what we see attaches a characteristic to the … Continue reading →

Teaching Tips III

Here are some random tips I’ve been saving that don’t fit into a whole blog post but want to share! Enjoy! Teaching Tips III Sitting up straight “Make the front part of your torso longer than the back part” Walk trot walk Use colored cones like traffic signals: green cone means trot, yellow cone means slow down red cone … Continue reading →

Reins on Halter vs. Bridle

I had a great inquiry from a reader about creating staff guideline for when to progress a student from having the reins clipped to the halter to having the reins on the bridle. We do not have such guidelines at our barn, but here is an example I just made up that might be appropriate. Example … Continue reading →