Tagged with Skills

How to Pick Up the Reins

This week I’m auditing a clinic with my friend who is in the Ecole de Légèreté Teacher’s Course and yesterday an interesting topic came up – how to pick up your reins. It’s something I was never specifically taught how to do, other than “softly, without bothering your horse,” and that every professional at the clinic … Continue reading

Change of Rein

I received a great question in the email about change of rein, so I decided to make a post about it. When I first saw the term in the PATH Intl Certification Riding Test, I was confused. I had never heard of it before. And unless you ride horses classically, it’s not intuitive to figure out … Continue reading

Two Point Lesson Plan

These notes are from the Advanced Workshop I attended at Heartland Therapeutic Riding last summer. This another one is from Sandy Webster of Gaits of Change, our workshop instructor. I think this was one we discussed in the classroom because I don’t have all the parts of the lesson. Two Point: Lesson Plan for a Group with … Continue reading

Fun Video Friday: Posting Trot and Diagonals

Today’s video is a nice example of how to teach the posting trot and diagonals, similar to how I usually teach it. She’s got lots of hows and whys, and some tips for instructors. If you’re an experienced instructor, you probably already know all this but it’s a good review. If you’re a new instructor, … Continue reading

Bending and Straightening Activity

Here is an exercise that my instructor did with me, and that I think might be fun to do with some of your more advanced students! Bending and Straightening Arena setup: 2 poles, 1 in each corner at one end of the arena, as if cutting it off to form a triangle Skill: Bending & Straitening … Continue reading

The Purpose Behind Thumbs Up

I have been reading this brilliant book called Balance in Movement by Susanne Von Dietze (click here for the paperback or hardcover) in which she goes over in depth the biomechanics of rider posture in order to achieve balance while the horse is in movement. Up until reading her book, I always explained the purpose of “thumbs up” as: it … Continue reading

Posting on the Correct Diagonal

Recently some of my riders have gotten good enough at posting that I’ve started teaching them posting on the correct diagonal. I learned by rising with the outside shoulder, however some of my riders have had a hard time with this method. So I did some research and here are the whats whys and hows … Continue reading

Sitting Trot: Lesson Plan by Linda

One of the goals of this blog is to help people pass certification to become a therapeutic riding instructor, and it is so neat to hear when this happens! A reader named Linda wrote me several weeks ago about how much this blog helped her prepare, then followed up by letting me know she passed her certification … Continue reading