While I have posted about preparing a The Lesson Plan and doing the Intake Lesson (Version 1 & Version 2), I have not posted necessarily about preparing for a new rider. This has been on my mind lately because I have a new client! Within The Lesson Plan post, the first thing is what to do before the … Continue reading
Tagged with teaching tips …
About Asking Questions
I have been reading the book “Play to Talk: A Practical Guide to Help Your Late-Talking Child Join the Conversation” by James MacDonald Ph.D. & Pam Stoika Ph.D. I’m impressed! I bought it 3 years ago to help me with riders with speech disabilities and wish I’d read it sooner! I will be blogging more ideas … Continue reading
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
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
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
A Few Links – Falling Off, Teaching Tips, Saddle Pads, On the Bit, Safety
A few links I’ve been wanting to share lately! ~ Check out these fun alternate ways to say you fell off (and even more ideas here)! If your rider ever gets a dirt facial or horse assisted dismount, phrasing it in a fun way might help take the sting out. ~ Some good teaching tips for what might … Continue reading
Decision Making Skills
One of my riders with autism has difficulties making decisions. It is interesting: when asked to make a decision outright, such as “Would you like to lead your horse by the reins or the lead rope?” she has an extremely hard time and takes at least 5 minutes with assistance. It seems she has absolutely … Continue reading
Instructing While Pregnant
This has been on my mind lately because it’s happening to me. Surprise! There is a lot out there in internet land about riding while pregnant, but not much about teaching riding. Perhaps that’s because most instructors are not quite as involved in physically helping their riders as the therapeutic horseback riding instructor – such … Continue reading