Once an Instructor in Training gets the basics of teaching a lesson, you need to start incorporating more active volunteer management. This means making sure your volunteers are supporting the rider correctly, being safe, and helping the lesson run smoothly. To do this you must communicate with the volunteers by giving them praise and correction, just like … Continue reading
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Theories on Riding Progression
Where should you start with teaching beginners? Here are some thoughts that have been floating around in my mind about teachings methods. First is the USDF Pyramid of Training, which works the horse and riding up the training tree: The training tree starts with Rhythm and Relaxation. However, Lauren Baker of Dressage for Mere Mortals writes that … Continue reading
Turn ’em Loose
Sometimes you just have to trust your horses. One of the biggest things that struck me when I started helping with therapeutic riding was how extremely protected and helped the riders were. On one hand this safety aspect was enlightening, and I became appalled at how unsafe some of the things were we had done at the … Continue reading
Colored Wristband for Right & Left
This is a simple idea that helped some riders at our barn. For riders who have problems with right and left, use colored wrist bands to designate which direction to turn. When you tell them which way to steer, you can use the colors in conjunction with or instead of the words right and left. You could … Continue reading
Teaching The Skill
Just made some new handouts for our instructors in training about skills and wanted to pass along the info! Enjoy! The Skill What is the skill? Riding skill = the purposeful intention of using aids (hand, seat, voice, leg, weight) to communicate with the horse directly. We say “intention” because not all riders may actually … Continue reading
Correcting a Rocking Upper Body
(aka “How to have a calm upper body”) Causes of a rocking upper body: Exaggeratedly following horse’s movement An insecure seat Incorrectly think it will achieve a strong driving aid and balanced seat – they try to move the horse like they moved a rocking horse in their childhood Pinched knees, not enough weight in … Continue reading
EAP Articles by Jane Karol
Happy Monday! I have some good articles to share with you today. Recently I came across this great post – How Horses Can Help Change Our Self-Perceptions Then I discovered its author has written a whole series of great articles about EAP and EAAT – EAP Articles by Jane Karol Check them out, they’re really … Continue reading
Teaching Competitive Game Skills
A reader recently wrote me asking if I had any games that might be used to help her rider with autism who has a hard time losing sports games, to the extent it takes him several days to recover, and says he hates everything, that his horse is bad, and that he is bad. While I … Continue reading
Example Rider: ASD & Low Self Confidence
An instructor I know has agreed to share a really neat story about working with a rider who has ASD and low self confidence. I hope that by sharing this, you all can see how therapeutic riding can be used to improve quality of life and reach life goals, and give you some ideas for working … Continue reading
Note Sheet for Observing a Lesson
This is a follow up to the post “Watching a Therapeutic Riding Lesson“. In that post I described what to look for when you observe a lesson. Now I am giving you a hand out to use for taking notes. It is especially helpful for Instructors in Training as they learn what to look for … Continue reading