Totally agree!!! sadly, 95%of ridding schools are actually pushing to do things faster: trot faster, canter faster, stop your horse faster, turn faster. doesn't matter whether you feel the horse and your own body, just do it faster.
Yeah, and then in comment section of horse's videos are girls telling things like: ,,I started cantering on my 4th lessons! It's easy!" or something. Yeah, it's not a big problem to stay in the saddle in all walk, trot, canter, itp. The problem is how you do it - do you look like a proffesional, or rather like a box of potatoes?
It took me a long time to begin cantering compared to other people in my area. I spent a long time on walk and trot transitions and moving with the horse. This worked better for me when I began cantering because I had the basics down and I just have a few big things to work on! It was like my fifth time cantering or something and one of the best riders at my barn came up to the arena and said it looked like I'd been cantering for a few months. While I know this was over exaggerated it was nice to not be being thrown out of the saddle every time I was cantering :)
I think it's good advice to go slow and take your time. My mentor used to say that if you think you have something working, speed things up. That will tell you how right on you are. Advanced riders will know when the horse is ready to move on to the next thing, but this can be challenging for less advanced riders to know.
@@featheredfoothillfarm I'm thinking of riders with good feel. It matters not what they do with their horses but how they do it. Ribbons have little meaning, horsemanship means everything.
I ride on an equestrian drill team with my OTTB and it took him awhile to understand/ become desensitized to the patterns and trust that where I'm leading him won't cause him to get hurt. For example there are manuevears called suicide charge, basketweave and zipper that he thought he was going to run into the other horses but now two years later of doing drill he can ride a drill with seven other horses in a rodeo with a crowd cheering and he handles it like a pro.
I agree. In my stable my instructor and my colleagues pushing me to start cantering. But I don't sit the trot properly! I want to make my sitting trot better and then I will teach how to canter. But it's very frustrating when everyone is asking me : "so when do you finally start cantering ?"
Where I learned to stay slow is in the discipline of Mountain Trail. You are corrected in clinics if you go too fast, rush anything, do not appear relaxed, centered, with a steady tempo. It's all supposed to look like a leisurely mountain ride at a walk. But going over crazy obstacles like moving bridges and rock ledges. I will tell you, most horses cannot do it with ease when they start (they panic and rush and assume, I've seen some fall off, rear etc), especially coming from backgrounds where speed is involved. It took me over a year to get my pony in tune with relaxation and finesse and for me to learn balance and where my eyes need to be for us to look in tune while doing it. She's more of a balker/more whoa than go, so it was a lot of work for me to trust in her to do it. Lots of clinicians helped me too! It's a lot of work making it look "effortless." But it's a wonderful challenge. This video applies to so many disciplines! I really get a lot out of your videos, so thank you for posting them. You break it down to the essence, and so many skip way ahead and assume a lot. Many advanced riders do not have fundamentals under their belt. It's good to remind ourselves what's important. I hear the same questions from people and see the same struggles on other training pages with comments, and I post the video and find out that many have that ah hah moment too when they see your explanations.
Needed this. Just found out that I'm pregnant recently and got to thinking I need to start jumping into some riding skills before it's too late (I've been concentrating on in hand work) but I'm just going to take even more time on the in hand work this year while my baby's growing 👍😍
In sync with my observations. I always wanted to move slowly up the skills ladder. I ignored the speed up hints from my coach and firmly told him that I would do at my own pace. Now after seeing this video, I am happy that my instincts were right.
you have helped me just with these videos i need a real trainer like you i got pushed to fast on a trail ride and fell off i need to start from scratch i want to beable to ride and not feel nervous bounce and just enjoy these beautiful creatures
Wow...this was an answer to a burning question that I had! I thought I was going too slow as my riding instructor was repeating the same exercises for me to get my position better when jumping. Now, I realize after watching this video that it's important to go slow and practice perfecting my position so I can correctly advance to larger jumps and advanced approaches to the jumps in the future. Thank you for this video! :)
I'm not a trainer, but my trainer had me bareback last lessons and I was supposed to do ,,a jumping position" while trotting bareback and I did it great, while I normally was awful. Maybe try this with your trainer and will help you too
I started riding last summer with almost no knowledge at all. I dropped several courses and in just 5 months I was in a course that was to difficult for me. I didn’t even get the easiest horses to canter... Despote it being very difficult I didn’t give up. And after like 4 more months of trying I finally started to get it. I could get any horse to canter, my heels stayed down and my seat was mch better than before. Since that I’ve progressed so much! Some weeks ago I was at my first show on the tallest schoolhorse, I can jump jums up to 80cm and I feel confident when ai ride any horse. In just a year I learned so much even tho I went a little too fast n the beginning, that has lead up to how my riding is today! Guess I’m kinda proud of myself ahah
Thank you for this reminder to go slow. I needed that. Love your videos. Question: I'm currently learning to ride a young mare. Last 2 times I saddled her she went down on her knees scaring me to death!? My instructor gets her up ,scolds her and says she does that because 'she's a brat'? I rode her consistently in the milder weather w/o this behavior. It is now cold, wet, dark and sometimes icy here. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
