 | | Jodders. Ride a horse | | How to ride a horse |
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Beginning to Ride Basics
So what are the basics for becomming really good with horses and with horse riding?
This site isn't just about learning techniques - push that leg, pull that rein, crack that whip. It's about connecting with your horse
Like most things, how good you get and how much you get out of it depends on how much you are prepared to put into it. You might think that this means money - paying for the best horse, the best equipment, the best riding instuctor and the best livery yard.
Well, it's not necessarily so. Some things are more important, or perhaps, even more basic than how much you can or are prepared to spend.
How much time are you prepared to put into your riding? This matters a lot - it doesn't matter how much money you spend, if you don't put in the time, becomming good with horses will be out of your reach. Time is like an investment. Not just time in the saddle, but time on the ground getting to know how your horse feels and getting to know her. Time taken getting to know your horse will pay dividends later on in your ridiing. Tacking up and hitting the trail in walk, trot and canter won't come all at once. Getting to that point is the journey you are beginning, and the best way to get there is to take it slow. Get your horse on your side, and you're halfway there. Take time to learn all the little steps that lead up to a great ride further along the road. Take time to become really good with horses.
The basics is about having the right attitude. What's in this for your horse? Does your horse know if you care how she feels? Is she just a lump of meat to get from one place to the next?
Yes, you'll need techniques, but before any of this, you need an open mind, to think about what you do and why.
When most people think about learning to ride, they think about the walk, the trot and the canter. What about if before all that you learnt how to just sit on a horse?
Book review
Ride with Your Mind Essentials
Innovative learning strategies for basic riding skills
by Mary Wanless
Learning to ride is a huge task. In this book Mary Wanless attempts to turn this task into bite sized morsels that will give the beginner or returner some hope of navigating their way through the received wisdom on riding. Much of it is no more than hearsay or meaningless jargon. She sees her mission in life as one of making accessible to beginners and average riders the skills and attributes that are common to talented and accomplished riders, the unspoken 'secrets' that will propel you from just ok to outstanding.
She thinks of the body as a 'tool kit' that will enable good riding. Since the horse will mirror us in our rightness and our wrongness, we need to know what impact the way we hold ourselves has on a horse, and how that can be changed for good or bad effect.
If you stick with this book, you will begin to notice what you do, when you hold your breath, your stomach, your hands, and how this affects your horse. If you notice these things and develop your core strength, it will make a huge change to your riding.
This, I think, is one of the basic texts necessary for good riding, but only for the brave, who are prepared to question conventional wisdom and hearsay about how to ride a horse. And who are not afraid to be laughed at by those who are stuck with outdated conventions. You will need to 'think outside the box' to be able to accept some of these ideas, but it will be worth it.
While this is a fantastic book, most people will need lessons in this approach to make sense of it, and to begin to feel and know what they actually do with their bodies while they are on a horse (or off it for that matter). Sometimes what we think we do isn't what we actually do, and sometimes we need a teacher to tell us what it is we are doing, and what we need to do. But this book is a good start if you want to be really good with horses.
So you work as a team. It's about engaging your brain as well as your legs, arms - well, your whole body.
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